Post-Game Talk: Lightning III

[NCRanger]

For all the Ranger bashing in this thread, and it's a uniquely New York thing to do, there are a lot of facts being ignored to push a Trouba bash or line usage bash. That's not to excuse Trouba, as he did suck without the questionable calls.

Shots on goal were Tampa 28, Rangers 23 when Trouba was called for the first penalty.

That means Tampa outshot the Rangers 23-7 over the last 29 or so minutes of the game. Tampa was never in that much control of the game to justify that kind of a massive shift in momentum. It wasn't like the Rangers were up 2-0 solely on luck and Shesterkin being prime Lundqvist. It was a relatively even game.

That call on Trouba, and I would still like to see a replay, Disney, of how he lost his stick and then what he did, completely changed the momentum of the game. Completely. Had Tampa not blatantly run Shesterkin TWICE prior, no call would have been made against Trouba there, nor would have Vatrano been called for goaltender interference because McDonough gave him no room to do anything else.

Ranger players seemed to be falling all over the ice during the second half of the game too. I thought I saw Tampa players basically tossing Rangers away from the puck continually. But what do I know. I'm just a "conspiracy" theorist.

Had this gone the other way, ever single Tampa fan would be SCREAMING here and everywhere, not to mention other media outlets, about how the Rangers benefitted from officiating and are lucky not to be 3-0 down.

But no, the average Ranger fan bashes their own team. I mean, if a Ranger had a clear breakaway and was speared from behind, the average Ranger fan would bash said player for not having enough "heart" to finish the play.

 

[Gardner McKay]

For all the Ranger bashing in this thread, and it's a uniquely New York thing to do, there are a lot of facts being ignored to push a Trouba bash or line usage bash. That's not to excuse Trouba, as he did suck without the questionable calls.

Shots on goal were Tampa 28, Rangers 23 when Trouba was called for the first penalty.

That means Tampa outshot the Rangers 23-7 over the last 29 or so minutes of the game. Tampa was never in that much control of the game to justify that kind of a massive shift in momentum. It wasn't like the Rangers were up 2-0 solely on luck and Shesterkin being prime Lundqvist. It was a relatively even game.

That call on Trouba, and I would still like to see a replay, Disney, of how he lost his stick and then what he did, completely changed the momentum of the game. Completely. Had Tampa not blatantly run Shesterkin TWICE prior, no call would have been made against Trouba there, nor would have Vatrano been called for goaltender interference because McDonough gave him no room to do anything else.

Ranger players seemed to be falling all over the ice during the second half of the game too. I thought I saw Tampa players basically tossing Rangers away from the puck continually. But what do I know. I'm just a "conspiracy" theorist.

Had this gone the other way, ever single Tampa fan would be SCREAMING here and everywhere, not to mention other media outlets, about how the Rangers benefitted from officiating and are lucky not to be 3-0 down.

But no, the average Ranger fan bashes their own team. I mean, if a Ranger had a clear breakaway and was speared from behind, the average Ranger fan would bash said player for not having enough "heart" to finish the play.

Easy explanation. Incompetent officiating. We heard the explanation from Dave Jackson for the Reaves/Fat Maroon call in game two. That's was upfront evidence of incompetence.

Occam's Razor.

 

[GENESISPuck94]

I still can't believe the vitriol for Trouba, two of the penalties called on him were bull, and that's putting it lightly. Complete phantom calls and game management. The refs target players they can get away with making bogus calls against. It's happened forever. Trouba is a tough player and the refs used him to manage the game by castrating him.

People accuse Shesterkin of diving, but I've never seen a team labeled as "big and strong" flop as much as Tampa does and in their home arena they get those calls nonstop.

Also, the Vatrano goaltender interference was the worst call in the series so far and one of the worst calls so far in the playoffs for the Rangers. Vatrano makes a clear attempt to stop, as evidenced by the angle of his skates and the snow shower, but McDonagh completely rode him into Vasilevskiy.

The officiating in the NHL is atrocious. If they are errors of misjudgement its just as bad as if the calls are being made to sway the outcomes of the games. What's worse, complete incompetence or blatant management of games?

Now that said, the Rangers weren't good enough in game 3. They weren't good enough and it took Tampa's best effort to barely win at the last moment.

Turk decided to limit the Kid Line for some reason even though they've been the best line all playoffs.

Game 4 will not be the same as game 3. The refs will attempt to manage the game but I believe the Rangers make adjustments and win the game.

 

[Kocur26]

Could be worse. You could be Larry Brooks somehow whining about these two every day.

View attachment 556219

And before somebody brings up "but five on five!" Zibanejad has 14 ES points in 17 games. That's 68 over 82. If Zibanejad scored 68 even strength points, I would buy an authentic Zibanejad jersey and literally never take it off.

The line sucks at driving play because Kreider and Zibanejad are playing with a guy who couldn't get a permanent spot in the whole ass lineup in two organizations and we decided he's a staple who plays 17 minutes at ES.

Fox was atrocious yesterday

 

[Psycho for Perreault]

Our beat reporters need to ask better questions related to the kids minutes. GG needs to be called out.

 

[Machinehead]

Fox was atrocious yesterday

Hedman has been atrocious the entire series.

Human beings have bad games.

 

[Gardner McKay]

Our beat reporters need to ask better questions related to the kids minutes. GG needs to be called out.

For what? Dealing with injuries to two centers (luckily one came back but was still injured)?

 

[ColonialsHockey10]

We were never going to sweep them. The NHL doesn’t want it, the Bolts are a great team and it’s not in this franchise’s DNA.

They were terrible yesterday, but the game was still totally within reach. I think this game will be a nice wake up call for the boys and we’ll be okay.

 

[NCRanger]

I've always been a bit leery of these conspiracy theories.

Do you know what kind of risk the NHL would be taking, and Disney at that? The NHL would lose all credibility and their revenue and fan base would drop faster than anything we have ever seen. Disneys TV deal value as well.

Hardly seems worth it for what amounts to a snow flakes worth of revenue among the snowstorm in front of them.

I think if anything, it is what we have always known... incompetent officiating and biased officiating. Because the refs ARE human and ALL humans have biases.

Except that these TV deals are to bring in more eyes than just the die hards of both teams and eyes of other tteams' fans.

The goal is to get the average idiot watching for the ENTERAINMENT of it, not the actual result.

The NBA had its most successful times on TV when game and series rigging was a real thing.

Credibility? Do they really care? Look at baseball these days. The umpiring is astonishingly atrocious and the farthest thing from credible.

 

[Psycho for Perreault]

For what? Dealing with injuries to two centers (luckily one came back but was still injured)?

Uhhhh.....consistently not giving our best line more minutes?

You think us losing players means it makes MORE sense to not play our best line? That's a unique take.

Look at the analytics for EVERY game this postseason, and then come back for a discussion. The minutes are VERY poorly distributed.

 

[LokiDog]

I don’t really get the reactions. Anyone who thought we were sweeping Tampa was highly optimistic. If anyone told you we would sweep Tampa before the series, you’d have laughed.

Up 2-0 going into their barn, we knew we could probably expect their best game. We led going into the third and, despite being outplayed, it was a tied game until the final minute. If that was their best, I’m not worried. We did what we tend to do sometimes, and let off the gas when we had the game in the bag at 2-0. It was also a day game which we notoriously suck during. I’m not overly worried as long as they realize they let it slip away and playing for 30 minutes isn’t going to cut it at this stage of the race.

Sure Tampa can get some momentum off this, but many of you are acting as if we’re down 3-1 at this point. Even if we just won the home games we’ve got this. I doubt we lose 3 games in Tampa either, so I don’t even see it going 7.

Panarin, despite a couple of assists, is really just an infuriating hockey player. I said it before, I’ll say it again - the “4th line” should be Panarin, Strome, Reaves and they should play 6-7 minutes at 5v5. Panarin can play the full 2 minutes on the PP since that’s the only place he gives a shit anyway. Copp can join Goodrow and Motte for a shutdown line. Kid line can take the 5v5 minutes from Strome and Panarin.

 

[savebyrichter94]

Hedman has been atrocious the entire series.

Human beings have bad games.

You just have to flush games like that and move on, that’s what pros do and I’m confident they’ll do exactly that

 

[duhmetreE]

I hate day games for hockey.

 

[mas0764]

I hate day games for hockey.

For the conference finals, it's terrible.

 

[GENESISPuck94]

I've always been a bit leery of these conspiracy theories.

Do you know what kind of risk the NHL would be taking, and Disney at that? The NHL would lose all credibility and their revenue and fan base would drop faster than anything we have ever seen. Disneys TV deal value as well.

Hardly seems worth it for what amounts to a snow flakes worth of revenue among the snowstorm in front of them.

I think if anything, it is what we have always known... incompetent officiating and biased officiating. Because the refs ARE human and ALL humans have biases.

The NHL always was and probably always will be corrupt in a way, all sports are. They had a mini dynasty in Chicago they chose to prop up despite the blackness going on behind the scenes that the league tried to keep buried. The NHL literally had one of their marquee coaches and marquee players (Toews) keeping a victim of sexual assault quiet so it wouldn't tarnish their reputation.

We had a ref caught on audio blatantly admitting to game management. The NHL only had him resign because their bullshit got caught on audio and everyone heard it. Otherwise they wouldn't have cared.

This stuff goes back generations. The New York/Brooklyn Americans were neck deep in mafia ties and corruption.

What compounds all this is this generation of refs are also the most incompetent. You add the incompetence to the game management and you get the shit show we see from them on a nightly basis. They often muff basic hockey rules like icing and offsides... it's pathetic.

 

[Hire Sather]

We lost a game, that happens.

As always, I am concerned about the injury. What do we do if Strome is out? Break up the kid line? I hope not. The answer I suppose would be to put Goodrow up there, then we have Rooney line 4.

Very big hole to fill, and it's very important to Tampa that we got an injury.

People love to hate on Strome, but he is a good depth player and we would miss him.

Anyway, if I had the choice I would rather lose G3 and win G4 than the other way around. So lets hope we rebound.

 

[HonestGabe]

The Jekyll and Hyde on this board is insane. I'll check back in tomorrow after we win to go up 3-1

 

[GENESISPuck94]

The NHL is a league that allowed Bertuzzi and Heatley to continue playing after things they did.

Heatley killed his teammate. It would have been manslaughter for any random citizen. But he was allowed to continue on making millions while Snyder's family has to deal with the loss everyday.

Bertuzzi literally attempted murder on the ice and was allowed to play because he had crocodile tears. Moore has to struggle everyday of his life because of what Bertuzzi did.

The NHL doesn't give two shits about honor and decency. All they care about is money, it's a business.

They'll attempt to ostracize someone because of their political or religious beliefs but they have no problem marketing murderers and rapists.

 

[rangers1314]

I assume Rooney is back in if Strome is a no go for G4.

The question is who would you rather see on RW with Panarin-Copp, Goodrow or Motte? It'll be Goodrow, but I wonder if Motte is the better fit style wise.

 

[Machinehead]

We're still one game away from winning this imo.

Can't see them losing twice at MSG unless Vasi just absolutely hijacks one.

4 and 6 absolutely must-haves for Tampa and then they still need one at MSG.

This team is similar to the Hank teams in the sense that we're still not great at even strength and rely on goaltending (sorry) but very, very different in an important way - this team has firepower.

The 2018 Caps were 24th in xGF%. The 2015 Hawks were 18th. The 2017 Pens were 5th in the regular season, fair play, but they were HORRIBLE in the playoffs, it was really bizarre. The 2008 and 2009 Pens were mediocre in xGF% and awful at corsi. It's possible to power your way to a Cup.

I would like to be better at even strength but there's still some dreck in this lineup and I think that'll come with development. We're young and *checks notes* officially ahead of schedule here. That'll come.

For now, we have the firepower and I think the biggest difference that has made is at home. 8-1 at MSG and should be 9-0. There's belief in the arena that this team is going to score and you can actually feel it. It's a real fortress now.

The Hank teams were honestly more of a road team because you were just waiting for somebody to go up 2-1 and that was the game, and those teams (2014 aside) were also kind of ugly 5v5. It was just a slog and Hank making a bunch of saves. The people couldn't get behind it. They can cheer for this team and it builds towards offense.

We finally have the ability to just drop four and say "beat our goalie four times, we dare you."

 

[HatTrick Swayze]

Easy explanation. Incompetent officiating. We heard the explanation from Dave Jackson for the Reaves/Fat Maroon call in game two. That's was upfront evidence of incompetence.

Occam's Razor.

Game (and now apparently, series) management is also 100% a thing.

 

[NCRanger]

For the conference finals, it's terrible.

You can thank Disney for that.

Couldn't play it at night because ESPN has their precious Sunday Night Baseball and they aren't allowing the NHL playoffs and NBA Finals to conflict anywhere across their networks.

Hence the reason the Stanley Cup Finals ARE starting June 18. Ads are already running. The ad with the bad Dylan cover ends with Finals Begin June 18. It's because ABC has the Cup Finals.

The reason the potential Game 7 of the Rangers series is two days difference on the 14th, rather than the 13th is because Game 5 (which is now guaranteed) of the NBA Finals is on the 13th.

 

[Machinehead]

You can thank Disney for that.

Couldn't play it at night because ESPN has their precious Sunday Night Baseball and they aren't allowing the NHL playoffs and NBA Finals to conflict anywhere across their networks.

Hence the reason the Stanley Cup Finals ARE starting June 18. Ads are already running. The ad with the bad Dylan cover ends with Finals Begin June 18. It's because ABC has the Cup Finals.

The reason the potential Game 7 of the Rangers series is two days difference on the 14th, rather than the 13th is because Game 5 (which is now guaranteed) of the NBA Finals is on the 13th.

I like how they already decided on the 18th and if the Rangers and Avs win out from here, the matchup is set on the 9th.

Just a nine-day void right in the whole ass middle of a tournament.

Clown league.

 

[NickyFotiu]

If we win either game 4 or 5 we will still be in very good shape.

 

[PuckLuck3043]

I've always been a bit leery of these conspiracy theories.

Do you know what kind of risk the NHL would be taking, and Disney at that? The NHL would lose all credibility and their revenue and fan base would drop faster than anything we have ever seen. Disneys TV deal value as well.

Hardly seems worth it for what amounts to a snow flakes worth of revenue among the snowstorm in front of them.

I think if anything, it is what we have always known... incompetent officiating and biased officiating. Because the refs ARE human and ALL humans have biases.

This 100%. The game management and inconsistency of the officiating is disgusting. I love the game of hockey but I despise the NHL.