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The Playoff Push, Tanking and Scoreboard Watching Thread

Beninnola said:
I wanna chime in late:

I like the Jets and I like Jets fans. I’m a huge Chevy Stan. But I also like playoff hellebyuck memes, Swiss cheese memes too.

If the Jets wanna move on they gotta vanquish their demons, just as we had to.

They’re mature at most every position and we are not.

I don’t think we’d be destined to lose but - I wouldn’t ask for this.

They’ve been chipping away the number of years where you think it’s probably reasonable they’ll get through a little, at least. Really rather that be at somebody else’s expense. If we do get this matchup I can’t imagine they’re super thrilled about it.

I Don’t expect the hockey gods to let me pick, but I’d pick not-the jets if we made the playoffs. Let the jets go win a round and get it out of their system.

We should match up very well against Vegas, especially in second periods both home and away, but this season we failed at that. If we get this matchup I wouldn’t be surprised to see models predict us to win due to Vegas having minimal answers for our middle 6, so long as their top lines don’t wildly outperform ours. Against us, this year especially … I can’t remember the game date but it was a pivot of the year: Eichel really drove play and they know how to muck us up at times we should have been strong. If they’re able to do this we’re in a lot of trouble and it’s a short series. We may see. We haven’t played them since 4 nations and we aren’t the same team as before 4 nations. I think we match up extremely well - relative to say the Avs and Stars - who would be much more difficult - and we’re fortunate one of those two likely sends the other golfing before the second round starts.
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Mostly agree. I’m a Jets fan. I want us to rip them to shreds if we make the playoffs and meet them, but if we don’t, then I want them to go far.
 
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Blanick said:
I wouldn't have thought so a week ago but if their next 10 games goes as poorly as the last 10 we absolutely could catch them.
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It could happen. At the start of the season, I had the Blues grabbing the WC2 and getting spanked 4-1 in the 1st round.

Now, I have them grabbing the WC2 and making some noise.
 
TruBlueFan1970 said:
Regardless of games in hand, point percentage gap is closing between Nucks (.545) the Flames (.538) and Blues (.537). Such a huge week for all three teams. If the Blues beat the Preds, and both the Nucks and Flames lose tomorrow, we pass them in points percentage and thus will control our own destiny.
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Plus we actually play the Canucks on Thursday. What a big game that'll be!
 
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Beninnola said:
We should match up very well against Vegas, especially in second periods both home and away, but this season we failed at that. If we get this matchup I wouldn’t be surprised to see models predict us to win due to Vegas having minimal answers for our middle 6, so long as their top lines don’t wildly outperform ours. Against us, this year especially … I can’t remember the game date but it was a pivot of the year: Eichel really drove play and they know how to muck us up at times we should have been strong. If they’re able to do this we’re in a lot of trouble and it’s a short series. We may see. We haven’t played them since 4 nations and we aren’t the same team as before 4 nations. I think we match up extremely well - relative to say the Avs and Stars - who would be much more difficult - and we’re fortunate one of those two likely sends the other golfing before the second round starts.
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I don't get this narrative. Vegas isn't as deep as they used to be, but we aren't exactly deep either. They have 9 forwards with 10+ goals while we have 7. That doesn't include William Karlsson, who has only played 38 games this year but should be back for playoffs. A lot of their middle 6 have good possession numbers too. Vegas is 6th in goals for this year and their leading scorer has the same number of goals as ours. They are also 8th in goals against with their goalies playing right at league average, so they defend well. Again, they aren't the 4 line monster they were in their Cup year, but it isn't like they don't have the middle 6 to compete with us, who are also not a particularly deep team.
 
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The Flames lost in regulation last night, which was one of their games in hand (we each play 7 more games in March and then they will play their other 2 games in hand in April). Big result for us as we continue to sit 2 points ahead of them. As much as I'd love the Wild to keep plummeting down the standings, their win last night doesn't concern me too much. I care much, much more about Vancouver, Calgary and Utah than I care about the Wild.

Huge night tonight.

Calgary is in New York to play the Rangers. Calgary played last night while the Rangers were off following a weekend back-to-back. Utah is at Edmonton and Vancouver hosts Winnipeg. And then obviously we are playing at Nashville. The teams we are rooting against are all underdogs according to the betting market while our game is nearly a toss up (we are very slight favorites but both teams require a bet of more than $100 to win $100).

Let's hope the odds hold in all 4 games. If they do, we will be in playoff position at the end of the night and will almost control our own destiny. We would control our destiny over Vancouver and Utah, but could theoretically still lose out on a tiebreaker to Calgary if both teams won-out the remaining schedule.
 
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Brian39 said:
I don't get this narrative. Vegas isn't as deep as they used to be, but we aren't exactly deep either. They have 9 forwards with 10+ goals while we have 7. That doesn't include William Karlsson, who has only played 38 games this year but should be back for playoffs. A lot of their middle 6 have good possession numbers too. Vegas is 6th in goals for this year and their leading scorer has the same number of goals as ours. They are also 8th in goals against with their goalies playing right at league average, so they defend well. Again, they aren't the 4 line monster they were in their Cup year, but it isn't like they don't have the middle 6 to compete with us, who are also not a particularly deep team.
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Yeah, that was the part I didn’t agree with. Vegas is still pretty loaded. They’re D will cancel at least one or two of our best forwards.

Matchups favor Vegas.

Big night tonight.
 
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Brian39 said:
I don't get this narrative. Vegas isn't as deep as they used to be, but we aren't exactly deep either. They have 9 forwards with 10+ goals while we have 7. That doesn't include William Karlsson, who has only played 38 games this year but should be back for playoffs. A lot of their middle 6 have good possession numbers too. Vegas is 6th in goals for this year and their leading scorer has the same number of goals as ours. They are also 8th in goals against with their goalies playing right at league average, so they defend well. Again, they aren't the 4 line monster they were in their Cup year, but it isn't like they don't have the middle 6 to compete with us, who are also not a particularly deep team.
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ChicagoBlues said:
Yeah, that was the part I didn’t agree with. Vegas is still pretty loaded. They’re D will cancel at least one or two of our best forwards.

Matchups favor Vegas.

Big night tonight.
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I don’t want any part of Vegas. True that they are not as deep as the Cup team, but they are big, physical, play great defense and are in the top 10 in scoring. They do not seem like a good matchup and I think we lose a series with them in 5.

If we make the playoffs (still a big if), I prefer WPG. They are a helluva team, but we seem to matchup better for some reason with them. Rather take my chances on them choking yet again, then dealing with the likes of Eichel, Stone, Hertl, Petro, Hanifin, McNabb, Barby, etc…
 
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Brian39 said:
I don't get this narrative. Vegas isn't as deep as they used to be, but we aren't exactly deep either. They have 9 forwards with 10+ goals while we have 7. That doesn't include William Karlsson, who has only played 38 games this year but should be back for playoffs. A lot of their middle 6 have good possession numbers too. Vegas is 6th in goals for this year and their leading scorer has the same number of goals as ours. They are also 8th in goals against with their goalies playing right at league average, so they defend well. Again, they aren't the 4 line monster they were in their Cup year, but it isn't like they don't have the middle 6 to compete with us, who are also not a particularly deep team.
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The same reason the jets wouldn’t prefer us is y the knights wouldn’t either.

We appear to be able to grind with them to some degree - roll our lines without being forced to use specific personnel all game. We don’t have the type of flaws that they’ll find a way to exploit as they maybe able to if a team has an especially weak line or defensive pair. Maybe we dont have super perfect answers; but better than a whole lot of teams who really don’t have much they can do about it, eventually ground to dust by the time the third period ends one way or another.

I’ve got really nothing bad to say about the knights. Lots of brilliant team building, lots of dense dudes, enough size and fight that nobody will ever really push them around as a habit. They play a great honest game and anybody who calls them easy is just being silly. Anybody who is in a long series with them feels pain.

We’ve been generating double the scoring chances that they are and I don’t think they have the firepower to elevate their game enough to combat that nor would they be able to necessarily slow us down so much that we wouldn’t maintain at least some advantage.

Their middle is dense.

Our middle is potent.

A lot of their defense and goalie spend is size. Push guys to the outside, block as much danger as possible with skaters and force/give up a bunch of low danger crap so long as the opponent will keep trying it and giving away possession. You’d happily let the opponents shoot 40 times a game if they’d just keep taking the very low % chance shot you’re giving them.

This can be countered in general with things like speed, precision shooting whether it be cross crease plays, wrist shots, or net front goals. These are the traits of blues killers (laine, Hartman, Pavelski, Coyle, Kaprisov, Kane, etc). You could say “yeah those guys were good.” Yes. But all had at least phases where their performance against us/knights was much much greater than their average. All things that least one of Thomas, Kyrou, Holloway, and Neighbors bring to the table. All things the Knights should be a bit vulnerable to. Especially speed. I feel our speed is underrated. We have 2 second liners that are about as fast as guys get. You could separate them and always have one ready to hop onto the ice.

We’re young and it’s a big ask to beat a complete team like them. I wouldn’t say it’s likely, but they ways they’re good and the ways we’re good appear to make us a strong opponent, especially in any condition where we can leverage our counter attacking, speed, and precision shooting abilities such as a shortened sheet due to 2nd period fly changes.

The systems that predict series outcomes will be looking at the ways we generate scoring chances relative to and in response to our opponent. If our current play continues then they need to play a lot of catch up I feel. Since 4 nations we’ve been monsters. We just had a back to back games out scoring opponents 12-3. I don’t think that specifically continues, but if the scoring chance generation in the background does…
 
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TruBlueFan1970 said:
I don’t want any part of Vegas. True that they are not as deep as the Cup team, but they are big, physical, play great defense and are in the top 10 in scoring. They do not seem like a good matchup and I think we lose a series with them in 5.

If we make the playoffs (still a big if), I prefer WPG. They are a helluva team, but we seem to matchup better for some reason with them. Rather take my chances on them choking yet again, then dealing with the likes of Eichel, Stone, Hertl, Petro, Hanifin, McNabb, Barby, etc…
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Plus the inevitable Brandon Saad revenge dagger to end the series.
 
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Blanick said:
It would be nice if the Rangers could pull their heads out of their ass. Your playing Calgary on the 2nd night of b2b with travel and you can only manage 5 shots in the first period.
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I think the Flames know how big this game is. Outshooting the Rags 21-7

Edit: 24-8 thru 2 periods. Rags need to step up at home.
 
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