Lose to Las Vegas and lose your division: THE NHL 2017-2018 THREAD (INCLUDING THE COYOTES SOMEHOW, PITTSBURGH HANGOVER AND OFFSEASON SHENANIGANS. HOCKEY IS THE BEST)

this penguins-to-the-white-house thing has been . . . disappointing

sid is a master of 'pucks to the net/just gotta skate harder tomorrow' so it's not surprising that, particularly as a canadian citizen, he wants nothing to do with american politics

and i can understand that the franchise wants desperately to avoid alienating half (?) its fans. idk, maybe they could have been all 'we'll visit along with the NBA champs'? but we have very definitely come to the point where visiting the white house is a political photo op for its inhabitant, and if a side must be chosen, you might as well choose the right one.

i was at least hoping for a joke about how malkin would always be welcome

anyway, if you need help sleeping, here are loops of skaters practicing. the crunch of the ice never gets old: https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/3pzvp5/til_that_after_the_radio_feed_ends_on_nhlcom/cwbrzar/?utm_content=permalink&utm_medium=front&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=hockey

Sidney and Mario run the team and Mario is an old honky and sid has only 3/4 of a brain

mario is mainly concerned with his world-class wine cellar

barry melrose's vezina pick for 2018: mike smith

http://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/20857488/nhl-2017-18-season-preview-experts-picks

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yikes penguins

First-ever @GoldenKnights goal scored by James Neal started with a turnover by Marc Methot in the offensive zone and Stars never recovered.

— Scott Burnside (@OvertimeScottB) October 7, 2017

*very crow t robot voice*

NEEEEEEEEAL

Marc-Andre Fleury made 45 saves on 46 shots. Vegas wins, 2-1.

— Wes Crosby (@OtherNHLCrosby) October 7, 2017

<3 maf

Ovechkin 6 goals in 4 periods.

also I changed my allegiances to the Leafs before last season, might do the same in baseball actually now.

mookie will call my bandwagonism but really i'm just young, confused and an immigrant whose only tru sport ties is with the Girondins de Bordeaux.

lol

i like the leafs and dislike the rangers, so it's okay. be careful wearing your wendel clark sweater on ste-catherine tho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZyDsF-Gp3o

holy shit ovi

golden knights: 82-0-0

Wings say nope

Heh. pic.twitter.com/JU0k224V0w

— Mark Lazerus (@MarkLazerus) October 14, 2017

Vegas account was talking some shit before the game about how both teams had the same number of consecutive playoff appearances.

How energetically should I jump on the Leafs bandwagon? Can they win the Cup this year?

Answer in a way that a baseball fan can understand. Are they like the Cleveland Indians of the late '90s, filled with all these high-powered young hitters but with mediocre enough pitching (goaltending/defense) that their offense isn't enough? Or are they so good offensively that just okay defense and goaltending might do.

bigg-ish game in toronto tonight! you know, for october

clem i would say they're somewhere between those two -- probably the former, but maybe not. in any case, they're well on the way to being quite good and should in any case be exciting to watch

i don't think they can win the cup this season -- maybe next year -- but they should certainly make the playoffs and who knows, maybe their goalie gets hot

should get some ontario-quebec rivalries going too

they’re a fun team with an open window. unlike every other team in the east besides the pens and i guess tampa

through nine games the sabres are -3 on 5-on-4 power plays, ie they've scored three times and allowed six shorties

this might be the worst thing i've ever heard

how is that even possible

the “but her emails” meme only with “eichel is just as good as mcdavid”

Sabres still managed to shut out the wings tonight though u_u

showing *that* game on nbcsn rather than one of the two times a year crosby and mcdavid play each other was a stroke of typical brilliance

nobody wants to cover Karlsson pic.twitter.com/yR6WlOTnCN

— steph (@myregularface) October 25, 2017

I translated the caption on Ovechkin's Instagram post. Think it's a little more accurate than google. If you use it, please credit WaPo. pic.twitter.com/MvUTu1VYIP

— Isabelle Khurshudyan (@ikhurshudyan) November 2, 2017

i went to my first hockey game last night. was a fairly uneventful affair, not to mention fairly sparsely attended (what with the canucks sucking right now, it being November 1st, and game 7 of the world series), with the canucks losing 2-0 to the devils. but had decent seats, in row 10 in the lower bowl, and it was pretty great to see a live game. also got given the tix for free which was pretty awesome

cool!

We’re you facing the benches or the penalty box. One of the coolest things is watching giant professional players doing line drills and the fire drill line changes

yeah that seemed like a pretty exciting game for a 2-0 loss. Schneider was standing on his head

pick a player. who'd he score his first goal against? then, who did that goalie yield his first goal to? and keep going. ovechkin's thread goes back to georges vezina, for example

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23goaldna

tampa seems really good this year

http://www.vancourier.com/pass-it-to-bulis/you-should-watch-this-hilarious-video-of-lucky-brock-boeser-video-1.23103254?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

for dan

https://sports.vice.com/en_ca/article/ywb8mb/the-nhls-obsession-with-the-blackhawks-is-nauseating

Vice otm

went to a game today, took the family

preds not really looking all that intimidating to get beat by a .500 team in a rebuilding year tbh

Fun Fact: The history of the @NHL, founded 100 years ago today, can be tracked through five players.

Jaromir Jagr played against Guy Lafleur, who played against Gordie Howe, who played against Dit Clapper, who played with/against Cy Denneny, who played on opening night. #NHL100 pic.twitter.com/vYM5UGLI4q

— Jonathon Jackson (@jonathonj1970) November 26, 2017

It takes six steps to get from Bartolo Colon back to the first MLB game in 1876.

Bartolo Colon played with Harold Baines for the 1999 Cleveland Indians
Harold Baines played with Minnie Minoso for the 1980 Chicago White Sox
Minnie Minoso played with Phil Cavarretta for the 1954 Chicago White Sox
Phil Cavarretta played with Charlie Grimm for the 1935 Chicago Cubs
Charlie Grimm played with Red Ames for the 1918 St. Louis Cardinals
Red Ames played with Jim O'Rourke for the 1904 New York Giants

http://www.baseball-reference.com/oracle/

(Two gimmicks on that list: besides Minnie Minoso, Jim O'Rourke retired in 1893, then came back at the age of 53 for one game in 1904. If you exclude Minoso it takes seven steps, and if you cut O'Rourke's career off at 1893, it'd probably take eight.)

sabres update:

6-16-4 for 16 points -- only 15 points behind the expansion team (which has a game in hand)

in 26 games they've had 82 power play opportunities, during which they've scored 10 goals and allowed 7

their defensemen -- all of them -- have yet to score a goal

https://www.tsn.ca/the-greatest-one-1.944832

ovie too high

agreed, and Bourque too low.

goalies should have a separate list imo

Brodeur too low.

kinda embarrassed i had no idea who doug harvey is

There are a lot of old Canadiens who shouldn’t be on that list anymore tbrr

yeah, they can't all be top 10

so . . . vegas is leading the western conference and it's almost xmas

that is quite something

it would be extremely un-hockey for them not to go to the white house, but who knows

will vegas make the playoffs next year? it helps that they're in a shitty division

there's one adorable MAGA lummox but only 7 americans on the roster it is a mystery maybe Trudeau can get to them first that would be a twist

Devante Smith-Pelly has apparently said he won’t go the White House. Fox News is making a big deal of this in their inimitable way

it's too bad the sabres are cursed because buffalo deserves better

Top 10 Markets for Entire Stanley Cup Playoffs on Platforms of NBC

t1 Las Vegas 4.5
t1 Pittsburgh 4.5
3 Buffalo 3.3
4 Washington, D.C. 3.2
5 Nashville 2.6
6 Tampa 2.5
t7 Baltimore 1.9
t7 Boston 1.9
9 Providence 1.8
10 Ft. Myers 1.7

— NBC Sports PR (@NBCSportsPR) June 8, 2018

uh

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/mike-hoffmans-longtime-girlfriend-allegedly-behind-campaign-of-harassment-against-melinda-and-erik-karlsson

wow that's worse than colangelo (if true)

just learned that zarley zalapski died of a viral infection in december. he was 49

;_;

also

The Canadiens have acquired forward Max Domi from the Arizona Coyotes tonight, in return for Alex Galchenyuk. #GoHabsGo

— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) June 16, 2018

RIP zlapshot

Christ, RIP

uh, barry trotz just quit

Was Caps owner Leonsis being too cheap in not paying him what he wanted? Or will Caps do fine with Trotz's assistant ?

BT was asking for five years and I think the caps thought that no coach is worth 5 years of top money. I think I agree with them.

And I think there was generally bad vibes between the two parties since the team never really seemed to be totally bought into him once GMGM left.

And they're fine with the asst guy Todd something.

the coach's salary doesn't count against the cap right?

it does not

i believe trotz was the previous general manager's hire, and he was underpaid by the standards of such things. he took the opportunity to exit while his stock was high as a cup-winner and the caps didn't really seem bothered to stop him

it's kind of weird, and putting a rookie coach in charge of a successful veteran team may or may not work, but hey, they just won their first cup two weeks ago. worry about this stuff in three months imo

Leonsis can prob afford to pay the big bucks

i dont think the big bucks are necessarily the problem, it's the long-term deal that is. They don't want to be committing to pay a dude huge money when maybe ovechkin and backstrom and holtby are gone in a few years and who knows what will be going on. i am inclined to agree that BT doesn't justify that committment.

hockey coaches -- even the successful ones -- seem to have pretty short shelf lives with individual teams. can't recall anyone getting a deal of that length except for babcock, and it remains to be seen how that turns out. so yeah

On that note, Wings are bringing in Dan Bylsma as an assistant. I bet he gets the full job within a year or two if things don't pick up.

trotz to the isles

Didn't Ruff stayed at the Sabres for 6 decades or something?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DgO7YM-X0AEB5hD.jpg:small

time for a new thread, jimmy

Two Putin Boosters on the Potomac; One has a Stanley Cup: THE NHL 2018-2019 THREAD (INCLUDING CAPS HANGOVER AND OFFSEASON SHENANIGANS. HOCKEY IS THE BEST)