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Pre-Game Talk: Southern Conference Finals

Who wins?

  • Total voters
    65
The Butcher

The Butcher

Mammoth Mooseknuckles Hockey
Mar 6, 2011
4,397
2,863
Mammoth Lakes
Navin R Slavin said:
Ok, I've got to know more. Was it the bride and groom arguing? Was one a Bo stan, and who was the other stanning? Popeyes or some shit? Were these North Carolina folk or what?
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No, two drunken Carolina boys in a heated, but friendly, shouting match. One was arguing with the other after I glowed about my Bojangles visit. Popeyes was argued, I forgot the name of the other place. Basically one was arguing Bojangles overrated.
 
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Navin R Slavin

Navin R Slavin

Fifth line center
Jan 1, 2011
16,369
64,801
Durrm NC
The Butcher said:
No, two drunken Carolina boys in a heated, but friendly, shouting match. One was arguing with the other after I glowed about my Bojangles visit. Popeyes was argued, I forgot the name of the other place. Basically one was arguing Bojangles overrated.
Click to expand...
That is not a serious opinion held by serious people. Bojangles is the best fried chicken here, period. Popeyes is fine, Church's is gross, Zaxby's isn't chicken.

Stefan Johnson knows what's up.

 
Last edited:
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WreckingCrew

WreckingCrew

Registered User
Feb 4, 2015
13,486
41,182
The Butcher said:
No, two drunken Carolina boys in a heated, but friendly, shouting match. One was arguing with the other after I glowed about my Bojangles visit. Popeyes was argued, I forgot the name of the other place. Basically one was arguing Bojangles overrated.
Click to expand...
At least they were fighting in the right place... Bojangles parking lot is the place to "settle" all disputes
 
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Discipline Daddy

Discipline Daddy

Brentcent Van Burns
Sponsor
Nov 27, 2009
2,812
7,734
Raleigh, NC
I think the rest is a big factor. We aren't a super old team or anything, and our core of best players (Slavin, Aho, Teuvo, Svech if healthy, Burns, Kotkaniemi, Jarvis, Pesce, Skjei) is somewhat young. However, our role players probably skew older than most. Our 4th line has Stastny and Stepan on retirement contracts, Burns is old, and the Marty/Fast/Staal trio are pretty old. Our depth plays a more important role I think on our team than on a team like the Oilers. They play more minutes and we tend to play all our players, even our 4th line, quite a bit. So the rest is probably more impactful for our group. Not to mention the goalies like one of you mentioned. The only one who doesn't need a bunch of rest is Kochetkov, and he probably won't play any more games this year.

This year's playoffs does feel different than in past years. Most of it is the boys are just winning their games. New Jersey is a pretty elite team, and it was honestly insane to dismantle them in 5. The Isles are a great playoff team, and beating them in 6 was a good achievement too. You could argue we got "breaks" to beat them in OT, but you could argue we had at least as many breaks go against us in that series too. We were the better team.

I think the players are more battle tested. They have a hunger and are confident. Our role players are playing amazingly well. Our 3rd pair is not getting exposed much at all. It's such a big improvement. The D adjustments from last year of moving from DeAngelo -> Burns, Ian Cole -> Chatfield, Brendan Smith -> Ghostisbehere are massive, massive improvements. Most importantly, healthy Freddie in goal is a massive improvement over shaky Rantaa. I say shaky not just because he let in some weak ones towards the end, but mostly because we know he was injured. He needs his rest at this stage in his career.

The fact that MacKenzie MacEachern of all players to come in and fit the team tells you everything about the Hurricanes. I've never seen a more next-man-up team, ever. The belief is there. In both elimination games we won (G6 vs Isles and G5 vs Jersey), we were down for large portions of the game. The team has so much belief in their ability to win in any game.

Florida will be a fun test. Their scheme is totally different than Jersey. I'll be curious if we go with the Isles line combos, the Devils line combos, or something else. So far in our series we have completely neutralized Horvat, Barzal, Hughes, and Hischier. Those players have hardly been noticeable. Florida I think is a deeper team at forward.
 
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Nikishin Go Boom

Nikishin Go Boom

Russian Bulldozer Consultent
Jul 31, 2017
23,708
55,334
Discipline Daddy said:
I think the rest is a big factor. We aren't a super old team or anything, and our core of best players (Slavin, Aho, Teuvo, Svech if healthy, Burns, Kotkaniemi, Jarvis, Pesce, Skjei) is somewhat young. However, our role players probably skew older than most. Our 4th line has Stastny and Stepan on retirement contracts, Burns is old, and the Marty/Fast/Staal trio are pretty old. Our depth plays a more important role I think on our team than on a team like the Oilers. They play more minutes and we tend to play all our players, even our 4th line, quite a bit. So the rest is probably more impactful for our group. Not to mention the goalies like one of you mentioned. The only one who doesn't need a bunch of rest is Kochetkov, and he probably won't play any more games this year.

This year's playoffs does feel different than in past years. Most of it is the boys are just winning their games. New Jersey is a pretty elite team, and it was honestly insane to dismantle them in 5. The Isles are a great playoff team, and beating them in 6 was a good achievement too. You could argue we got "breaks" to beat them in OT, but you could argue we had at least as many breaks go against us in that series too. We were the better team.

I think the players are more battle tested. They have a hunger and are confident. Our role players are playing amazingly well. Our 3rd pair is not getting exposed much at all. It's such a big improvement. The D adjustments from last year of moving from DeAngelo -> Burns, Ian Cole -> Chatfield, Brendan Smith -> Ghostisbehere are massive, massive improvements. Most importantly, healthy Freddie in goal is a massive improvement over shaky Rantaa. I say shaky not just because he let in some weak ones towards the end, but mostly because we know he was injured. He needs his rest at this stage in his career.

The fact that MacKenzie MacEachern of all players to come in and fit the team tells you everything about the Hurricanes. I've never seen a more next-man-up team, ever. The belief is there. In both elimination games we won (G6 vs Isles and G5 vs Jersey), we were down for large portions of the game. The team has so much belief in their ability to win in any game.

Florida will be a fun test. Their scheme is totally different than Jersey. I'll be curious if we go with the Isles line combos, the Devils line combos, or something else. So far in our series we have completely neutralized Horvat, Barzal, Hughes, and Hischier. Those players have hardly been noticeable. Florida I think is a deeper team at forward.
Click to expand...
Last year’s team was better than this year’s team by a decent amount. Last year’s 3rd pairing was really good, this year’s not so much. The difference is negligible as the first pair is better this year. The center group was deeper and the wingers were obviously better.

Matchups matter. Last year’s boston team was better than any team we have played this year and Rangers were better than Boston.
 
AhosDatsyukian

AhosDatsyukian

Registered User
Sep 25, 2020
11,454
33,480
Gocanes0506 said:
Last year’s team was better than this year’s team by a decent amount. Last year’s 3rd pairing was really good, this year’s not so much. The difference is negligible as the first pair is better this year.

Matchups matter. Last year’s boston team was better than any team we have played this year and Rangers were better than Boston.
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uhh, what? eye test is that our 3rd pair this year is notably better than last year. I'm not great with advanced stats but a quick look at xG% and actual goal% supports that.

NHL Lines Advanced Stats

The Best Offensive and Defensive Lines in the NHL
moneypuck.com moneypuck.com

xG%:

Cole-Smith
Regular season: 60.3%
Playoffs: 45.7%

Ghost-Chat
Regular season: 67.5%
Playoffs: 50.5%

actual goal%:

Cole-Smith
Regular season: 55%
Playoffs: 40%

Ghost-Chat
Regular season: 57.1%
Playoffs: 44.4%

And that doesn't even take into account the significant amount of boneheaded penalties Cole and Smith took...
 
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Lempo

Lempo

Recovering Future Considerations Truther
Feb 23, 2014
27,714
86,665
Stickpucker said:
I got reported and limited account for saying, "so this is what they meant when they said the south will rise again." in the thread about a southern conference final.

LOL wut?
Click to expand...
A guy I assume Russian made a thread titled "The South has risen" which title got commented on and ultimately modded into something non-controversial.

I assume you were late to the party and were a couple of rounds behind the moderators on this one.
 
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