The Official NHL Playoffs Thread

[Triumph36]

yeah alfredsson only had one goal tonight - boy he stinks in the playoffs.

hard to see what ottawa's doing wrong, but the ducks just seem to have an answer for whatever they attempt on offense.

[Hopey]

[ QUOTE ]
yeah alfredsson only had one goal tonight - boy he stinks in the playoffs.

hard to see what ottawa's doing wrong, but the ducks just seem to have an answer for whatever they attempt on offense.

[/ QUOTE ]

The Ducks are a very strong team. That's about all there is to it. The Sens have had a very good season, and a phenomenal playoffs, but they finally met their match. The Ducks have held the Sens top line in check, and unfortunately the Sens don't have much scoring after Spezza, Heatley, and Alfredsson.

I'm still holding out hope that they can win game 5, but I'm definitely not counting on it.

[Hopey]

[ QUOTE ]
yeah alfredsson only had one goal tonight - boy he stinks in the playoffs.

hard to see what ottawa's doing wrong, but the ducks just seem to have an answer for whatever they attempt on offense.

[/ QUOTE ]

Once the Ducks went up 3-2, they went into total trap mode. They lined up 4 guys in the neutral zone and kept one guy deep back in their own end. The Sens would try to dump the puck in to get by the players in the neutral zone, but the guy playing deep would almost always clear it out of Anaheim's end. The Sens seemed to keep trying this tactic over and over and over again, with absolutely no success. The Ducks did the same thing in games 1 and 2.

[DonkeyKongSr]

[ QUOTE ]
yeah alfredsson only had one goal tonight - boy he stinks in the playoffs.

hard to see what ottawa's doing wrong, but the ducks just seem to have an answer for whatever they attempt on offense.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's what the Ducks have been all playoffs...actually all season...a fantastic matchup team. They play whatever style they need to win. It leads to a lot of tough 1 goal wins as they sacrifice offense for getting the right defensive matchups.

[Assani Fisher]

forgive me if this has already been discussed as I havn't been following the thread, but...

Game 3 equals NBC's lowest rating ever for prime-time program

Tim Cowlishaw's 10 ways to fix hockey

[Zurvan]

Wow

Moving hockey season back a month is a terrible idea. Nobody wants to watch hockey in July.

Shootouts in the playoffs? Nope, never.

Contraction? How much do you owe the owners of those teams when you kick them out of the league? How about the employees? Totally unreasonable solution, IMO.

Otherwise, it's a decent article.

[Triumph36]

These 10 ways to fix hockey are mostly terrible. I'll go through them, since I'm bored.

1 - Microphones on captains and coaches. Good idea. League would hate it, though.

2. Start the league a month later. Uh, no. Terrible, terrible idea. The NHL should not run until late June.

3. Change the schedule to include more inter-conference play. No, this is an awful idea too. Sure, Crosby gets one more game in Dallas or LA - it also means that the New York Islanders get to play in Vancouver, and that Florida-Phoenix match has already sold out.

4. Get back on ESPN - this I can agree with, but ESPN has to agree to give hockey a regular night and time at which we can see a game.

5. Let skaters in the shootout go without helmets - not possible, was rejected by the players' union and/or insurance. Otherwise, I'd agree.

6. Eliminate icing during the penalty kill. Awful idea. Power plays already determined one Cup winner (Carolina), they're given out on arbitrary penalties. It also creates a lot more stoppages in play.

7. Adopt the 2-3-2 format for every series. Hey, let's reduce the home team's minute edge even more! Awful.

8. Shootout after 40 minutes of overtime. There's not that many long overtimes anymore, so this is unnecessary. The NHL should instead put one commercial in the middle of each overtime period.

9. Move the league office to Atlanta - this is obviously facetious.

10. Contract to 26 teams. This is impossible. The NHL would have to eat the teams, making it a losing proposition. Talent isn't spread out too widely in the NHL - just about every team has a star player - but there are some markets that don't function well. Still, the league gains little and loses a lot of $ to do this.

[Zurvan]

[ QUOTE ]

6. Eliminate icing during the penalty kill. Awful idea. Power plays already determined one Cup winner (Carolina), they're given out on arbitrary penalties. It also creates a lot more stoppages in play.

[/ QUOTE ]

I forgot about this one, because it was so awful.

If they do anything to the icing rules, it should be to add (intelligent) no-touch icing rules.

[Assani Fisher]

I actually like the moving the season forward a month idea. I don't think it really matters if its in summer- we're watching it, not playing it. Having no competition from the NBA would help the playoffs imo.

[Triumph36]

[ QUOTE ]
I actually like the moving the season forward a month idea. I don't think it really matters if its in summer- we're watching it, not playing it. Having no competition from the NBA would help the playoffs imo.

[/ QUOTE ]

why not just schedule the whole NHL season when the NBA isn't playing? The NHL will begin in late June and end in late October. I like this idea.

The NBA and NHL are competing all the time, so as a result their fan bases tend to be very different. In fact, is any consistent poster on this thread a consistent poster on the NBA thread? Not really.