OOT Scoreboard 2023-24 playoffs

[OmNomNom]

TNT has done super well to introduce some form of personality into the league. and like them or not, a good chunk of that movement is from Spittin Chiclets for taking the in-locker room bro personality out to the public

the more TNT-like broadcasts we have, the more personable players will be

 

[JimEIV]

Have they failed to market McDavid?

He has zero personality and he hasn’t won shit in the post-season before, in a sport is niche as shit.

He’s never gotten a chance to win an Olympic gold medal either. (That is partly the NHL’s doing but whatever.)

McDavid needs a massive performance while winning the Stanley Cup to go with the individual awards here.

This is interesting... I don't disagree with anything you said but I can't help but think back to when I was a 10/11 year old kid... hockey is certainly more "mainstream" today than it was in 1980/81...

I didn't know anyone who followed hockey in my close proximity but Wayne Gretzky was at still a household name... everyone knew who he was even if they didn't know the difference between a puck and a stick everyone knew who Gretzky was....

Maybe it was ending the Islanders dynasty that made him a household name? But he was everywhere... magazines, newspapers, Sports Illustrated....I remember clipping newspaper pictures of him out of the Star-Ledger and the Bergan Record and thumbtacking on my bedroom wall when I was a kid.

He wasn't flamboyant, in fact that signature one arm up head down subdued celebration was iconic and the antithesis of flamboyant. He had a regal quality to him though...I think his superiority just oozed whereas McDavid doesn't seem to have that?

 

[NjDevsRR]

League should get Jack out there and actually let the boy cook

@Devs3cups

 

[Triumph]

Players are boring in large part BECAUSE of the NHL. It's not a league with a dynamic and interesting marketing strategy. It has long suppressed interesting and fun personalities in favor of a stoic, good 'ol hardworking Canadian boy archetype, and anybody who deviates from that gets hammered twice as hard during any adversity.

That's overcome-able if there's any positive push from the league on that stuff, but the NHL, in an effort to broaden appeal went very sanitized during the late 90s and early aughts and never really recovered. If there's a criticism of Bettman as a commissioner, it's that he hasn't pushed back on the old guard enough to make the leagues outreach more dynamic. Look at how the NBA has evolved, and it's the fastest growing league of the big 4 because of it.

Every kid growing up playing hockey knows all of this, because it's been the case for decades, so they all regulate their behavior accordingly from a surprisingly early age if they're in the NHL pipeline. Yeah maybe the players aren't naturally electric on the mic, but that doesn't mean they can't be fun and marketable, just means the league needs to do more work to make them shine.

League should get Jack out there and actually let the boy cook in interviews. Get some friendly reporters out there to lob some quip-able softballs, etc etc.

Sorry but this runs way deeper than marketing because it is also what the other players want. In basketball, big personalities can be big and unusual because guess what, you're stuck with them. In hockey this is only true for the very, very best players, who have, as a rule, been boring as dirt, quite possibly because they grew up training to be hockey players. Ovechkin and Jagr kind of have a bro-sense of humor, but Gretzky, Crosby, and McDavid are extremely boring as people. Ask PK Subban how being loud and interesting worked out for him - got him a nice TV gig after his career, but I don't think his teammates really appreciated it.

Basketball is way more popular than hockey for many reasons (accessibility of play, ease of watching/following the game), I do think one small reason is the personalities but you can't change the people you have.

 

[Devs3cups]

@Devs3cups
View attachment 879095

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

At least Rags Canes game 6 is x100 funnier now too looking back on it lol

TNT has done super well to introduce some form of personality into the league. and like them or not, a good chunk of that movement is from Spittin Chiclets for taking the in-locker room bro personality out to the public

the more TNT-like broadcasts we have, the more personable players will be

Pretty valid point

 

[Guadana]

Get Rico his Cup!

Next year as a Devils forward.

 

[Nocashstyle]

FIXED .....

View attachment 878715

Isn't it a wonderful Sunday morning?

View attachment 878716

Why are we giving them another decade of credit? It’s *84 years

 

[MasterofGrond]

Sorry but this runs way deeper than marketing because it is also what the other players want. In basketball, big personalities can be big and unusual because guess what, you're stuck with them. In hockey this is only true for the very, very best players, who have, as a rule, been boring as dirt, quite possibly because they grew up training to be hockey players. Ovechkin and Jagr kind of have a bro-sense of humor, but Gretzky, Crosby, and McDavid are extremely boring as people. Ask PK Subban how being loud and interesting worked out for him - got him a nice TV gig after his career, but I don't think his teammates really appreciated it.

Basketball is way more popular than hockey for many reasons (accessibility of play, ease of watching/following the game), I do think one small reason is the personalities but you can't change the people you have.

The other players want it that way because of the long established culture of the NHL, one that the league itself has greatly contributed to. That can be changed, and can be encouraged to change from the top down.

And you can change the people you have. Not tomorrow, but 5 years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now you absolutely can by marketing the league to the type of people and personalities you want. "We have boring stiffs, so we can only market to boring stiffs" is self fulfilling nonsense.

And if every generational star is a dud, find somebody else to market. You have 700 guys on NHL rosters, there are gems there. 64+ goalies in the league, and goalies are notoriously insane. Find one!

Best NHL marketing I've seen in the past 5 years was PK cranking a puck into Ehren's balls on Jackass.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

The other players want it that way because of the long established culture of the NHL, one that the league itself has greatly contributed to. That can be changed, and can be encouraged to change from the top down.

And you can change the people you have. Not tomorrow, but 5 years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now you absolutely can by marketing the league to the type of people and personalities you want. "We have boring stiffs, so we can only market to boring stiffs" is self fulfilling nonsense.

And if every generational star is a dud, find somebody else to market. You have 700 guys on NHL rosters, there are gems there. 64+ goalies in the league, and goalies are notoriously insane. Find one!

Best NHL marketing I've seen in the past 5 years was PK cranking a puck into Ehren's balls on Jackass.

Those series rewind stuff that the NHL puts on their YouTube are incredible, they know how to market. They're just blatantly lazy.








Like these are incredible

 

[Patrik26]

Why are we giving them another decade of credit? It’s *84 years

Oh shit ... Delirium took over and this happens. I'll correct that tonight.

 

[Guadana]

League should get Jack out there and actually let the boy cook in interviews. Get some friendly reporters out there to lob some quip-able softballs, etc etc.

I like Jack interviews when reporter isnt friendly. Jack is doing fun things. Absolutely like his hidden not hidden aggressive reactions. The problem is cancel culture and "dress" code for talking. There are tonns of ways to joke and be nasty without talking about sex or other borderline stuff. It would be great if players could be jackvss about opponents. It would make competition more tasty. And I believe players can think a lot about opponents but they are playing in staying classy.

Of course it would open the dark side of the sport where a lot of hockey players could be as dump low iq human by-product as Ryan Whitney and Paul Bissonette.

 

[theoptimist]

TNT has done super well to introduce some form of personality into the league. and like them or not, a good chunk of that movement is from Spittin Chiclets for taking the in-locker room bro personality out to the public

the more TNT-like broadcasts we have, the more personable players will be

Yea, the NHL hides it top shelf where grandma keeps the weed brownies

 

[Triumph]

The other players want it that way because of the long established culture of the NHL, one that the league itself has greatly contributed to. That can be changed, and can be encouraged to change from the top down.

And you can change the people you have. Not tomorrow, but 5 years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now you absolutely can by marketing the league to the type of people and personalities you want. "We have boring stiffs, so we can only market to boring stiffs" is self fulfilling nonsense.

And if every generational star is a dud, find somebody else to market. You have 700 guys on NHL rosters, there are gems there. 64+ goalies in the league, and goalies are notoriously insane. Find one!

Best NHL marketing I've seen in the past 5 years was PK cranking a puck into Ehren's balls on Jackass.

The problem is that when your devoted fanbase is boring stiffs and expects boring stiffs, they also get upset when players don't fulfill that, so all of the inertia is working against you. You also have a sport where players can punch other players with basic impunity so that removes some of the public trash talking you might see elsewhere. I agree that the league apparatus sucks and is stuck in the 1990s.

You don't have 700 guys, you have like 15, your superstar players. The rest of the league isn't going to move the needle anywhere, yeah it's nice that something like Spittin Chiclets is popular and maybe there's some non-hockey fans who listen but that's a tiny fraction of a fraction.

 

[Patrik26]

The clown show, me, myself and I, chest thumping, look at me NBA sucks. If that's what's needed to bring in more fans to the NHL, then I guess I'll need to find something else to spend 2 1/2 hours doing 3 nights a week.

 

[Guadana]

The clown show, me, myself and I, chest thumping, look at me NBA sucks. If that's what's needed to bring in more fans to the NHL, then I guess I'll need to find something else to spend 2 1/2 hours doing 3 nights a week.

You can avoid marketing stuff and just watch games.

Its not about "image", its about markets and surviving of the sport. You as a growing will always have on ice product. Off ice product shouldnt be for you(or for me), at least there are tonns of different side stuff like youtube channels. People who loves call of duty will always have Bissonette and Dangle low-grade product. But its popular. As Call of duty and their propagandistic dump scripts. But people love it. There are multiplayer mode for those who likes gameplay.

 

[Blackjack]

Heh

 

[KovalchukFistPump]

The clown show, me, myself and I, chest thumping, look at me NBA sucks. If that's what's needed to bring in more fans to the NHL, then I guess I'll need to find something else to spend 2 1/2 hours doing 3 nights a week.

Yeah NHL does great as a pure alternative to the NBA. This was especially true during the Lebron vs Warriors era, where the media forced stupid player rivalries among people who were friends off the court. NBA is more watchable now due to increased parity making the first two rounds watchable, so the NHL suffers. Also you can tell that Jokic and Doncic legit hate the superstar establishment players.

TBH though, I have watched less than 10% of these two hockey conference finals purely due to fatigue. Watching the Devils all year and then binging most of the first two rounds has just tired me out on hockey. Which is why I've been bandwagoning Luka more for my sports fix. I can barely handle regular season basketball though.

 

[HBK27]

I want 7 barn burners and triple overtimes every game. Sit back and relax and just enjoy the last bit of hockey for months.

Yeah, I don't have a strong rooting interest either way in this one. Mostly hoping for some great hockey, which it really looks like these two teams can deliver. Some great star power and story lines in this one.

I've hated on Edmonton for a long time like many other fanbases given all the success they've had plus, the run of #1 picks and landing the best player in the league yet again. But the franchise/fans have had a long enough stretch of misery and disappointment and at some point, I'd like to see greats like McDavid and Draisaitl win it all - especially considering some of their past playoff performances. Also very easy to root for Henrique to win one.

I've liked Florida for a number of years now - they were usually my playoff team to root for when the Devils missed. I like a number of their top players and was rooting hard for them this past round, so some of that carries over.

Push comes to shove, maybe I'm going for Edmonton...but I'm glad to see one of these two teams lift the Cup.

 

[JrFischer54]

Good to see on twitter that there is some talk about the income tax advantage some of these states are having. i'll believe it when i see them changing it along with the LTIR joke system

 

[HBK27]

Dallas having extra days, did not benefit them. As I said before their younger players, played better than the vets. Robertson had a couple big games but if you takes those out he was pretty tame.

Hockey Gods, Please, let these finals end quickly.

If there's one thing we're certain of, it's that these Finals will not end quickly. Series doesn't even start until Saturday and there's 16 days between games 1 and 7. Only 1 day breaks twice in the series (when there's no travel). On one hand, it's going to drag things out...on the other, the rest affords teams to play their best hockey which should lead to a better overall series.

32 Thoughts podcast also suggested this may be an advantage for Florida - particularly for Bobrovsky, who probably benefits the most having those additional days between games.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

Good to see on twitter that there is some talk about the income tax advantage some of these states are having. i'll believe it when i see them changing it along with the LTIR joke system

The Panthers spent less on OEL, Mikkola, Kulikov, Stenlund, Stolarz and Rodrigues v the Leafs spending on just Reaves, Klingberg, Bertuzzi. Maybe it's just a cop out for certain GM's being garbage? Do those teams have a small advantage when it comes to re-signing their stars? Sure, but in no way does it matter in the totality of roster building

 

[JrFischer54]

The Panthers spent less on OEL, Mikkola, Kulikov, Stenlund, Stolarz and Rodrigues v the Leafs spending on just Reaves, Klingberg, Bertuzzi. Maybe it's just a cop out for certain GM's being garbage? Do those teams have a small advantage when it comes to re-signing their stars? Sure, but in no way does it matter in the totality of roster building

i dunno how much it actually helps but it def is an advantage if the dollar goes further in one market over the other when you all have the same amount. if they fix the ltir i'll be happy this would be a bonus

 

[Bleedred]

A lot of people really underrated Edmonton, I'm not really sure why. They have their warts and plenty of anchors to go around, but McDrai can win a cup basically by themselves. Especially where they are now. Maybe not when they were early 20s and the rest of the team was filled with a bunch of anchors and pylons, but they certainly can at this point in their careers.

Will they win it? Maybe it'll be like the first time around with Crosby and them, when they lost to Detroit, only to beat them in a rematch the next year.

Maybe this isn't their year, but I really think they'll be back if it's not.

 

[OmNomNom]

Those series rewind stuff that the NHL puts on their YouTube are incredible, they know how to market. They're just blatantly lazy.








Like these are incredible

f*** i watched our highlights from last season

now i want hockey back ASAP