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 finalsFinished 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!
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.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
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.
Tampa are better, it's not really a surprise particularly when we are talking about a team that is 18m over the cap.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Don't worry, they're fine. Too dejected for that now, but fortunately, they did that after the win against Vegas already.
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.
Battered them mate.
Aye, and just your $20mil over the Salary Cap as well.
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.
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.
I get it, but I don't think it has been quite this egregious.
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.
)Yes, but Florida is special even in the US.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.
Will he play another NHL game? He does have 5 years remaining on his contract.So Weber is likely going on LTIR, he is expected to miss at least next season and probably more.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
