NHL 2024/2025

Finished 6-3. It was 5-3, then the Lighting scored in an empty net to squash the Canadians' last hope. Surely that's it now for them. Deserved, too. At least in this game, the Habs were just a class below: TB is more incisive in transitions, creates better changes (the CH having more shots in games 2 and 3 doesn't represent the balance of the games), and the Tricolore make too many silly errors (due to the pressure?). Ah well, at least Montreal won a new prize this season! :D
 
Cheimoon said:
Finished 6-3. It was 5-3, then the Lighting scored in an empty net to squash the Canadians' last hope. Surely that's it now for them. Deserved, too. At least in this game, the Habs were just a class below: TB is more incisive in transitions, creates better changes (the CH having more shots in games 2 and 3 doesn't represent the balance of the games), and the Tricolore make too many silly errors (due to the pressure?). Ah well, at least Montreal won a new prize this season! :D
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Tampa Bay are too good. I could tell in the first few minutes of game 1 that this was one step too far for this Habs team. I hope we at least take one game. Would prefer not to get swept in the finals :lol:
 
WeePat said:
Tampa Bay are too good. I could tell in the first few minutes of game 1 that this was one step too far for this Habs team. I hope we at least take one game. Would prefer not to get swept in the finals :lol:
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At least there is no sense that it could have been more. It's a clean loss, and that's fine. As @JPRouve said (or was that you?), they're really overachieving getting this far, and that's something to be happy about.
 
Cheimoon said:
At least there is no sense that it could have been more. It's a clean loss, and that's fine. As @JPRouve said (or was that you?), they're really overachieving getting this far, and that's something to be happy about.
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Yeah we can definitely look back on this season and be satisfied. It was kind of a wild ride and the continued growth of Suzuki, Kotkaniemi and Caufield has been great to watch.
 
Cheimoon said:
At least there is no sense that it could have been more. It's a clean loss, and that's fine. As @JPRouve said (or was that you?), they're really overachieving getting this far, and that's something to be happy about.
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Tampa are better, it's not really a surprise particularly when we are talking about a team that is 18m over the cap.
 
massi83 said:
So I am back from India. How did that non-playoff team get to the final to get swept? Were they lucky with the draw or something?
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If they were a non-playoff team then the luck was in favor of the other teams, surely? But seriously, Tampa were the favorites at the beginning of the season for a reason, they are big, fast and skilled. And in general I would pick top teams from the Central and East divisision over top teams from the West or North.
 
JPRouve said:
If they were a non-playoff team then the luck was in favor of the other teams, surely? But seriously, Tampa were the favorites at the beginning of the season for a reason, they are big, fast and skilled. And in general I would pick top teams from the Central and East divisision over top teams from the West or North.
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Yes for Vegas and Tampa. Jets is also non-playoff team, and we all know about Toronto and playoffs. All the teams are so close that there is always at least 30% in any match for the underdog. Probably closer to 40% for Montreal against VGK, so in 7 game series it is not uncommon for worse team to go through, better sample size than 1 game, but too small nonetheless.

And Montreal still has 0.4^4 chance so about 2.5%. No reason to go all Vancouver and burn the city yet.
 
massi83 said:
Yes for Vegas and Tampa. Jets is also non-playoff team, and we all know about Toronto and playoffs. All the teams are so close that there is always at least 30% in any match for the underdog. Probably closer to 40% for Montreal against VGK, so in 7 game series it is not uncommon for worse team to go through, better sample size than 1 game, but too small nonetheless.

And Montreal still has 0.4^4 chance so about 2.5%. No reason to go all Vancouver and burn the city yet.
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No one sensible will burn the city, the Canadiens being in the Stanley Cup while relying on a very young players like Suzuki, Caufield and Kotkaniemi is an achievement. Of course you want to capitalize on the opportunity because it may never come back but as I said earlier unlike most finalists, this team wasn't in the Stanley Cup phase, they didn't went all-in and have a lot of high end prospects coming through. Personally I'm more excited by the future than anything else.
 
massi83 said:
And Montreal still has 0.4^4 chance so about 2.5%. No reason to go all Vancouver and burn the city yet.
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Don't worry, they're fine. Too dejected for that now, but fortunately, they did that after the win against Vegas already.

(It was minor, but it was clever of downtown shop owners to have boarded their windows ahead of the match...)
 
Well, at least Montreal have not been swept. Did anybody see the game?
 
Bolts can win it at home now and Habs don’t get shut out.

Good outcome.
 
Cheimoon said:
Well, at least Montreal have not been swept. Did anybody see the game?
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Montreal had no right winning that game, looked a bit like they were running on fumes. Tampa had 3 shots that hit the post and were quite a lot better throughout the whole game imo, but since Montreal were the much better team in game 2 and lost that one I guess there's some justice to it.
 
Congratulations to Tampa Bay for repeating, that's some team they've built. It should be a three peat, but some how they were swept by the Canes when they'd dominated the regular season. I don't think anyone saw Pat Maroon winning 3 years in a row when he left the Oilers. Well done Big Rig..
 
Tribec said:
Congratulations to Tampa Bay for repeating, that's some team they've built. It should be a three peat, but some how they were swept by the Canes when they'd dominated the regular season. I don't think anyone saw Pat Maroon winning 3 years in a row when he left the Oilers. Well done Big Rig..
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Aye, and just your $20mil over the Salary Cap as well.
 
Stobzilla said:
Aye, and just your $20mil over the Salary Cap as well.
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The fact they won the cup last year and the Prez trophy the year before that shows that being over the cap for the playoffs this year isn’t really the reason why they have such a great team.
 
Stobzilla said:
Aye, and just your $20mil over the Salary Cap as well.
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Whilst I agree, they aren't the first team to exploit the loop hole and if other teams could have done it they would. It's up to the NHL to close the loop hole and prevent this happening again. However, over the past 3 years they've been simply outstanding, but I do think we've seen them peak now and I don't see them going again for a 3 in a row.
 
Tribec said:
Whilst I agree, they aren't the first team to exploit the loop hole and if other teams could have done it they would. It's up to the NHL to close the loop hole and prevent this happening again. However, over the past 3 years they've been simply outstanding, but I do think we've seen them peak now and I don't see them going again for a 3 in a row.
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I get it, but I don't think it has been quite this egregious.

"Can we sign these guys and stay under the cap?"
"no"
"Kuch, how do you fancy a year off???"
 
Congrats to Tampa!

I was watching the second period, and Montreal going into its third power play without even having shot on goal during the first two (and the third one was again quite toothless), and it was obvious this was only ever going to go one way. Not that that was news, but anyway. :)
 
Stobzilla said:
I get it, but I don't think it has been quite this egregious.

"Can we sign these guys and stay under the cap?"
"no"
"Kuch, how do you fancy a year off???"
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A lot of people complained when Chicago did the same with Kane in 2015 so now the NHL follows up on these things. They surveyed Kucherov's recovery progress all the way through and found nothing wrong.

It was far from a year as well since the season started Jan 13 and ended May 11. He had the surgery 2 weeks before the season started and that same surgery has kept players like Point and Pasternak off the ice for ~4 months, so if the recovery time is expected to be the same length as the regular season then there's no reason for Tampa to fake anything so they could sign players.

It's a shit rule though and they should've done something about it a long time ago.
 
Florida teams also have a tax advantage. But to be fair to them, they drafted very well and managed to find gems in later rounds or among undrafted players.
 
On that note, all US teams have a financial advantage compared to Canada. It is what it is. (Although loopholes aren't great, of course.)

(I just wish we could have similar discussion about European soccer, but let's not go there in this thread. :D )
 
Cheimoon said:
On that note, all US teams have a financial advantage compared to Canada. It is what it is. (Although loopholes aren't great, of course.)

(I just wish we could have similar discussion about European soccer, but let's not go there in this thread. :D )
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Yes, but Florida is special even in the US.
 
Just read that there was a vote about the LTIR loophole back in 2016 and there were only two teams that voted to close it, St.Louis and.......Tampa. :lol:
 
The Habs lost Joël Bouchard to the Ducks AHL team, it's a shame because he is a brilliiant coach and manager. He is likely angling for the Ducks HC job that could be available in the near future.
 
As a Bruins fan, always happy to see the Habs lose, especially more as my dad is a Habs fan :lol:
 
So Weber is likely going on LTIR, he is expected to miss at least next season and probably more. :(
 
JPRouve said:
So Weber is likely going on LTIR, he is expected to miss at least next season and probably more. :(
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Will he play another NHL game? He does have 5 years remaining on his contract.
 
WeePat said:
Will he play another NHL game? He does have 5 years remaining on his contract.
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Currently the rumour is that his recent injuries(last 4 years) are taking too much of a toll on his body, all of them are lingering, and he is expected to be out for at least 21/22. Now the rumour also says that the surgery that he needs for his foot is career ending, it would allow him to live more comfortably but shouldn't allow him to play NHL level Hockey.

Now it's Shea Weber, if there is a player that is going to try to play through injuries and pain that's him, so if the NHL refuses to let him go on LTIR, I think that he will play until his limbs fall off. Particularly when the consequence of him retiring would be huge for Nashville.
 
@WeePat what do you think about Price being exposed for the expansion draft?
 
JPRouve said:
@WeePat what do you think about Price being exposed for the expansion draft?
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I can't quite make sense of it. There's a good chance Seattle don't pick him anyway because of his high salary. I think that's what MB is banking on, but would Price agree to this if he wasn't on some level OK with leaving Monteal? I dont think so. So maybe there's something brewing here.
 
WeePat said:
I can't quite make sense of it. There's a good chance Seattle don't pick him anyway because of his high salary. I think that's what MB is banking on, but would Price agree to this if he wasn't on some level OK with leaving Monteal? I dont think so. So maybe there's something brewing here.
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The sense is that he has a massive cap hit and hasn't been the best goalie in the league in the last seasons. While it would be weird to see him go, it would make a lot of sense since if you only consider Price and one of the bottom line defenders, you put yourself in a position to add a top 4 defenseman and a top 15 goalie. Now that's also why the Kraken may not take him, his contract isn't good but for an expansion team it would be manageable. And it seems that he is OK with it since he allegedly waived is no movement clause.

To me it feels like a potential win-win situation either the Habs keep a player that I like or they get rid of a bad contract without losing prospects or draft picks.

Edit: So the Habs officially exposed Weber, Drouin and Price. It's going to be interesting to see if the Krakens bite.
 
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JPRouve said:
The sense is that he has a massive cap hit and hasn't been the best goalie in the league in the last seasons. While it would be weird to see him go, it would make a lot of sense since if you only consider Price and one of the bottom line defenders, you put yourself in a position to add a top 4 defenseman and a top 15 goalie. Now that's also why the Kraken may not take him, his contract isn't good but for an expansion team it would be manageable. And it seems that he is OK with it since he allegedly waived is no movement clause.

To me it feels like a potential win-win situation either the Habs keep a player that I like or they get rid of a bad contract without losing prospects or draft picks.

Edit: So the Habs officially exposed Weber, Drouin and Price. It's going to be interesting to see if the Krakens bite.
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Yeah I suppose that does makes sense. It's hard to imagine him playing for another team, and I think MB is gambling on the fact that Seattle will scoff at the size of his contract. I can see the appeal of getting that kind of contract off the books but it's hard to view it as a win-win because I value Price's presence more than the cap space he would leave behind.
 
WeePat said:
Yeah I suppose that does makes sense. It's hard to imagine him playing for another team, and I think MB is gambling on the fact that Seattle will scoff at the size of his contract. I can see the appeal of getting that kind of contract off the books but it's hard to view it as a win-win because I value Price's presence more than the cap space he would leave behind.
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I'm more bothered by Weber potentially not playing, I think that his presence is more important than Price's. In his prime Price was unreal but he is allegedly solitary, when you combine it with his declining play, I'm okay with the idea and have entertained it for a while.
 
@WeePat I guess you saw it but Weber is officially done for the year and according to Bergevin, he is most likely completely done. Now the question is whether he retires or goes on LTIR, the former would hit Nashville very hard.
 
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