I have been bitching about coaches not pulling their goalie in that situation for YEARS and I am happy to see it cost a team a title
I’m so fucking happy for this team and Cooper. They deserve this so much. They’ve been through a lot the last 5 years. After last year I didn’t think they were ever going to get it done. The top players shit the bed last year, but this year they all dominated. Cooper looked lost last year and made all the right adjustments this year. The CS could’ve gone to 4 guys but Hedman was the right choice. Someway, somehow I’m going to be there when they raise the banner and I’m going to spend a ton on merch. Fuck yes!!!
That handshake was the only reason I didn't 100% want Tampa, just 98%. Bowness having the upper hand there would've been great
Holy shit, look at this thread. Both goals were mirror images of the 2015 SCF loss (also 2-0 in Game 6)
The amount of pure variance there is in hockey can pretty much be summed up in the last two playoff seasons. Tampa doesn’t win a game last year, then has almost the exact same team, lose Stamkos for basically the entirety of the postseason and comfortably walks to a cup.
kuch was suspended for game 3 and hedman missed games 3 and 4 with an injury. shattenkirk, bogosian, goodrow, Coleman and maroon all new additional who played a major part. Maroon and Coleman made the second goal and volkov drew the penalty that led to the first goal on the PP hockey does seem like a sport where teams benefit from previous seasons’ adversity though. the deadline signings of goodrow and Coleman cannot he understated though. That line with them 2 and gourde was exactly what the Lightning didn’t have. People can call cirelli/killorn/Johnson our “second” line but the checking line was the line that set the tone. They started every game. I think every period that didn’t start on a PP/PK. They took the shift after almost every goal against. Maroon was also an important signing. There wasn’t that true power forward. Killorn was playing the role at times but maroon brought a missing element and helped the PP and gave paquette a good running mate. Goodrow and Coleman also became a key penalty kill tandem. Killorn/Cirelli has been a good PK duo but we had used gourde and a revolving door. Never had a good second duo. Coleman/goodrow allowed gourde to play more on the 2nd PP and gave us come great minutes on the PK. long story long, the new additions played a key part. The stars showed out but our core role players (killorn and Johnson specifically) went silent and without Coleman and goodrow, I don’t think the lightning win the cup.
In this thread's opinion how does Bettman's legacy change based on the successful navigation of this mess?
I think it should, yes. Plus, he finally extended a CBA without a lockout. He still isn’t great, but he’s not the worst commissioner ever.
He absolutely gets credit for successfully navigating the pandemic. He also should get credit for getting a CBA extension done at the same time. He also gets credit for keeping the hockey purists at bay who want to rip teams out of every struggling sun belt market. The big issue with Bettman is that he's done a terrible job of keeping up with the NFL, MLB, and NBA. Just wait until the numbers come out for last nights game. I wouldn't be surprised if its an all time low for a cup clinching game considering they went up against the best NFL matchup of the year. Bettman has failed miserably at growing the television market for the game. Awful deal after awful deal with NBC. The fact that he's still too stupid to see that the NHL needs ESPN way more than ESPN needs them is ridiculous. Even if you have to give ESPN a sweetheart deal, you need hockey on ESPN. No other way around it.
Espn would no doubt help but the nhl won’t grow until they invest even more to make it more accessible and cheaper at the youth level in the US. The sport is just stupid expensive and inaccessible in way to many parts of the US.
Yeah, hockey is never going to win. Half the country could never play even if they wanted to and following the puck on TV is hard to do if you're unfamiliar with the sport
I was 6 when the avs moved to Colorado. They became hugely popular and everyone wanted to play hockey. Roller blade programs started booming, which was expensive but a lot of kids still did it. Then around middle school a bunch of us wanted to transition to ice but there was one rink for 500000 people in northern Colorado which caused a 1 year+ waiting list and the season cost $900(no equipment). What sports do you think the kids are going play, basketball football, baseball etc which are free or close to and immediately available or ice hockey? It sucks for the nhl because the infrastructure cost of youth hockey is just crazy expensive compared to the other sports but the nhl has to do something about it.
Did any of the American posters play street hockey? Used to play that every day after school, on the weekends and during the summer. Used to hate putting the pads on to play in nets when wearing shorts. Second worst feeling playing hockey after getting one of these in the nuts in the winter
Ehhh. the NHL doesn't get near enough credit for the Learn to Play program. $150 for a full set of equipment and 6 weekends worth of lessons. That's an insane deal that's heavily subsidized by the league. It's easily a 1k real money value. Hockey will always have the biggest barrier to entry, but when you can offer parents an extremely reasonably priced option to try a sport and if their kid didn't like it, they aren't out hundreds of dollars, you can't do much better. This was almost certainly 20 years ago. I'd bet my life there are atleast 5+ rinks in the area now and probably more. I know SFL was that way. When the panthers arrived in 1993 there was 1 rink in pompano. Almost 2 hours away from where they played their home games. 27 years later even though the panthers are absolute trash for 20+ of it, there are 8 rinks in Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach. The NHL has an uphill battle, but their youth hockey strategy is absolutely working.
Yeah played occasionally with a few friends in the neighborhood but we played a lot more football and basketball. I was okay on roller blades but only ever skated on ice at birthday parties/summer camp field trips growing up (I think Tampa had 3 or so rinks).
My experience was in the early 2000s. I agree the nhl has done a decent job growing the sport in the us. You see that with the quality and amount of American players, including many from states like texas and California. More kids are definitely trying it but a lot aren’t sticking with it due to cost. Nhl has to find a way to make the sport more affordable. Which sucks because equipment and Ice time are so expensive but they have to find a way. The vast majority hockey players in the us are caucasians from upper middle class families and it shouldn’t be like that.
The savior of the Leafs is a Mexican-American kid from Arizona. That's a direct result of Bettman's youth hockey strategy. This is an issue for pretty much every sport other than Football and basketball. I really don't know what else you can expect the NHL to do other than build a rink in every city that has a team and operate it at a massive loss so kids can play for $200 a season and sell equipment at a loss as well? I know I'm being hyperbolic, but unfortunately hockey is an expensive game. You can't host practice on a random field of grass at a public park for $50 a practice. There are certain barriers the NHL really can't do anything about. Does it suck that lower income families are often priced out? Absolutely, but what else can they do? In the early days of hockey in SFL, roller hockey was what the vast majority of people played. There were only so many rinks and like gowolverines8 said, getting into a league was tough because of long wait lists. I didn't start playing Ice Hockey until I was 12 years old and jumped right into a travel league. My first 5+ years of hockey was roller hockey. Lot easier to put down some concrete and boards in the corner of a park then it was to build an ice rink. The community league I played in had 10+ teams in each age group. This was common in each city in Broward County. Now that there is an ice rink within 20 miles of wherever you are in SFL, roller hockey is dead but for 10+ years it was the best option if you wanted to play hockey.
Yeah that's pretty much all there was, a few of the kids in my neighborhood played in a league at a roller skating rink but I only played organized soccer/baseball.
Lou says he expects tons of moves. FA could be be really fascinating as teams don’t qualify RFA to avoid arbitration numbers they can’t handle.