Post-Game Talk: This is the end

[McShogun99]

Yeah. Maurice's answer after game 5 kind of haunted me. Because I thought he's onto it. I mocked the "no pressure" thing but he's a sage. He knew his team had nerves and the Oilers had none, until the Oilers had something at stake as he put it, and then the nerves. Its some next level thinking anyway and Maurice whether he makes this up on the fly or not is convincing enough to his players to have impact and to have helped them through this ordeal.

I thought the Oilers would have a ton of anxiety going into game 7 where Florida had 3 games to help them learn to deal with those nerves. You saw the nerves in numerous Oilers pregame interviews, Mcdavid played one of the worst games of his playoff career. Hard to win a game when Janmark and Ceci are your best players. On the bright side they gained valuable experience and I believe they win 2 Cups in the next 5 years.

 

[bellagiobob]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1805645277904150795

 

[oXo Cube]

That's like us cheering for Pronger to win a Cup in Anaheim. Just such a desperate fan base.

In fairness to this comparison, most of us probably would have done that if Anaheim was playing the Flames in the finals.

 

[Oilhawks]

In the last 40 years, only three teams have come back to win the Cup after losing in the final the previous year.

To be fair, how many of those teams that didn’t repeat a finals appearance had the two best forwards in the league (and one of the best D men)?

 

[Crabapple]

One thing I can say, I'm happy that it wasn't one aspect of the team that let us down (i.e. goaltending, defence, depth), you could say that our leaders let us down in game 7, but McDavid had a Conn Smythe performance. I wish we could've seen more from Leon (injured), but especially from Nuge and Nurse (who had a good finals, I'll say that). Especially happy for Skinner, who had a hell of a run. Janmark and Brown standouts, that depth we saw is going to be hard to replicate. Henrique was an amazing pickup, I can't see us keeping him, but we'll need more rentals like that next run.

 

[McShogun99]

One of the lessons I'll take from this run is the same as what I took from last year's. This team needs to step up and have a complete regular season for once, and secure home ice throughout the playoffs. The Vancouver series never should've gone seven, and they win the Cup if they start the final at home. No one is beating this team with four home playoff games in a series, and they need to get serious about it.

They had home ice up for grabs and they mailed it in the last 2 weeks because they were focusing on the playoffs. 2 more wins and we would have had home ice advantage.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

In the last 40 years, only three teams have come back to win the Cup after losing in the final the previous year.

And in the past century only 3 teams forced a game 7 in the Finals after being down 3-0. The way I see it, it has been done and just was. The West is not that strong.

 

[Lay Z Boy GM]

Does anyone have a clip from when Drai broke a rib? It must have been against Vancouver when it looked like he hurt his back. I can’t find a damn clip of it anywhere though.

 

[Oilers88]

I told my wife that we should have won the cup in game 6, as we were the better team in 4 games through game 6. But I was curious if the advanced stats actually backed that up, and they don't.

I went and looked at the deserve to win tracker at moneypuck, which is a pretty good tool to judge such things and here were the % chances of winning for each game:

1 - 90% EDM
2 - 70% FLA
3 - 63% EDM
4 - 80% EDM
5 - 54% FLA
6 - 63% FLA
7 - 63% EDM

What is really interesting, is that the team that "should have won", only won twice all series. The results also show just how close the games and series were. Only two games of over 71%+, and 4 below 63%. Florida is full marks for winning last night, but I'll go to my grave stating that you could replay the series 100 times and each team would win close to 50% of those replays. Very close teams. A pretty convincing argument could also be made that we deserved a much better fate than we got in the series as well. Hockey is roughly 30-35% luck though, so you get these results pretty often, especially in a cap league where there is a LOT of parity between teams.

Very much this. The talking heads in media want to manufacture something to talk about, so they're on about the dominance of this team and that team throughout the series. However, this was a really close series between some evenly matched teams. Even where the score was lopsided, a lot turned on some early bounces that allowed one of the two teams to dictate how the game would be played. In Game 7, if Bouchard's point shot in the first period goes in, Florida opens up and we could win 5 or 6-1. Instead, they get the bounces on that night and were able to shut it down.

In terms of coping with the loss, in a lot of ways that makes it harder. This team battled through so much adversity, did what they needed to do, and at the end of the day they essentially lost a coin flip. Now we're back to square one.

 

[TheNumber4]

Does anyone have a clip from when Drai broke a rib? It must have been against Vancouver when it looked like he hurt his back. I can’t find a damn clip of it anywhere though.

We know when it happened? I could look for it if I knew what play it was? Was it the forearm shiver Myers gave on Drais back?

 

[Lay Z Boy GM]

In fairness to this comparison, most of us probably would have done that if Anaheim was playing the Flames in the finals.

I can’t imagine. We hated Pronger man.

Although if McDavid ever leaves, yeah I’m cheering for him.

 

[Lay Z Boy GM]

We know when it happened? I could look for it if I knew what play it was? Was it the forearm shiver Myers gave on Drais back?

I believe that’s where it happened. YouTube is really bad for searching these days.. I’ll get a couple somewhat related results but after 4-5 it just gives me the most unrelated crap that has nothing to do with what actually searched.

I was about to just go through the highlights but even that’s a gamble because a lot of the time they don’t show plays like that in the highlights.

Edit: I might check that bird guy on reddits clips, he’s the GOAT

 

[WaitingForUser]

We know when it happened? I could look for it if I knew what play it was? Was it the forearm shiver Myers gave on Drais back?

I thought it was the five crosscheck that Miller game him in gave 6 but the initial break could have been the Myers hit.

 

[Drivesaitl]

I thought the Oilers would have a ton of anxiety going into game 7 where Florida had 3 games to help them learn to deal with those nerves. You saw the nerves in numerous Oilers pregame interviews, Mcdavid played one of the worst games of his playoff career. Hard to win a game when Janmark and Ceci are your best players. On the bright side they gained valuable experience and I believe they win 2 Cups in the next 5 years.

Can't blame anybody either for it. The pressure of a game 7 SC final is just so immense and a dynamic that hit all who enter that octagon.

Wayne said something like theres different rungs. Regular season, playoffs, SC final, and that they are all essentially different challenges. What he failed to mention is that game 7's SC finals are a different thing altogether.

 

[TheNumber4]

I believe that’s where it happened. YouTube is really bad for searching these days.. I’ll get a couple somewhat related results but after 4-5 it just gives me the most unrelated crap that has nothing to do with what actually searched.

I was about to just go through the highlights but even that’s a gamble because a lot of the time they don’t show plays like that in the highlights.

Edit: I might check that bird guy on reddits clips, he’s the GOAT

Yeh highlights might not show it. And the bird guy may have, he’s awesome to have in this fanabse.

I’m sure someone around here will remember what game and what period that hit happened. I wanna say game 2 or 3? It was one of the earlier ones.

Hf Oil, anyone know when Myers forearmed Drai in the back?

 

[Lay Z Boy GM]

Yeh highlights might not show it. And the bird guy may have, he’s awesome to have in this fanabse.

I’m sure someone around here will remember what game and what period that hit happened. I wanna say game 2 or 3? It was one of the earlier ones.

Hf Oil, anyone know when Myers forearmed Drai in the back?

I think it might have been game 1 or 2 because Drai missed practice after one of those games.

 

[Oilhawks]

For those still wondering why McDavid didn’t come back out for a photo with the Conn Smythe last night, here is Luka Modric accepting the “player of the match” award after Croatia dropped a 1-0 lead in the last minute to draw and be eliminated in the Euros

Brutal. f*** the fans (especially the casual neutrals and Panthers fans) whining about him not coming back out

 

[TheNumber4]

I think it might have been game 1 or 2 because Drai missed practice after one of those games.

Hmm yeh could be. Hopefully someone can nail it down.

 

[Drivesaitl]

He had a handful of impactful games all playoffs. If he played like he did there in this team, fans would have been pretty upset.

Total passenger

Well thats the thing. Matthew Tkachuk had identical numbers to RNH this playoffs. Thats not even the degree of impact he had because Nuge is huge on PK. So that Tkachuk brought LESS to playoffs than even RNH.

Verhaege and the other Reinhart did literally nothing for most of the games in this series. Bennett up and disappeared but showed up in time to fondle the cup.

It was Barkov and Bobo deserving. Panthers had a ton of relative passengers.

Won't matter. Tkachuk will continue to think he's some kind of rockstar.

Tkachuk had only 2 games where he got on scoresheet in Panthers last 9 games. They got here despite very little from him.

 

[TheNumber4]

For those still wondering why McDavid didn’t come back out for a photo with the Conn Smythe last night, here is Luka Modric accepting the “player of the match” award after Croatia dropped a 1-0 lead in the last minute to draw and be eliminated in the Euros

Brutal. f*** the fans (especially the casual neutrals and Panthers fans) whining about him not coming back out

Lol people are actually whining about that?

 

[iCanada]

Drai playing with broken ribs is ridiculous, and certainly makes sense as to why is shot seemed off.

My experience with broken ribs is literally feeling like I couldn't breath without shooting pain.

Also explains his poor hitting technique in game 2. Honestly what a warrior for even making that hit at all. Jesus Christ.

 

[WaitingForUser]

Well thats the thing. Matthew Tkachuk had identical numbers to RNH this playoffs. Thats not even the degree of impact he had because Nuge is huge on PK. So that Tkachuk brought LESS to playoffs than even RNH.

Verhaege and the other Reinhart did literally nothing for most of the games in this series. Bennett up and disappeared but showed up in time to fondle the cup.

It was Barkov and Bobo deserving. Panthers had a ton of relative passengers.

Won't matter. Tkachuk will continue to think he's some kind of rockstar.

Tkachuk had only 2 games where he got on scoresheet in Panthers last 9 games. They got here despite very little from him.

Even more than the loss the fact that rat bastard can lift a cup before Connor and Leon after completely running away scared from Canada makes me so sick I could puke. He deserves zero accolades for the Florida win

 

[Oilhawks]

Well thats the thing. Matthew Tkachuk had identical numbers to RNH this playoffs. Thats not even the degree of impact he had because Nuge is huge on PK. So that Tkachuk brought LESS to playoffs than even RNH.

Verhaege and the other Reinhart did literally nothing for most of the games in this series. Bennett up and disappeared but showed up in time to fondle the cup.

It was Barkov and Bobo deserving. Panthers had a ton of relative passengers.

Won't matter. Tkachuk will continue to think he's some kind of rockstar.

Tkachuk had only 2 games where he got on scoresheet in Panthers last 9 games. They got here despite very little from him.

Yeah, I mean I don’t agree with Bob being as great as some do, but he was definitely deserving of a Cup this year. He was good, so was Barkov despite being a bit off in the finals too. As much that Verhaege and Reinhart were nothingburgers most of the series, they did show up in the most important game.

Tkachuk and Bennett’s sideshows got them to the finals (ask the Bruins and Rangers how they feel about those clowns) but ghosted once they got there. Some will give more credit because he scored a goal in a losing effort and had that hilarious diving save of the ENG

 

[JeffSkinner53]

Tkachuk left the flames with only one option for a trade and now he's trying to appeal to them? I'm sure Calgary is stupid enough to eat that up lol.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Even more than the loss the fact that rat bastard can lift a cup before Connor and Leon after completely running away scared from Canada makes me so sick I could puke. He deserves zero accolades for the Florida win

Ratf*** had next to nothing to do with the series win of course. Was -7 in last 5 games played in series.