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I will admit ignorance here, but when does the season end?
I would love to watch a game of ice hockey and Ill be in Canada in August so may actually get to go to one if the season hasnt ended by then.I will admit ignorance here, but when does the season end?
It ended for me the night the Vancouver Canucks lost their chance to make the playoffs…
You will have a tough time finding a NHL game in August and any game during the playoffs would be difficult to find tickets for.
Growing up in Toronto, i always cheered for Montreal, cuz that’s the kinda guy i am.
I used to get so pumped for Montreal-Boston series when i was a kid, not so much anymore, maybe cuz i’m older or because the game changed and i realize that most players are the same everywhere, i watched game 1, Price is a sharp goalie
Montreal looks good, Detroit is the team to beat, Pittsburgh and San Jose look fresh
nick777
Based on regular season standings, Detroit has been the “team to beat” for a few years. But, they don’t seem to meet expectations in the playoffs.
The teams that have a shot at the cup (Imho) this year are:
– Montreal
– Calgary
– New York Rangers (dark horse)Pittsburg will walk on Ottawa, but I don’t think they will get past the 2nd or 3rd round.
San Jose is in tough against a game Calgary side. Iginla had a record season and has an all-round game that can push Calgary a long ways. 50/50 on this one but my nod goes to Calgary because they are Canadian and Iginla is a force.
The Habs have a good shot at winning it all unless they fall apart. Their specialty teams are hot – #1 powerplay in the league in regular season.
Dallas should dispose of Anaheim unless the Ducks start to use their size and tougness to maximum effectiveness – but I don’t see this happening enough for them to win the series. Dallas won’t go far after this series.
As far as the rest of the series, not all that interested at this stage and this Cup is a hard one to call I think – so my 3 choices are made with hesitation.
Kevin11 – Canucks Fan Sometimes
I used to get so pumped for Montreal-Boston series when i was a kid
I still do :bigsmile: It’s been a pretty exciting series so far, with both games on the weekend going into OT. I still think the Habs will take the Bruins in 5 though.
I think Pittsburg and Detroit are two other teams to look out for.
@Kevin11 159585 wrote:
nick777
Based on regular season standings, Detroit has been the “team to beat” for a few years. But, they don’t seem to meet expectations in the playoffs.
The teams that have a shot at the cup (Imho) this year are:
– Montreal
– Calgary
– New York Rangers (dark horse)Pittsburg will walk on Ottawa, but I don’t think they will get past the 2nd or 3rd round.
San Jose is in tough against a game Calgary side. Iginla had a record season and has an all-round game that can push Calgary a long ways. 50/50 on this one but my nod goes to Calgary because they are Canadian and Iginla is a force.
The Habs have a good shot at winning it all unless they fall apart. Their specialty teams are hot – #1 powerplay in the league in regular season.
Dallas should dispose of Anaheim unless the Ducks start to use their size and tougness to maximum effectiveness – but I don’t see this happening enough for them to win the series. Dallas won’t go far after this series.
As far as the rest of the series, not all that interested at this stage and this Cup is a hard one to call I think – so my 3 choices are made with hesitation.
Kevin11 – Canucks Fan Sometimes
I was watching San Jose and Calgary, and secretly cheering for Calgary to win game 3 when they were down 3-0, Sarich with the big hit changed the mental perspective of the series, showing champ form from his Tampa Bay cup win, he basically announced, we can kick San Jose’s ass in a fight, and they turned it into that kind of a series, and Calgary fought hard for their goals and took the lead in the series and the momentum.
Looking at it another way, San Jose looks a bit fresher, they slacked through game 3 and should have more energy left, when they get the momentum back they will be dangerous, they can score fast, expect Marleau to show off some of his creative talents and push this series to 6-7 games.
It’s a bit of a tough call, i like the way Calgary plays, but it’s always the young players that rise in the playoffs and make a difference, the 2 forwards from each team with the most shots on goal so far in the series are Joe Pavelski – 24 years old (SJ) 18 shots, Ryan Clowe – 26 years old (SJ) 15 shots, Jarome Iginla – 31 years old (CAL) 15 shots, Craig Conroy – 37 years old (CAL) 7 shots, give the edge to San Jose in the youngblood category.
That’s the edge i see for San Jose, they look like they can improve while Calgary can’t play much better than they already are, and if Roenick remembers how to use his jedi skills and Thornton starts scoring, Calgary might not win another game.
Pittsburgh looks good, they should roll past everyone in the East, with the exception of Montreal, and that’s my prediction for the East Final, either one of them will skate circles around your Rangers and their cheating ways
Detroit is the team to beat every year because they are consistently good, changes this year for the playoffs, on defence, In – Nick Kronvall, Brad Stuart, Brian Rafalski, Out – Matthieu Schneider, Danny Markov, Brett Lebda < big improvement in speed, youth and offense, on offense, In - Mike Hartigan, Darren McCarty, Dallas Drake, Out - Robert Lang, Kyle Calder, Todd Bertuzzi < more speed and hustle They improved their overall speed a lot, and that’s why i like all 4 of the teams i picked, Montreal, Pittsburgh, Detroit, San Jose, they look like the 4 fastest skating teams in the playoffs, and have those young, fresh speedsters that make a difference
I still do It’s been a pretty exciting series so far, with both games on the weekend going into OT. I still think the Habs will take the Bruins in 5 though.
I think Pittsburg and Detroit are two other teams to look out for.
I agree with everything u said, including your spelling of Pittsburg, stupid H serves no purpose in that word
The hockey playoffs is like having the Christmas seasons TWICE a year! The buzz in the air here in Michigan is something that you can just feel when you walk into a pub around here. A collective groan echoed last night when the Preds ousted a Wings team that was on it’s heals for most of the game. I hope this is a character building loss. Detroit is a blue collar team, gone are the days of scoring at will and they will need to work hard to go deep.
San Jose looked great in the first season but Calgary is ALWAYS cup hungry. The Habs, well they are the Habs, expect wins. The Ducks had a chance, someone needs to remind them that they are in the playoffs and should play accordingly.
GO WINGS!Julia, tonight it’s going down… Montreal to take Boston in 5!
And as all the Hab fans are saying….with Carey Price in nets, you can already smell the cup (that was translated from French of course) :tongue:
Ugh, game 6 was so frustrating, but some good hockey was played at least.
Here’s hoping the Habs can finally finish off the Bruins tonight – Boston has enough top level sports teams they should share some of the winning :tongue:
Montreal showing a lack of killer instinct, where are all those French assassins i used to love so much, guys like Stephane Richer, there aren’t any on the team, those guys knew how to end a series, and where’s the shut down plugger line, Montreal is just blowing lead after lead, this never happened with players like Mike Keane on the team
That’s the biggest thing i’ve noticed, the Montreal forwards are good offensively but terrible defensively, they better win tonight, this series should’ve been over
San Jose/Calgary turned out to be the best 1st round series, game 7 should be good
I’ll take back what i said about the Rangers, things are going nice for them with the other teams in the East battling to the wire and getting beat up, if they avoid Pittsburgh in the next round they will be ok
Used to be a Leafs fan but I cannot tolerate horrible management and I believe they deserve an award for it too.
Habs just lost to Philly on a close game. Price needs a break by a game or 2 and Halak can hold his own.
Detroit I think can be the team to beat this year and might be hungrier than before.
Dallas looks very strong and any sportsbetting fans should look at Turco’s career record vs San Jose in the playoffs
In the East it looks like Pitts versus winners of Philly/Mtrl and I cannot predict where the series will end up.
My sportsbetting website linked here is 90% about hockey.
And about Montreal.. :sarcasm:
How can they blow leads when they always trail!
My goodness, they scored the most goals in the league and yet right now they couldn’t score in a soccer goal. It’s my team and they suck.Hey hey, all my predictions came true so far, where’s my prize
Montreal blew a great chance tonight with Hatcher out for most of the 3rd period, they could’ve taken that game into overtime and really worn down Philly’s shorthanded defence
Nothing really wrong with how Montreal is playing, Philly’s goalie Biron is playing way over his head, and that’s been the only difference, Price has been average and might need a rest, but it’s tough to bench him, his confidence is already low
I think Montreal can get back into it if they keep hustling out there, and another thing that would really help is a good power forward like Richer, which reminds me, what happened to Ryder, u have to play that guy, they need someone to run at Philly’s defence, they’re big and clearing out everything in front of Biron.
Dallas looks good, i noticed that in the 1st round, Turco is playing good, Ribeiro and Richards are nice additions, physically they look fit as a team, i picked San Jose to win their last series when they were down, not sure i’ll do it this time, they look tired, Thornton is falling over on the ice all by himself and Nabokov is letting in those mental fatigue goals.
Pittsburgh is lighting it up, it feels like i’m watching Gretzky and Lemieux playing on the same team with Crosby and Malkin, they are rolling in a big way, 6-0 in the playoffs so far, they’re gonna have a will Pittsburgh go 16-0 in the playoffs line at the sportsbook coming out soon
Detroit is getting it done with speed, they’ve outskated every team they’ve played so far, still the team to beat
About the Leafs, if they were smart they’d hire me to run that team, i talked to Ken Dryden about it a few years ago, he gave me the impression that he was limited as to what he could do, meaning the team hierarchy didn’t give him complete control and free reign over the time.
My first duties would be trading Mats Sundin, i’ve been saying trade him for over 10 years, while they could still get some quality young players for him, and then i’d break out some coin and hire Scotty Bowman as the coach, and i’d bring in Larry Robinson as a defensive coach, he created that New Jersey Cup winning dynasty, most people wouldn’t know that because he was fired the same year they went on to win the cup, and instead of trading away young prospects(who go on to win the cup with Tampa Bay)for broken down veterans, i would focus on the draft and properly developing young players.
Yeah, I agree about Ryder sure his confidence is lost a little but I say put him back in this high energy high pressure environment and let him prove some critics wrong. Biron is playing very good and Price is showing some inconsistencies so I think Halak is good enough to win the next game I would rest Price for another game.
I predict Dallas vs Detroit but I haven’t seen how they matched up in the regular season. I like both teams but I almost get the feeling that Detroit might not be the harder working team and I think Dallas may be able to upset them. I am writing off San Jose, I like their team but you can’t expect them to be good to go after a tough 7 game series against Calgary. The winner of that series I thought was going to have problems against their next opponent.
Pittsburgh is a fun team to watch and I think they will beat Rangers especially with this 2-0 lead but at the start of the series I thought Rangers had a good chance to upset them.
I stopped caring for the Maple Leafs right after Scotty Bowman said on Hockey Night in Canada that he was interested in the job and then later in the summer Peddie told him they were not interested. I mean they hire JFJ but don’t let him run things his way and you know Peddie had some influence on some of the deals. I don’t think JFJ was that bad and I really don’t know who was responsible for McCabe and Kubina deals. Hiring Fletcher as a patch job was just plain stupid, he trades away players for draft picks and who ends up representing the Leafs at the Draft? They expect this guy to make short term changes and setup a shot for another GM to come in and do the job. Very irresponsible. How would I change the Leafs? Well it starts w/ a new GM and fortunately there are good people in place. I like Nonis, I think Burke is interested but the timing is just off and it’s tough to hire someone for just 1 year. Maybe Nonis and then next year make him assistant to Burke. Armstrong I don’t think is a bad guy for the job either.
I will put the above Leafs discussion to rest, I will go on and on and only get frustrated about it. I do like and respect teams that do things right and the Leafs sure as hell are not it. Philly is stacked with talent, so is Nashville and I would say the same for Chicago.
Make Ryder play with who?
1- He played with just about every combination possible, and it didn’t click this year.
2- He knows he’s out at the end of the season. He has known this for months and has no drive. Some players, when they’re about to become free agents, go on fire. He went colder than my girlfriend.
I agree with nick about them not having the killer instinct. A lot of people here blame it on Europeans. I’m not racist in real life but in hockey I am. There certainly are some great europeans with heart, but not on this team. I don’t agree about the Canadians playing well. The ONLY game they significantly outplayed the opponent is the first game against Boston. They struggled in each of the other games. You know this is the case when Guy has to play with his lines. In fact he broke the only line that worked, Begin Smolinski Kostopoulos. You know you’re in trouble when your best line is “energy players” aka 4th liners.
