2023-24 NHL Season Thread.

[Rennadrel]

People watch the intermission shows? That's usually "make food and take a shit" break time.

I know, that's usually what most people do. I bet if they had Springsteen and The Tragically Hip more people would actually watch the intermission shows.

[Tradewind]

I know, that's usually what most people do. I bet if they had Springsteen and The Tragically Hip more people would actually watch the intermission shows.

Yeah but they probably cost money. Shit the NHL and Detroit isn't really swimming in compared to others. At least there's The Tenors and CF-18s...not just F-18's...CF-18s! There's your Canadian Content.

[Rennadrel]

Do you really think we care that much about our mediocre and dated air force more then music and hockey? I am sure the NHL is just swimming in cash from the Winter Classic ticket sales though, with the ticket packages in the $300 range, I am sure they could afford some decent entertainment. And if those kinds of acts are too expensive, when it comes to Canadian bands I'd say The Trews and Monster Truck are two bands that would be good to have. Five bucks says it's cheaper to do that then have some lame ass flyover by our joke of an air force.

[Tradewind]

I was being facetious...durn Leafs fans, taking everything so serious!

[Zeoni]

metric played when the canadian outdoor was in calgary, was pretty good but that culd have been the beers

[Greeney]

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=6...d=nhl:topheads

I seriously want to skull fuck the NHL right now. Seriously, you idiots couldn't get some Canadian content since you have a Canadian team participating? I hear the lead singer of that band known as The Tragically Hip is a HUGE hockey fan (Bruins fan mind you) and would be totally relevant to the hockey festivities. What does a redneck country band have to do with hockey? Absolute jack all that's what! Must be trying to appeal to all those fools in southern America where hockey is flopping hardcore.

Really?
I don't agree with you at all here, I rather take redneck music than Nickelback, Simple Plan, Justin Bieber, Avril Lavigne, etc...

[Rennadrel]

Really?
I don't agree with you at all here, I rather take redneck music than Nickelback, Simple Plan, Justin Bieber, Avril Lavigne, etc...

Yeah but I wasn't talking about those crap artists, I was talking about bands like Monster Truck, The Trews and The Tragically Hip.

- - - Updated - - -

Quite the goaltending clinic going on in New York tonight, both Bernier and Talbot have been brilliant.

[Elgefar]

Mats my man, such hands!

- - - Updated - - -

Fun day. Rangers win, Philly wins and Pittsburgh gets spanked by Ottawa.

[Zeoni]

tie it with 4.2, win in shootout
way to be boys

[Tradewind]

tie it with 4.2, win in shootout
way to be boys

My cat is beyond scared after all the whooping and table banging I was doing. They're not gonna win any cup, but goddamn if my boys play some exciting games.

PS. Fuck Backes.

[Stommped]

I love watching Mike Smith fail.

[Tradewind]

Sabres can only win by the grace of Mike Smith's ass.

[Greeney]

Mats my man, such hands!

- - - Updated - - -

Fun day. Rangers win, Philly wins and Pittsburgh gets spanked by Ottawa.

Glad both teams got a point, but would be great if our top line could do better than something like 2 goals and an accumulative -20 in the last 7 games.

[VanillaO]

Sabres can only win by the grace of Mike Smith's ass.

Or playing Toronto...

@ Ren - why would Detroit or the NHL hire a Canadian band that very few Americans know of to try to draw attention to the game? Getting a band who has gotten quite big over the last few years like ZBB actually makes a lot of sense... try to get some people watching the game who might not otherwise.

I watched the first 2 periods of last nights game... the Leafs just don't seem to care that they're playing badly for 10 minutes at a time. There's no hustle, there's no passion... They are now 8-12-5 since October and have scored 54 goals in those 25 games while giving up 81. They went from 3.71 GF/G and 2.28 GA/G after 14 games to now sit at 2.71 GF/G and 2.89 GA/G. In those 25 games they have 2.16 GF/G and 3.24 GA/G. If anyone is looking for some numbers to express how bad the Leafs have been the last 2 months, there they all are.

And just for comparison, since November 1st:

Buffalo - 8-12-2
Florida - 11-12-3
Philadelphia - 14-8-4
Edmonton - 9-12-1
Ottawa - 11-11-5
Carolina - 10-10-5
Islanders - 7-15-4
Calgary - 9-12-4

A lot of these teams were widely regarded (maybe not Calgary so much, but they were 2nd last in their division, so apologies to the guys out that way) as awful teams either on November 1st or over the last 45 days. Of these teams, maybe 2 of them (NY and Philly) were widely considered probable playoff contenders in their divisions before the season began. Why have Toronto not been included in the discussions as one of the worst teams in the NHL (aside from maybe the Islanders) since the start of November? People are all saying 'they're just not playing well', or that they'll turn it around, yadda yadda. Toronto now has 1 regulation win in over a month. One single regulation win in that time. 5-9-4 since the last one before that back on November 19th (4 ot/so wins). This is NOT a good club. I don't even know enough words to describe how poorly they have played.

The only saving grace is that they have a pretty obscenely easy schedule from now until the Olympics with a lot of very winnable games. 21 games before the Olympic break, only 5 against WC teams, only 6 games against teams head and shoulders above them in the standings (IMO: Boston, Montreal, Colorado, Tampa x2 and Vancouver). I will be getting minimal hockey coverage from Thursday until the second week of January - if the Leafs have dropped lower in the standings by then (they play 4 times from now until I'm home), I'm going to be pretty angry. If by the Olympic break, the Leafs have continued this trend of getting 4 points every 5 games, I'm going to really consider which WC team I want to bandwagon onto for the playoffs.

I know we made the playoffs last year, and I know a true fan sticks by their team no matter what.. but it gets harder every single year that they have one of these slides to want to cheer for them. I was sitting in box seats I got through a family friend a few years ago and Brian Burke came in and asked why I wasn't wearing a jersey when every other youngish person in there was and I responded with 'no disrespect, Mr. Burke, but how would you bring yourself to cheer for this team the last 6 years after such strong teams in the early and late 90s?' Last year means shit if they just go back to missing the playoffs again this year. Know who else pulls that kind of shit? The Panthers.

[Rennadrel]

Or playing Toronto...

@ Ren - why would Detroit or the NHL hire a Canadian band that very few Americans know of to try to draw attention to the game? Getting a band who has gotten quite big over the last few years like ZBB actually makes a lot of sense... try to get some people watching the game who might not otherwise.

Just so you know, The Hip have had better commercial success in America then they ever have in Canada.

PS, get rid of the freebie point for losing teams and half the league would have less then 45 points. Who cares if Toronto wins in regulation or wins in OT? They clearly aren't doing shit in the shootout despite having some of the better offensive players in the East. If Lundqvist had been in net last night, Toronto would have obliterated the Rangers. Bernier stood on his fucking head and so did Talbot, that game came down to a battle of which team was going to be better defensively. Bernier is lousy in the shootout, and it showed again last night. Had that gone through normal playoff OT, Toronto would have won the game. Just more reasons why the shootout needs to be abolished, back to back games need to be eliminated and the standard OT format be brought back. Keep the team in a team game for crying out loud, shootouts just make individuals look good and put more strain on goalies to make individual saves.

And the Panthers made the playoffs with an overachieving team in an underachieving division, and they got their asses kicked like they deserved. Now that they are in a division with teams that aren't all mediocre, reality has set in. Same goes for Ottawa, a team that made the playoffs but has played so horribly as a club that they don't deserve it. Toronto has worked for their points and even if they lost in OT or a shootout, they still pushed each game to earn a point and that's something to remember. I'd assume Bolland will be back after the holidays and Bozak is expected to return to the lineup within the next several days, they will play better. You can tell that Bolland made Mason Raymond a better player, ever since he went down Raymond has been pretty mediocre and ineffective offensively. Patience is of a virtue and despite all the other whining fucks in Leafs Nation, I for one am not panicking because there is still a lot of hockey to be played.

[VanillaO]

Better in terms of total volume moved? I might be able to believe it... Better in terms of % of people who even know who they are, I highly doubt it. They've never had an album crack the top 100 in the US, whereas almost every album they released in the 90s/00s went #1 in Canada (8 out of 10 with the other two peaking at #2). Where are you getting this info from? I'd actually like to see somewhere that shows their American commercial success, because I had always assumed they were just a Canadian secret and treasure and would love to have the info to pull out next time I decide to throw a cool fact about the Hip at someone.

The inability of the Leafs to hold onto leads is what I care about when I say they can't win in regulation. Of all the games the Leafs have won or lost in OT/SO, they have had a lead with 10-15 minutes to go in 6 of 8 of them that they have squandered (the 2 others were a scoreless 3rd period against Buffalo and last night against the Rangers). Obviously playing to hold a lead has not been working for them so well. Also, if the Leafs got to play the worse of the two goalies teams have available (which, by the way, they HAVE a number of times of late), that indicates two things to me. First, they're not beating teams who have their backups in with any regularity. Second, teams are sometimes CHOOSING to play their backups against Toronto. If that doesn't scream 'we're pretty sure we can beat you', I don't know what does.

The Panthers, btw, would have been 6th two years ago if they went by points. The Leafs were 1 regulation loss away from being the #8 seed... let's not pretend they got into the playoffs after 75% of the season and then just chilled and dropped down. They struggled down the stretch.

Bolland was just able to put weight on his foot last week as far as I'm aware, so I don't really see him being back in skating shape for another 2-3 weeks at best (I'd be very surprised, though it's obviously possible in these days of people coming back from ACL/MCL tears in 7 months and almost breaking the single-season rushing record).

I also don't know how you can be patient. I've been patient for 10 years now since they last had any half-level of success. I realize I haven't been alive as long as the people who've had to deal with 47 years of failure, but the Leafs are a laughing stock compared to the 10, 15 and 20 years ago. They're still my team. They will always be my team (even if Toronto gets a second franchise). I just don't want to see a world where the Leafs are the Lions/Browns of the NHL. Storied franchises, respectable in their heyday, but absolutely miserable right now without a championship to their name in the last half-century (I realize the Leafs' odds of winning a cup in the next 3 years are pretty slim, but a man can dream).

[Rennadrel]

I'd say this team is a good amount better then anything iced during the Ballard years, teams who weren't serious contenders. They were irrelevant for much of the 80's in terms of being a contender and this team is lightyears better then anything JFJ or Pat Quinn ever put together. No, this team could be better in terms of skill then any team Fletcher put together in the 90's, but they don't have the fight and tenacity that those teams had, or that they had last year even. People have a problem with teams gooning it up but the way Toronto played last year was exciting and the kind of hockey that Carlyle should be coaching because it clearly worked. The Leafs need to get back to basics and play with heart like they did last year because right now they are playing like a bunch of pansies with no toughness to their game. Everyone may have a problem with fighting and being tough, but I don't. I want to see a team that brings the intensity every game and can put other teams in their place. That first game against Montreal last year set the state for quite possibly one of the most entertaining seasons I have seen from Toronto in my 27 years on this planet. I'd rather see them fight, hit and win then do nothing and lose to teams who suck complete donkey dick like the Rangers and overrated teams like Pittsburgh who need to be put in their place. If the Leafs can beat the Hawks who have quite possibly one of the best rosters in the league right now, then they can beat anyone.

[Epuration]

Merry christmas from the canucks XD

[Elgefar]

Likewise from the Hawks! :P

[Epuration]

Likewise from the Hawks! :P

I loved the part at 1:22
Merry Christmas guys