2023-24 NHL Season Thread.

[xzirox]

Well, looks like the Devils is done for this year. Injuries and poor effort by Lou before the trade deadline ruined the season for us. Oh well, see ya'll next season! Only thing left to do is to hope Jets can knock Rags out of their playoff spot by claiming the 8th seed from them ^_^

[Rennadrel]

Zeoni, you have to have Carlyle and Therrien in the conversation for the Jack Adams this year. There might be some measuring stick since all 4 coaches who are worthy of being considered, have taken their teams into the playoffs, but Bruce Boudreau has to be in that conversation too. 5 guys who for multiple reasons, have brought their teams into the promise land this year. I wouldn't be surprised if Maclean gets the award since he is pretty deserving of it, but Quenneville, Carlyle, Therrien, Maclean and Boudreau all have made a case for being coach of the year, but given expectations of each team, Therrien, Maclean and Carlyle have done a remarkable job with their teams. And it's hard for me to say it as a Leafs fan, but I think Therrien and Maclean deserve it the most considering Montreal was the worst team in the East last year and Maclean has had to deal with a roster of AHL skaters and has had two good NHL goalies to keep them winning games.

[AceofHarts]

Babcock for Jack Adams!

[Armourboy]

Babcock for Jack Adams!

Yeah not happening. My pick would be the guy in Ottawa, but thats just me.

[Zeoni]

Zeoni, you have to have Carlyle and Therrien in the conversation for the Jack Adams this year. There might be some measuring stick since all 4 coaches who are worthy of being considered, have taken their teams into the playoffs, but Bruce Boudreau has to be in that conversation too. 5 guys who for multiple reasons, have brought their teams into the promise land this year. I wouldn't be surprised if Maclean gets the award since he is pretty deserving of it, but Quenneville, Carlyle, Therrien, Maclean and Boudreau all have made a case for being coach of the year, but given expectations of each team, Therrien, Maclean and Carlyle have done a remarkable job with their teams. And it's hard for me to say it as a Leafs fan, but I think Therrien and Maclean deserve it the most considering Montreal was the worst team in the East last year and Maclean has had to deal with a roster of AHL skaters and has had two good NHL goalies to keep them winning games.

Forgot about Carlyle and Therrian tbh. I was more focused on MacLean since I thought he should have won last year as well. Both deserve honorable mentions, especially Carlyle with what he's done with Kadri so far this year.

[VanillaO]

I guess if they have awards specifically for teams who don't make the playoffs Babcock might get consideration then?

[Stommped]

Joey Mac with the #1 star!

[Zeoni]

Yea buddy, I feel bad for being hard on him when he first got here. He's definitely proved his worth and then some this year. Still a backup but he's giving us a chance to win games everytime he's played for us. That's all you can expect with a veteran like him.

[draynay]

so Dallas got spotted a free goal with a blatant high stick and got a goal against taken away for no particular reason, but they ended up getting crushed in OT, hopefully the extra point they were awarded for a regulation tie they didn't deserve doesn't affect the playoff race

[AceofHarts]

Yeah not happening. My pick would be the guy in Ottawa, but thats just me.

i'm beggining to wonder what its going to take for Babs and Holland to get the recognition they deserve. every year its "they have all that talent". well guess what, they don't anymore, and its been injury city all season, and we are STILL fighting for a playoff spot.

[Raleik]

i'm beggining to wonder what its going to take for Babs and Holland to get the recognition they deserve. every year its "they have all that talent". well guess what, they don't anymore, and its been injury city all season, and we are STILL fighting for a playoff spot.

Babcock is a good coach, but he's got some damn good competition for the Jack Adams. No way he deserves it over Maclean this year. The Sens lost their #1 goalie who was playing lights out for a while. Their #1 defenseman who is also the reigning Norris winner. Two of their top forwards in Spezza and Michalek. And are still most likely making the playoffs. Sure, the Wings lost a lot of players to various injuries and have a ton of games missed, but they haven't been hit as hard as the Sens have as far as which players were hurt.

[Stommped]

i'm beggining to wonder what its going to take for Babs and Holland to get the recognition they deserve. every year its "they have all that talent". well guess what, they don't anymore, and its been injury city all season, and we are STILL fighting for a playoff spot.

Babcock ok, but why Holland? Didn't do much wheeling and dealing before or during the season to replace retired/injured players.

[Tradewind]

Flames picked the wrong time to start actually playing hockey this season.

haha on one hand I'm excited to see all the kids doing well...and we're winning games! On the other hand I am sad to see that we're going to let Mackinnon/Jones/Drouin/Barkov slip away because of it.

[Zeoni]

i'm beggining to wonder what its going to take for Babs and Holland to get the recognition they deserve. every year its "they have all that talent". well guess what, they don't anymore, and its been injury city all season, and we are STILL fighting for a playoff spot.

Babcock hasn't done the job MacLean, Quenneville, Therrian, Carlyle, Boudreau, or even Richardson have done this year. But that's not to say he's not a good coach. I think it's actually widely known that he is probably the best coach in hockey. There's a reason Canada chose him to coach basically an allstar team to win Gold in 2010. Everytime they talk about him on any sort of media here in Canada it's with high regard. Jack Adams is an award based on one season at a time and these last 2 years, there has just been other front runners for the trophy. If you'll remember ONE OF THE BEST COACHES IF NOT THE BEST IN NHL HISTORY only won 2 Jack Adam's awards and that was 19~ years apart. That man coached from 67'-02' and won a shitload of cups and brought even more teams to the finals. Awards and trophies don't mean shit but the work of 1 season. Everyone knows how good a coach Mike Babcock is and everyone knows how good of a GM Ken Holland is. If they don't, they aren't hockey fans. The dude in your signature is walking proof of Holland's work and the other guy with the C on his shoulder? The 2 most legendary draft picks through incredible scouting. Detroit is the hockey franchise. What the fuck does it matter that certain people in the organization don't get awards? There is only 1 trophy that matters.

also the Leafs playoff posters are fucking awesome for any Game of Thrones fans:
http://25.media.tumblr.com/37b01bddf...q99io1_500.jpg

[Tradewind]

I like how TSN already thinks the Leafs are going to win the cup and paraded it around the city. That said most people in Toronto probably don't know what it is...I cannot wait for them to lose in 4 games in the first round.

[Rennadrel]

I like how TSN already thinks the Leafs are going to win the cup and paraded it around the city. That said most people in Toronto probably don't know what it is...I cannot wait for them to lose in 4 games in the first round.

rofl you wish! If we get Montreal in the first round, we sweep them out in 4 games, because the Habs have been horrible down the stretch. Price and Budaj can't stop beach balls for crying out loud. And Montreal has struggled mightily this year against us, only winning one of the 3 meetings this year, and there is still one more to go on our turf. Do you know how many goals Montreal has scored against Toronto in 3 meetings this season, a grand total of 6. 5 of those goals came in a 5-2 win where the officiating was questionable at best, in game two. They got shut out in game 1 a whopping 6-0, and were blitzed 5-1 just two Saturday's ago. Montreal doesn't stand a chance against the Leafs in the post season, and we are the dark horse team of the East this year. We scored 13 goals against them in 3 games, more then twice as many.

1. Pittsburgh Penguins vs 8. New York Rangers
2. Boston Bruins vs 7. Ottawa Senators
3. Washington Capitals vs 6. New York Islanders
4. Montreal Canadiens vs 5. Toronto Maple Leafs

That is how the standings are today and will probably be come next Monday morning. The only two that will really shift will be the Islanders and Sens, at which point I don't think much would change in terms of who wins. If Montreal continues to struggle and the Leafs can notch 2 out of 3 wins in their remaining games, one being a win against the Habs, they would steal home ice advantage, at which point you would have to give the advantage to the Leafs even more. We have dominated in our own building as well as in Montreal, there is no reason why anyone would think the Leafs are going to see a 1st round 4 game exit from the playoffs.

[Tradewind]

5 games then :P

[Zeoni]

I think the Leafs will beat Montreal, but you're not sweeping them. If they don't end up winning the series, it certainly won't be a sweep for Montreal either. Both teams success weighs on how their goalies play. If both guys play good, I give the advantage to Montreal. It will be interesting to see how Reimer plays in his first playoffs and I'm personally excited to see if the Leafs can continue the way they've played this season. That being said, playoffs are a whole different game. The teams check much closer and a hot goalie can be all the difference. Sure, Price and the Habs aren't playing their best hockey right now but this is the regular season. One of the things I like the most about the Leafs is they have so many scoring threats. It's not as simple as locking down Kadri or locking down a specific line. You have to shut down Lupul, Kessel, and JVR which will let a guy like Grabovski step up to play a more important role. The thing that worries me the most is their defense. Montreal has a lot of front end speed in Ryder, Gallagher, Gionta, Plekenec, Galchenyuk, ect and if Phaneuf and company can't reliably slow those guys down, the Canadiens will eat them up. All in all, either teams goalie can steal the show and whichever team plays better defense will win. I think it will be a high scoring series that goes to 6 or 7 games. It could be a 5 game series if the Leafs play the same physical game, 5 games in a row, that they did that one stomp game where Orr/McLaren (can't remember who it was) popped Rene Bourque.

[Greeney]

If Carey Price plays like he has just about every year in the playoffs (kind of like 4 of his last 5 games), we'll win it in 5. If Carey Price remembers how to stop a puck it'll be a long series. Habs have had 1 good game against us all year and that involved giving us a 5 minute powerplay and a ref from Quebec dropping the puck, when Bozak clearly wasn't prepared, in a way that even made Kerry Fraser question the integrity of the play. In our other 3 games we've held the Habs to 1 goal or less, because a lot of other teams don't seem to realize that 50 shots from the outside aren't worth 20 quality scoring chances.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=417034

[jackofwind]

I actually like us going into the playoffs sitting around 3rd/4th in the West much more than I like going in as the winner of the PT. It just feels more comfortable in the middle of the pack, and lets me hope that there might be less backlash against the team during the playoffs.

Seriously, you guys don't understand what it's like to be an actual Vancouver fan (who wants them to clean their cheap shit up) in Vancouver during the playoffs. You're either in a drunken mass of hockey-ignorant rose-colored-glasses-wearing bandwagoning fools who have no idea what's going on and who give the team a lot of its bad off-ice reputation, or you're being ostracized by those same people in your own city for cheering for your home team when they're not doing so well or, heaven forbid, they get knocked out. It's ludicrous and really really frustrating at times.

I stand by my opinion that it's honestly easier to be a fan of nearly any other club in Vancouver than it is to be a fan of the home team - there's just so many hipsters in the city who subscribe to the "cheering for them ironically" or "cheering for the visiting teams is less mainstream" mentalities that they form the bulk of strangers you ever talk to about hockey.

My hometown needs to smarten the fuck up and get over itself. I love the team, but I hate our fans/not fans/whateverthefucktheyare.

Rant over, apologies. I've been dealing with Vancouver citizens smugly telling me they hope Chicago wins all day.