NHL 2021-22 Postseason

[Isgrimnur]

PIT-TBL and SEA-VGK to kick off the festivities this evening.

[telcta]

Nice, thank you. I see this now on Hulu with ESPN+ so that’s good. Wasn’t sure if I could see ESPN games on +.

If anyone else is streaming this on Hulu, is the Bitrate low? If I switch to the Spanish feed, it’s crystal clear so I know it’s not my connection. Oh,yeah, it must be the feed for the game because the commercials are very clear.

Anyway… yay, hockey!

[telcta]

So I have both Jarry and Vasilevskiy on my fantasy team, I only chose one to play… I chose wrong.

[Zaxxon]

Nathan MacKinnon to miss tonight's Avs-Hawks opener after testing positive for COVID, and if that's not a succinct representation of the state of the world today, I don't know what is.

[gilraen]

Avs coach has been out for over a week now after testing positive for COVID, but might be back for Saturday's game.

And yes, the entire team and staff are 100% vaccinated. Actually, according to the NHL commissioner, all but 4 players in all of NHL are vaccinated.

I caught a few highlights from the Kraken-Vegas game last night. Was mostly curious to see how our former goalie (Grubauer) was doing against last season's perpetual nemesis (VGK). Not too hot, apparently. Kraken did get their groove somewhat in the 3rd, but it was too little, too late. I'm sure it didn't help that they also had a bunch of players out in COVID protocol.

[Jeff V]

Nathan MacKinnon to miss tonight's Avs-Hawks opener after testing positive for COVID, and if that's not a succinct representation of the state of the world today, I don't know what is.

As near as I can tell, this game didn't happen, it was not on any of the Comcrap channels.Maybe Wirtz Jr. is channeling his old man and banning the televising of games in the Chicago market?

[Jeff V]

Oh, finally found it, it's a 9 pm start. That's not a good time, so it's an early indication that I won't develop an affinity for hockey this year.

[telcta]

TNT has the Avs-Hawks game and my Comcast tier does not have TNT so I have no option other than to spend $35 for Sling TV to watch a handful of games a month. I wanted to watch Fleury tonight... I hope he does well for you guys.

[gilraen]

Oh, finally found it, it's a 9 pm start. That's not a good time, so it's an early indication that I won't develop an affinity for hockey this year.

That's because it's nationally televised. I hated it on NBC Sports "Wednesday Night Hockey" last year and I'll probably hate it on TNT or whatever this year. The announcers suck, and the game starts late because they need to finish showing the East Coast game (fingers crossed that sucker doesn't go into overtime).

Edit: ok, I take back the part about the announcers, the TNT team is head and shoulders above NBCSN (and not just because they have Gretzky in the studio).

[Jeff V]

So the Hawks shit themselves in the opener, another early indication they will not generate interest this year.

[The Meal]

[The Meal]

[Jeff V]

[The Meal]

Spoiler:

It's going to be this sort of season, then.

[Zaxxon]

That might be the most Recent Red Wings thing I've seen.

[pr0ner]

So the Hawks shit themselves in the opener, another early indication they will not generate interest this year.

I mean, sure, write off their whole season after one game against one of the best teams in the league.

[Zaxxon]

So the Hawks shit themselves in the opener, another early indication they will not generate interest this year.

I mean, sure, write off their whole season after one game against one of the best teams in the league.

It's not even like they played badly.

[Jolor]

Nice to see the Brady Tkachuk RFA saga behind us. No one blinked at offering Chabot 8x8 so people shouldn't be surprised at Tkacuk getting 7x8.2. It really feels like the player contracts are reaching a new level of stratification with teams identifying their core and locking them up at young ages for their core years. I was actually anticipating him donning a sweater with the C while being announced last night but him showing up at the game was good.

I certainly don't think the Sens are playoff bound this year (maybe next?) but it's good to see their younger players showing their ready for this league.

[Hrdina]

Actually, according to the NHL commissioner, all but 4 players in all of NHL are vaccinated.

Apparently the Devils' goalie is one of that four. He says he will "probably" be getting it soon...

[Jeff V]

So the Hawks shit themselves in the opener, another early indication they will not generate interest this year.

I mean, sure, write off their whole season after one game against one of the best teams in the league.

It's not even like they played badly.

3 games in now and 0-82 is still possible!

[Zaxxon]

So the Hawks shit themselves in the opener, another early indication they will not generate interest this year.

I mean, sure, write off their whole season after one game against one of the best teams in the league.

It's not even like they played badly.

3 games in now and 0-82 is still possible!

It is not.

[Jeff V]

Is ESPN lying then? According to them, they have 2 losses plus one OT loss in 3 games. Or did the NHL change their season from 82 games? (or was it 80?)

[Zaxxon]

Is ESPN lying then? According to them, they have 2 losses plus one OT loss in 3 games. Or did the NHL change their season from 82 games? (or was it 80?)

Their worst possible record is 0-81-1.

[Jeff V]

OT loss is not a tie, AFAIK. It's just a loss that gives one a point.

[pr0ner]

OT loss is not a tie, AFAIK. It's just a loss that gives one a point.

An OT loss is not a tie, but the NHL records records as W-L-OTL. Zaxxon is correct here. 0-81-1 is not the same as 0-82.

[Jeff V]

Is that OTL a source of pride? No? A loss is a loss, stop trying to put lipstick on a pig.

[TheMix]

Is that OTL a source of pride? No? A loss is a loss, stop trying to put lipstick on a pig.

Do you even watch hockey? It's not a source of pride. It is, however, worth a point. A loss is worth nothing. The two are very different. I know you are incapable of admitting that you are wrong, but you are really stretching things here.

[Zaxxon]

Is that OTL a source of pride? No? A loss is a loss, stop trying to put lipstick on a pig.

Do you even watch hockey? It's not a source of pride. It is, however, worth a point. A loss is worth nothing. The two are very different. I know you are incapable of admitting that you are wrong, but you are wrong.

FTFY.

[The Meal]

Paywalled...

Down Goes Brown: Streaks, spoilers, and other suggested New Season’s Resolutions

By Sean McIndoe Oct 7, 2021
With opening night of the 2021-22 NHL season now less than a week away, it’s time for one of my favorite annual traditions: the New Season’s Resolutions column, in which I offer up a few suggestions for how we could all be a little bit better at this hockey fan thing.

That’s all these are — just ideas, not commandments. As always, you’re welcome to try out all of them, or pick and choose one or two, or roll your eyes and tell me to get lost. But we all have room for improvement, and now’s as good a time as any to think about how we can make that happen.

We’ll start with what might be the most important resolution we can all make this year, because it touches on one of the worst parts of hockey fandom …

Let’s not gatekeep these new fans (especially in Seattle)
With a new expansion team in place, the NHL has a rare opportunity to do something it’s struggled with over the decades and add a significant number of new fans. That’s a good thing, but sometimes you wouldn’t know it by how the rest of us treat the newbies. It feels like so many of us want to descend on the rookies and test them, making sure that they’re worthy of joining our club. Some of us just seem to be waiting for them to make a mistake, so we can declare that they’re fakers and exile them from the kingdom of True Hockey Fans.

I’ll go ahead and give us the benefit of the doubt and say that this all comes from a good place. We love this sport, and we know that means we’re in the minority. We’ve all seen the cheap punch lines and lazy coverage, and we think hockey deserves better. There’s an old joke that hockey isn’t anyone’s second-favorite sport, because you’re either obsessed or you don’t care, and whether that’s true or not we’ve kind of internalized the idea. If you’re not obsessed then you must not care, and if you don’t care you’re probably going to do more harm than good, so get lost and let the real fans enjoy what we enjoy.

OK, fine. But that can’t work when it comes to new fans, and new markets. There is a learning curve with this sport, and it’s a steeper one that we’d like to admit. And stereotypes aside, nobody actually goes from being a non-fan to an obsessive overnight. Maybe they get there eventually, but there’s going to be some time where they’re still figuring things out. And that means they might not understand a rule, or get a name wrong, or cheer at the wrong time, or tweet something dumb. If all of us in the old guard are racing to pile on every time that happens, we’re just driving potential fans away from a league that desperately needs them.

To be clear, that doesn’t make it our job to sell the league to a new audience. The NHL has its own PR department, and if you don’t work there then you don’t have to pretend that everything is wonderful all the time. But you also don’t have to actively drive potential fans away by sending them the message that they don’t belong, or that they aren’t welcome. Give them a chance to try the sport on for size. Some will like what they see and stick around, others won’t, and that’s how it’s supposed to work.

Maybe a few of those new fans will even become the next generation of embittered diehards, complaining about the refs and hating the loser point and booing Gary Bettman. If so, awesome. But until then, save the pop quizzes and eye rolls and give them a chance to get settled in.

Let’s call a streak a streak
The NHL hasn’t had ties since the shootout arrived in 2005, which means that there are only two results a team can have. They can win, or they can lose. Those losses can come in different flavors, and some of them even yield points in the standings, but they’re still losses. And if a team loses a bunch of games in a row, that’s a losing streak.

You wouldn’t think this is controversial. But in today’s NHL, it apparently is, because the league doesn’t think a losing streak is always a losing streak.

Instead, the league counts regulation losses and overtime/shootout losses as two categories, and uses that distinction to continually reset losing streaks. Lose three in a row in regulation, then drop a shootout, then lose another in regulation? Congratulations, the league says, you’ve lost one game in a row. That record-breaking stretch last year when the Sabres lost 18 games in a row? Not an 18-game losing streak, says the league, because there was a shootout loss mixed in. If you’d been tracking the NHL’s standings page, you never would have seen an “L18” next to the Sabres.

This is, of course, complete nonsense. The next time your favorite team hasn’t won in two weeks and then drops an overtime heartbreaker, show up at the postgame press conference and ask them if they’re relieved to snap the losing streak. See what kind of looks you get.

It goes without saying that no such distinction is made for wins, and that’s where you have to admit that the league is being kind of brilliant here. They’ve got a stupid awful horrible loser point that ruins the standings and makes everyone finish over .500, and they’ve found a nifty side effect that let’s them pretend that they’re also a league full of long winning streaks and short losing streaks. Everyone’s doing great, your team is super good, just don’t think about the math too hard.

I’ll admit that part of me was hesitant to include this one, because it seems like it’s putting me in direct conflict with my far wiser colleague Pierre LeBrun. Pierre has mentioned the NHL’s streak distinction on a few occasions, and he and I have argued this point privately once or twice. So is he wrong? No, actually. Instead, he’s accurately describing how the league treats streaks, and how they’d like the rest of us to describe them.

He’s right, and I don’t dispute that this is how the NHL wants it done. I just don’t see any reason why we need to play along. If the NHL woke up tomorrow and declared that we should all say that pucks are square, it wouldn’t mean we’d have to do it. And while we may have to defer to the league on how it tracks things for its official record book, that doesn’t prevent us from still describing things in plain language the rest of the time.

So this season, when some team loses 10 games in a row and the NHL tries to tell us that it’s not actually a 10-game losing streak, let’s pat them on the head, give them a broad smile and a thumbs-up, and then go right back to calling it a 10-game losing streak. Because that’s what it is.

I left in the Don't "Gatekeep..." section, because in many ways some posters reflect that sentiment. Sure you may have been "watching" hockey for four+ decades, but your understanding of the sport bears a striking resemblance to what I'd expect to see from folks in Washington, just naively discovering how NHL fandom tends to operate... But the true reason for including the prescient Down Goes Brown piece included his take on how the league tracks "streaks," including the masterful lines: "The next time your favorite team hasn’t won in two weeks and then drops an overtime heartbreaker, show up at the postgame press conference and ask them if they’re relieved to snap the losing streak. See what kind of looks you get."

There's room here to call losses (even in OT or the shootout) a loss, even if we acknowledge that the league disambiguates the two.

[Zaxxon]

Yes, they're absolutely losses. The notation was the question, and the answer is simple.

[pr0ner]

Is that OTL a source of pride? No? A loss is a loss, stop trying to put lipstick on a pig.

Montreal made the playoffs last year over Calgary even though they won fewer games. Why? Points from overtime losses. Not all losses are created equal in the NHL.

[telcta]

Flipping through the hockey channels last night on Hulu, I was watching some of the Blackhawk's game. When they scored to make it 1-0 the announcer said that was Chicago's first lead of the season.(?) Wow. Then the overtime... I was really rooting for the Blackhawks.

[Jeff V]

0-82 still possible, but it seems Phoenix is challenging us for that top draft pick.

[Zaxxon]

0-82 still possible, but it seems Phoenix is challenging us for that top draft pick.

Only if they score the fewest touchdown runs.

[The Meal]

0-82 *is* still possible, but the Hawks have bigger fish to fry at the moment.

[Jeff V]

0-82 *is* still possible, but the Hawks have bigger fish to fry at the moment.

Bowman is gone. Are you expecting Wirtz to fall on his sword?

[Zaxxon]

0-82 *is* still possible, but the Hawks have bigger fish to fry at the moment.

Bowman is gone. Are you expecting Wirtz to fall on his sword?

Coach Q is also out... of Florida.

[The Meal]

0-82 *is* still possible, but the Hawks have bigger fish to fry at the moment.

Bowman is gone. Are you expecting Wirtz to fall on his sword?

Ownership and ownership ties are a different thing entirely. Fans of the Chicago team, and their willingness to support the product by attending games and providing good ad revenue for the local televised product can have some influence. The biggest sword would fall on McDonough (IMO) as he held the ultimate buck-stops-here position at the time. But knowing the circumstances around "but we *really* want to win a Cup right now /pout" brushing-aside behavior, there's plenty of blame and shame to go around.

Word is Torts is #1 in line for the Panthers.

[Isgrimnur]

Donny Meatballs is coming for ya!

[Isgrimnur]