f13.net

Someone might as well get this thread started.

Anyone else at all excited about the World Cup this month? We'll see if I end up having a way to watch it from Egypt.  :oh_i_see:

I really like the look of the US sweaters this go round. Were I not playing poker professionally right now I would totally pick one up.

I'm very much not excited for the World Cup. I still think it is a dumb idea, especially the timing. Right before the season? Ugh.

You just know some poor team is going to lose someone important to injury due to this money grab.

Also; Torts.

Better to lose a guy in training camp than February. Might've cost Ottawa a cup.

Never been a big fan of international tournies though, too much hype around single elimination games.

They lost most of my interest the moment it was clear that it wasn't an actual country vs country tourney. It will be a very fun to watch pre-season exhibition tournament, designed to make the NHL money, and that's how I'm treating it.

I'm just happy there will be some good hockey to watch in September.

Although it makes the nationalist aspect a bit less formal, that under-23 NA team is SICK to watch.

Is there any interest in starting our Fantasy league back up? I don't think we've done it for a year or two now, right?

I could do it

I am not as connected to the NHL as I once was due to Jim Benning's Retard Circus, but I would be down to round out the numbers. Pretty sure trotski would play too. I will ping him.

Id be in for a Fantasy league!

Need more than four. Does a 6 player league work? I have never played one that low.

Oh hells yes, I'm down for a fantasy league. It will help distract me from the dumpster fire the Canucks will be again this season.

I'm sure we could get bunk in as well

Click here to see Auston Matthews destroy the Sens in his first game: https://streamable.com/2yse

Clickbait title ftw! (but seriously, nice goal)

The Leafs should use their 2017 1st overall to get defencemen, and a goalie.

The Canucks are utterly unwatchable again. I have no idea how they scored 4 against Carolina- I would bet they won't score 4 goals most weeks this season. Their GM is Tommy Boy incarnate, and their genius coach started the player who led them in points during the 2nd half of last season on the fourth fucking line. They have the Sedins, Horvat, and that is IT. If they score 200 goals this season it will be a minor miracle. I pray that Benning gets fired before he can hand out more patently terrible contracts like he has to Sbisa, Dorsett, and Sutter. Hint- these aren't building blocks for a rebuild. They are role players at the very best (Sbisa is not even that- he is literally one of the worst defensemen in the league). I think you can rebuild with youth and still be semi-competitive if you use your salary cap on the right vets. This is the opposite of that.

Consensus seems to put them at around 65 points. That is probably a bit low given their start, but there is no chance they are breaking 80 points unless they find a way to clone 22 and 33 a few times.

I still think Ryan Miller is a decent goalie, and he managed to dodge rule changes on oversized shoulder pads for another year, so that will help keep their GA down.

They also still have enough of their roster leftover from when they were a top team, which creates a legacy culture of an ingrained system and stability that prevents a total Edmonton/Toronto style dumpster fire of never ending suck.

Miller is decent at best. He is old and deteriorating quickly. Having to play behind excrement like Sbisa is probably not helping him much either. Going back to Luongo/Schneider, the Canucks have managed to make the exact wrong choice every time one presents itself in regards to goaltending (and most other things, for that matter).

I don't really agree with your assessment. Are the Nucks a great team? no. But they aren't the dumpster fire that you make them out to be.
We still have a decent 1st line and our 3rd/4th aren't bad. I would definitely like to see more scoring from the 2nd but oh well.

While Benning has made some curious moves I thinks he has also made some pretty astute ones as well.

Here are some wins for us that I think most fans hated at the time:
- Shinkaruk for Granlund. Shin might never see regular nhl time let alone be a 20-30 goal scorer that so many nuck fans thought.
- Lack was never good enough to be a starter. He cant even take the starting job from Cam Ward for fucks sake.
- Getting anything for Bieksa was great. He is essentially done.
- The Gudbranson deal was a win for us IMO. 
- Jensen deal was a wash
- Baertschi was a win. We gave up a 2nd for a regular NHL body. The reality is that the vast majority of 2nd rounds never amount to much.

What I am seeing is that Benning and Linden know that they didn't really have a lot in the cupboard asset wise to begin with and are trying to win on a bunch of small moves which will eventually lead up to better assets.

Are some of the contracts suspect? Sure. But I am not certain what fans expect. If we don't pay these guys we are left with nothing and fans bitch. We pay them and we don't have any superstars and fans bitch. Looking at Sutter's 4.25 mil is kinda tough. That being said they know they can put him out there in any situation and not worry that we are gonna get punished for it.

Everything they are doing is to build up a base of nhl capable players and then look to the draft and prospects to start filling in the skill/scoring. In the pipeline we have a top tier forward prospect (Boeser), a top d prospect (Juolevi) and a top goalie prospect (Demko)

Would I rather be in Edmonton's situation? Of course, but we never had the luxury of all of those early (1st overall) picks.

Just my 2cents

The Canadiens look GOOD !!

The Bruins have been making them look good for the last 3 years, that's for sure. B's suck btw so don't get too excited.

I posted that on Friday...

But yeah always fun to watch the Bruins go down. The 6 on 3 fail at the end was a nice touch.

Looks like the recent outbreak of the mumps here in Canada has hit the Vancouver Canucks pretty hard with up to 5 players (Chris Tanev, Nikita Tryamkin, Mike Chaput Markus Granlund, Troy Stecher) either having the mumps or showing signs of having it and are quarantined because of it.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/5-vancouver-canucks-sidelined-due-to-mumps-1.3998731

Oh man, and the Canucks were such a sure fire playoff team too...

They probably weren't going to make the playoffs anyway but until recently they kept themselves in the hunt.  They've certainly done better than most people expected them to this season (Canucks were picked by many to finish dead last overall) but this is probably the final nail in the coffin, esp. with two of their top Dmen down with the mumps.  It's not like they had great organizational depth to begin with.

Believe me, we are happy the quest to get demolished in the first round is now over. Now it just comes down to whether or not they can get any assets for their UFAs.

I would take the mumps in trade for Benning.

Well, they just made a trade that everyone in the city is happy about. Burrows for Johnathon Dahlen (sp?). One of Ottawa's top prospects. We've put a stay on the Benning lynch mob for now.

The Capitals picked up Kevin Shattenkirk.  Might be time for my adopted city to finally win the cup.

On paper they look great. But I just don't think they have the mojo to get past the Penguins.

edit (If the Pens get their 3 injured D-man back)

As a lifelong Penguins fan, that would be fantastic.  But I've spent so much time in DC that I'll happily settle for them winning a cup as well.

Flyers sucked this year, even with a 10-game win streak. It seemed like they could compete with competitive teams, and then drop games to basement dwellers.

Oh well - DRAFT POSITION. :why_so_serious:

I like the Canadiens chances against the Rangers. They always light up Lunqvist.

For those who had some kind of playoff bracket going - do any of you still have one that's intact? The Preds sweeping CHI has to have screwed a lot of people, even if they didn't pick CHI to win it all.

Gotta imagine less than 10% of people got that right.

edit: NHL.com bracket has the stats, 86% Hawks. It beat 85% Capitals as the #1 favourite.

So far I'm good in terms of winners, but not game #s due to the Pred/Hawks and the Sens/Bruins. In my league I had;

Ducks in 4 over Calgary, St. Louis in 6 over Minnesota, Oilers in 7 over San Jose, Preds in 6 over Hawks.

Pittsburgh in 4 over Columbus, Ottawa in 7 over Boston, New York in 7 over Montreal, Washington in 6 over Toronto.

Hawks aren't as good as they've been in the past (older, not as much depth -- and depth is what has given them success in prior years), and the Preds are actually a very good team that struggled a lot due to goal-tending. I wagered Rinne would pick it back up. Didn't expect the sweep, though.

So far I'm crushing my league, for obvious reasons (only one other guy in my league -- there's almost twenty of us -- had the Preds over the Hawks and he had them doing it in 7).

I am a little worried the Caps will blow it.. because, well, it is the Caps. That series is basically a coin flip; who fucks themselves more? Leafs are very good at fucking themselves over.. but so are the Caps (in the playoffs, at least).

The Sharks took fucking themselves over to a whole new level after last night.

Canadiens and Blackhawks are out. Can we eliminate the Penguins now?

One can hope, but neither Toronto nor Washington is playing well enough to beat them currently.

If someone wanted a decent bracket, you just needed to look at mine.

And then do the opposite.  :oh_i_see:

Ah.. Toronto is out, thankfully. I have nothing against the fans or team (well, fuck Kadri, the dirty little shit), but media coverage of the team makes them unbearable.

So, I got my entire first round bracket correct. Missed a few bonus points for not getting the number of games correct, though. Still, I feel I did fairly well. Right now, here's what I'd expect from the second round;

Oilers in 7 over the Ducks, Predators in 6 over the Blues.

Rangers in 6 over the Senators, Penguins in 5 over the Capitals.

Penguins always have the Caps' number in the playoffs, and the Caps are hand-cuffed by Shattenkirk. Senators deserve to lose for playing a boring trap style of game and I think Lundqvist is too dialed in right now. Predators are rolling, Rinne has finally returned to form and their defense is scary good. Oilers are the under-dogs, but I cannot ever pick Anaheim (except over teams I hate even more, like Calgary), and McDavid will be more free against them to score now that he's put one of the best defensive d-men behind him (Vlasic).

(http://nexuszero.net/img/sadleaf.gif)

Man, the Avs and Canucks just got fucking hosed.  LoLottery. :awesome_for_real: :ye_gods: :facepalm:

Lotto was glorious.

Hall proves he is the lucky charm of the NHL Lotto.

Oilers fucking over the Canucks because of the Oiler Rule is also hilarious. Canucks dropping from 2nd to 5th in a relatively weak draft class was perfect.

Draft pretty much went how I wanted it (I would have preferred another Eastern team getting the 3rd pick, but Dallas will do being a Central division team and a deeply flawed one at that). I had thought karma might kick in and finally give Buffalo a break, but nope.

The NHL and refs have decided to prove the games are rigged, apparently.

Nice to see Edmonton sticking with it and not blowing a lead.  Maybe I'll get my dream cup finals after all.

Nashville, Ottawa, Pittsburgh and Anaheim.

Please stab me in the eye instead. Fuck Pittsburgh, Nashville? seriously? Go play some country music. Ottawa..No, just no. No team playing that boring ass system should win a cup. And Anaheim, who the fuck even plays on Anaheim? More boring than Ottawa.

Well at least we know the refs aren't under the orders of the league office in the NHL, cause even Bettman wouldn't be stupid enough to give us this final four bore.

Man are you kidding? The western conf final is going to be great. Big Ryan Getzlaf is playing prime time hockey, both teams have deep and talented D corps.

I don't know about the East, I don't like Ottawa very much, I wouldn't say they were super defensive against the Rangers though, they gave up 19 goals in 6 games. Probably going to still be excellent hockey.

Man, what a hater.

Meanwhile, it's still awesome being the only Penguins fan in the bar in DC when the Caps get eliminated.  Every year.

Pretty much just rooting for NSH vs OTT now.

Nashville I guess. Still can you imagine if they win the cup? What, 20k ppl would turn up to the parade? Fuck that.  I can't root for that tool Guy Boucher and the shit system of hockey his team plays. Karlsson is a fucking legend though.

Does anyone outside of Penguins fan actually like the Penguins? Go the Western conference or something.

Nashville wins it all, imo. The way they are playing in the playoffs is far and above what any other team is doing. One of the two best crowds in the league, as well; thm and Edmonton, honestly. I'd edge Edmonton ahead due to the anthems, but noise level, participation.. not letting the other team's fans fill up your building (you know, like the Ducks -- even with a far amount of Oiler fans in attendance there were still empty seats every game).

Anaheim is always a wild card because they are very dirty and get away with it (even on face off violations that should be automatic penalties!). However, their goal tending and defense aren't that good if you can make them work. Any time the speed of the game got high against the Oilers the Ducks struggled mightily. Fuck the Ducks, though. Almost as much as the officials. Yes, I'm still bitter the Ducks got handed one game. 6 50-50 goals and 3 that out-right shouldn't have counted, during this series. Fucking officials. Too bad the Oilers fell short of winning 6 games in a 7 game series; 5 just wasn't enough.

Penguins probably go back to the Finals. Don't like the team, but respect their ability to win -- especially with a defense that bad (without Letang that d-group isn't that good).

Ottawa.. eh, if it weren't for Karlsson the team is done and dusted multiple times already. Love the player. 'meh' on the team. Plays boring hockey that only gets enjoyable when Karlsson decides he has to win them the game.

After another Penguins win over Washington I just won't be able to bear looking at my Facebook feed until after the cup finals. 

You have to hand it to the Pens, that game 7 was about as perfectly executed a game as I have ever seen:  perfect D matchups, perfect neutral zone trapping to protect a lead, Fleury making the key saves, and flawless clock management in the last half of the third period.

I've been watching Washington lose to Pittsburgh since at least the late 1980's, at least this time was not a) puking up a 3-1 series lead (happened twice in a three year span), or b) having Jagr and Lemieux with 90% of the scoring.

As a fellow DC yinzer, I stopped going to deciding games after 2009. It's just not fun to be happy surrounded by justifiably sad people. My wife is a Buffalo fan, so I'm sympathetic to abused fanbases. To be fair, I was at the game the one time they beat us in 94.

Tomorrow night I'm going out with my Pens hoodie over my John Wall jersey to catch both games.  I'm anticipating some confused reactions  :grin:

Well it was hardly pretty, but when your (supposed) heavy underdog needs a road win I'll take them any way they come.  :awesome_for_real:

I fully expect a different game out of of Pittsburgh tonight. But if that's what they had then the injuries may have caught up to the Penguins.  That group sure looked slow for a team that on paper is clearly better up front.

The big problem Erik Karlsson presents is it's hard to match up vs. a guy eating 30 minutes a game. 


Nashville vs. Anaheim - wow that was a wild one.  Really not sure how that series is going to end.

One series is very exciting and the other is about how much attrition the Penguins can suffer before the Senators bore them to death.  Glad Pittsburgh won yesterday, but how long are Hornqvist, Rust and Schultz out now?  When is Daley back?  They're going to have to send Matt Murray out on defense at this rate.

Also, lol DC.

I don't know about that, the effectiveness of Ottawa's defensive scheme has really been overrated. Let's not forget that after a very tight game 1 against the Rangers, the Sens went on to give up 4 or more goals against in the next 5 games. They did bog down the Pens game 1, but that game 2 shoulda been a blowout.

Ottawa was very lucky to hold it to 0-0 for so long. The Pens dominated for large stretches getting a lot of grade A chances in the slot. Fleury had to come up with a decent game too obviously to hold a shutout, but the Pens were really taking to it to the Sens for stretches. The superiority of the Pens forward depth is evident.The Sens have talent up front too but got this far on the back of the all-world Karlsson playing 25-30 mins plus dramatic hero moments from the Pageau/Ryan duo putting on a career performance.

Sure they had their chances but I don't think Pens dominated at all. I expected way better out of them. Senators were dreadful however, squandering a chance to go up 2-0 by spending the 2nd half of that game protecting a lead they didn't have, and failing.  Guy Boucher was playing with the house's money, risked nothing, gained nothing.

Yeah they choked the life out of two roads games against a heavily favoured Penguins. Lots people getting hung up on a defensive scheme that haven't watched the last 2 rounds.  They can forecheck as hard as anybody as the last two (admittedly shitty) defenses learned.  Each injury on the Pens makes this series a little closer.

Guy Boucher teams are terribly boring to watch.

Fuck the Pens, I think most people are just sick of them. But good on them, I guess, for parlaying good draft picks through tanking, into surprise picks that managed to pan out above expectations. Also, Fleury somehow deciding to be a good goaltender again, rather than a basketcase.

Go Preds.

The Pens were always going to be strong with Crosby & Malkin but they deserve some credit for getting back to the top by building up their depth with young talent picked up way outside of the top 5 of a draft. Sheary, Murray, Guentzal, Rust, etc. Previous to the emergence of these guys to fill up the top 9 (and jump in the net with a MAF collapse) they weren't going deep in the playoffs.

Hornqvist, Rust and Schultz are all out tonight.  Daley is probably in.  Hmmmm......

Well, fuck.  On the bright side, Pittsburgh can now be eliminated on my birthday!

And that also gives NSH a better chance of winning a cup, which would be great for Rinne and Subban.

I've watched more of the playoffs than ever because of Nashville, and their proximity to Atlanta. People down here are talking about how good they look.

RIP Nashville. (http://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/19420838/ryan-johansen-nashville-predators-rest-playoffs)

(Go Pens)

Welp!  :uhrr:

Off to game 6 we go

EDIT: Off to game 7 we go!  :awesome_for_real:

Kunitz!

Welp. Sens took the champs as far as possible. And once you're in 2OT it's pretty much a coin toss.

Not sure who I want to win the final. Probably Nashville.

Nashville's politely fucked now. They would have to reel off 2 in a row to even have a whisper of a shot in this finals.

Yeah no way they are winning 4 out of next 5 games against the Penguins.

You know, the Preds look like the team to beat for 75% of the each game - then in 3-10 minutes, the doors fall off. It is one of the oddest things I have seen in hockey. This spoken from a guy who somewhat pays attention to the last third of the season and the playoffs and catch a few playoff games here and there.

That's the craziest thing about this finals thus far -- Predators have looked good, especially in 1st 10-20 minutes. Then Pens get a 3-10 minute stretch, like you write, and the game is just flipped. 

But then Pens have more finishers like Malkin, Crosby, and now a rookie sensation Guentzel that might eclipse Dino Cicarelli playoff rookie scoring record. And Murray looks up to the task in net.

P.K. Subban guarantees Predator game 3 victory! (https://www.nhl.com/news/pk-subban-doubles-down-on-game-3-stanley-cup-final-guarantee/c-289723702)

It also helps when you get a vast majority of the lucky bounce goals.

Penguins repeat, woo!

Didn't get to watch it live, sadly.  How bad was the Nashville goal that got called back in the second?

Egregiously bad. Puck was sitting alone in a wide open crease yet somehow the ref managed to lose sight of it and blew it dead a second before it was tapped in.

In other words; par for the course.

It happens...Murray was interfered with on that play anyway, probably wouldn't of counted. Nashville was shutout 2 games in a row, crying about the refs is ridiculous when they got all the penalties in their favour.

No fucking way that was interference. Murray wasn't prevented from making a play on the puck, because he had no idea that he didn't have it frozen. Horrendous call. And then to have the Cup-winning goal end up being a janky carom off the back-boards? Sad.

Pens definitely had the puck luck on their side, as several critical goals throughout the series were either crazy deflections or just unreal shots they couldn't replicate even if they tried.

But hey, I'll give them more credit for this win than perhaps in past years - they accomplished this one largely through good drafting of guys like Kuhnhackl.

Wasn't janky, he took a very nice swing at the mid-air puck, and he knocked it off Rinne's back on purpose. I wouldn't say all the bounces went for the Pens either, look at that one Crosby ripped at the end of the first that was going in but went off the shaft at the top of Rinne's stick.

The carom was janky, not the swat.

The expansion protection list was released today.  Vegas is going to have some nice players to choose from which should make them much more competitive right from the start.  Some of the players protected are kind of head scratchers (like Andrew Cogliano and Jimmy Howard) but they may have no move clauses in their contracts that they weren't willing to waive so their teams had to put them on the protected list.  I know Ottawa asked Dion Phaneuf to waive his so they could protect Marc Methot but he refused.

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/nhl-golden-knights-expansion-draft-protection-list-1.4166262

They shoulda left unrestricted free agents off that list...clutters it. Doubt Vegas takes Mrazek anyway, they have better options. But yeah they will be getting a player of some value from basically every team.

Islanders only protecting 3 forwards, some decent players available. They will probably take Plekanec from Montreal, then flip him for a 1st next February at deadline. Nobody else really has any value except as a 4th liner or 3rd pairing (you still need good players there, but they aren't worth a 1st).

If George McPhee is smart then he knows none of the guys he's drafting are part of any long-term plans.  But he can exploit GMs that may overvalue their own assets and scoop up some free picks along the way.

George, forget about Methot, he's old & expensive. Draft that Borowiecki kid; he leads the league in hits!  :why_so_serious:

Hey Flames, if Curtis Lazar is protected, you may have a depth problem up front.

Sooo, dat draft.

Schenn returning 2 first round picks is good news for the Canadiens trying to move Galchenyuk.