EHM The Blue Line

I really don't agree with how Vigneault is coaching the Rangers.
Giving Staal, Holden and GIrardi so much more minutes than Skjei and Smith despite playing worse.
Same thing for forwards, Buchnevich and Lindberg had very little playing time and this when other players are not producing(Stepan, Miller, Hayes, Vesey to name afew)
Next he'll probably dress Tanner Glass...

3-0 Ducks in the first. Seems like Talbot is having a bad day.

Nice rally from the Oilers (this McDavid goal ), but they dropped it anyway, it's their mandatory "take more than 5 goals" loss of the series.

Manimal wrote:I really don't agree with how Vigneault is coaching the Rangers.
Giving Staal, Holden and GIrardi so much more minutes than Skjei and Smith despite playing worse.

I've watched NYR some since Smith was traded, and I obviously watched Smith a ton with DET.

When he was playing on the top pairing he looked pretty lost even as some Ranger fans were praising him for some reason. If it didn't work with McDonagh, I'm not sure who NYR can play with him to make him effective.

And I still have no clue what anyone sees in him. Skjei is having to cover for Smith, for crying out loud. I know Rangers fans don't want that trade to be a disaster but... I don't believe Vigneault when he says he "forgot" to play Smith's pairing. He knew he wasn't playing him, and he doesn't trust that pairing.

Yes, Smith isn't great but Staal and Holden is not very good either

It's not looking good for Crosby. I hope for him it's not another concussion.

philou21 wrote:It's not looking good for Crosby. I hope for him it's not another concussion.

Really unfortunate that he fell down with the head on Niskanen's stick. I don't think it's a concussion. But as he's had those a lot already it might be one... as he's more prone to them.

People were mad at Niskanen but when I watched the news this morning I saw the sequence and it's mostly bad luck. I don't think Niskanen expected Crosby to fell and he put his arms in front of him as a reflex more than doing a cross check.

philou21 wrote:People were mad at Niskanen but when I watched the news this morning I saw the sequence and it's mostly bad luck. I don't think Niskanen expected Crosby to fell and he put his arms in front of him as a reflex more than doing a cross check.

Yeah, Niskanen isn't even looking at Crosby. He's looking at the front of the net and the puck. He sees a blob in his peripheral vision coming at him, and puts his hands up to his abdomen/chest area to brace himself for possible impact. Crosby is falling at that time, and thus he falls down onto where Niskanen has his stick. I'm really not sure what Niskanen could do differently. He wasn't happy with the original minor and you could almost tell he was like "Whatever, it happens I guess"... but when it became a major and a game you could see how incredibly upset he was, and I don't blame him.

Just saw the clip of the Crosby injury.....what stood out to me was Ovechkin's defensive play/slashing (casing Crosby to fall in front of Niskanen)

Didn't seem connected to bad luck to me; Crosby would never have been falling if not for the two slashes (in particular the one to the head)

Yeah mostly it's Ovy's fault but Niskanen's reflex on Crosby is bad luck I think.

philou21 wrote:Niskanen's reflex on Crosby is bad luck I think.

I can see that

Or more bad timing.

Who's gonna stop the Preds? Seems like this team is unstoppable right now. I know alot of people in MTL that are going to be angry if PK lifts the Cup at his first season in Nashville. So far I'm pretty surprised by PK's game. He seems to have improved since the trade.

I have been on the Predators bandwagon ever since it became clear the Flyers wouldn't make the playoffs this year. So far, I'm not regretting my choice Hopefully they can end the series in Game 5 to rest for the WCF

philou21 wrote:Who's gonna stop the Preds? Seems like this team is unstoppable right now. I know alot of people in MTL that are going to be angry if PK lifts the Cup at his first season in Nashville. So far I'm pretty surprised by PK's game. He seems to have improved since the trade.

It's interesting as a DET fan. DET fans have hated NAS for a long time not because of necessarily being a threat, but because for so many years Trotz's NAS teams were dirty as all get out against DET. So we've always wanted misfortune for the Preds as a sort of karmic payback.

However, a lot of those NAS guys are gone, and Weber leaving was about the last of it. And getting Subban back in return.... a lot of people love Subban. And in particular, they want to see Subban succeed and wave it in MTL's face, and haaaaaaating Shea Weber the way DET fans do only makes that stronger, because it would be funny for Weber to leave and suddenly NAS has real success. So there are a lot of NAS fans in Michigan at the moment.

Washington has a chance now to win when Crosby is out. But not if Holtby doesn't step up his game. He's always been a superb playoff goalie, but not this year.

Four years deal with an average of 4.2 millions for Darling in Carolina. What the heck is that deal?

Miracle comeback by the Ducks

My friend who is a Ducks fan was going crazy over that game Also, it was nice to watch some live overtime hockey at 9am

That's gonna hurt for the Oilers. The momentum seems to have switched in that serie.

philou21 wrote:That's gonna hurt for the Oilers. The momentum seems to have switched in that serie.

It was the first home game win in that series.

Still the Ducks are on a 3 game win streak. In the playoffs I call that momentum. The Oilers are afterall a pretty young team. Losing a 3-0 lead in 4 minutes doesn't happeb often.

Ottawa

And Nashville goes foward. I hope they can make it to the SC finale.