Curmudgeon

Elliotte splitting hairs about the colour of webbing in Silovs catcher. Good grief.

So has anyone realized that if the Canucks were to go to the Cup Final, we would be stuck with commentary by Craig Simpson every frickin' game?

I honestly don't get all the Podz love that is happening in this thread. He did nothing for Abbotsford in the playoffs and scored no goals in 19 games with Vancouver this season. He's like a hamster on a treadmill; he goes everywhere at 100 miles an hour but never gets anywhere. And he can't put the puck in the ocean with a dump truck. Just exactly what does he bring that can make a difference in a tight series?

Not a Botterill fan, but she was right. Zadorov's dive got him a 9.5 from the Russian judge.

I don't think Hronek is as valuable as some people think. Hronek in first half of the 23-24 season: 34 points in 41 games. In second half 14 points in 41 games. In first half of 22-23 season with Detroit: 29 points. In the second half 10 points. I also believe that Hronek's defensive play dropped off in the second half of the season. Regardless, he will still command more money than Vancouver can afford. For this reason, I think they will trade him before July 1st, maybe at the draft. The Canucks have three potential replacements in Woo, Johansson and McWard. While I really like Woo's physicality, I lean towards McWard as being the better all-round player. Johansson may be too small for Vancouver.

Tanner Pearson, Alex Chiasson, Luke Schenn, Brad Hunt, Tyler Motte, Juho Lammikko, Matthew Highmore, Jason Dickinson, Travis Hamonic, Kyle Burroughs, Tucker Poolman, Jaroslav Halak, Brad Richardson. All of these guys were roster players in Green's last season. Seriously, who could have won anything with that lineup? Coaches always get too much credit when the team wins, and too much blame when they don't. Green was a competent coach who did the best he could with the players Benning signed or trade for. Up to the time COVID threw a monkey wrench into everything, Vancouver was in the mushy middle; not good enough to contend and not bad enough to score a top three draft pick. In Ottawa, Green is inheriting a team whose top 12 forwards average out at just over 22 years of age (minus dinosaur Claude Giroux, 36) and the top six defencemen average just under 25 years old. He'll have way more to work with in Ottawa than he did in Vancouver. I wish him well and hope that Ottawa makes the playoffs next year.

The first time I watched the Mark Stone clip I thought it was real. Whoever did this is genius....

Brilliant. Just brilliant.

Not even an hour after the game ended, Nick Kypreos was already trading Marner and exploring ways to get rid of Tavares. The Toronto media will have nothing to do all off season but carve the Leafs into tiny, indigestible little pieces. I don't know why anybody would choose to play there. Living in toxic fishbowl.

Yeah, and he has another TWO years on his contract in Toronto at $1.3AAV. Seems like semi-retirement to me.

Unfortunately, hockey isn't played on paper.

I was immensely dejected from 1970 through the Cup Final in 1982, then again until 1994, then really bummed during the Three Dark Winters of Messier, then massively bummed again in 2011. I am loving every minute of this team in the playoffs, and have nothing but praise and gratitude for the Rutherford/Allvin/Granato/Castonguay/Johnson team. They've brought in size, speed, toughness and a coaching staff made up of guys who have been to the Big Dance and have their names on the Cup. My hope is that this team goes all the way to the Final, because a bunch of them won't be back next season, and that might make me mildly dejected.

Funny to me that you say that. In my original post I had added a sentence at the end that said "Very Benning-like" but I deleted it. And I slightly disagree that the team was built for the regular season. I think the team was built to feed the egos of Matthews, Marner, Tavares, Nylander and Rielly. Next year they will use up $54,153,000 of Toronto's cap. This seems unsustainable to me.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. If the Leafs can't get past Boston, I think it might spell the end of Shanahan. Ten seasons, six and soon to be seven first round defeats, two seasons missing the playoffs, and one defeat in the second round. So, one playoff round won out of eight playoff seasons.

Ah, memories, Rupert. When my eldest was about 3, she would come running whenever she heard the Coach's Corner intro music, yelling "Donnnn Cherrrrry". Later that season she told me she didn't like hockey. I asked her why. She said "Dat guy talks too much", meaning the play-by-play guy. My younger daughter has absolutely zero interest in or knowledge about hockey. I took them both to a WHL game when they were about 6 and 4 and spent all of the game getting them food and drink, escorting them to and from the washroom, and completely missing most of the game. Now that they've both grown up, elder daughter will sit patiently and listen while I explain salary cap issues or bad officiating or the brilliance of Quinn Hughes, while the younger remains blissfully hockey free. Just goes to prove that two kids growing up in the same house, with the same parents, with the same routines can result in totally different outcomes.