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NHL 2021 Irregular Season and Plagueoffs
- Thread starter Denamian
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Merrith
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I'm not. Too many guys either hurt or just terrible. Can't play like that and expect to win. Probably should have held on to win Game 2 or 3 (or both)...but overall not nearly enough contributions to come close once Boston's top line got going.
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Animosity
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Sucks for the Caps. Covid hurt them like it did a lot of other teams. No Kuzy for the first few games and Samsonov in out of the lineup all season hurt his development big time. Series could of gone either way with all those OT games. Feels bad to see Chara lose to his team that kicked him to the curb for Penny pincher deal.
Byr
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The stats back it up. By the expected goals model, which takes things like shot location and measures it against years of the same kind of shots from the same locations, he's been the 3rd worst goalie so far in the playoffs and worse than average. Its not Binnington's fault but he wasn't a strength for the Blues. Everything failed for them including Binnington.
Merrith
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Samsonov actually played pretty well in the series. I can't blame Kuzy although getting covid a 2nd time makes you wonder how that happened, but Backstrom was a lot worse overall in the series. I just know he's hurt so no idea what he was playing through.
Merrith
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StoiCynic
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Yeah, I missed the comeback unfortunately but tuned in just in time for the OT goal.
I honestly don't even know what they could do to get better at this point with that roster and those contracts
Byr
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Oilers still have a lot of flexibility. They have a lot of money coming off the books this offseason in Nuge and Larsson, only 2 big contracts in McDavid and Draisaitl and only 1 terrible contract in Neal. Their top 6 has been shut down this series but in the bigger picture its fine. They need to work on their defense, which will cost something but with Klefbom coming back next season it won't be terrible, a goalie, a moderate cost, and their bottom 6, small cost.
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I said it as soon as it happened, once they lost game 2 it was obvious they were going out in 5. The team needs to be overhauled, but instead they gave out loyalty contracts to guys like Backstrom. Ovechkin is the next guy they are obviously going to give a big contract to out of loyalty, but he's very much a 1 trick pony at this point (although he's great at that 1 trick). Carlson and Kuzy need to go; I would love to keep Wilson, but he's under such a microscope that he can't play his game without constantly getting penalties that other guys probably wouldn't get. Backstrom and Oshie need to go as well; they are both on steep performance downswings with big dollar contracts attached. In a vacuum I would say Ovechkin needs to go if he demands more than $10m/year on his next contract, but seeing him chase the record on another team after he's done so much for the Caps fan base etc would probably be too bitter a pill to swallow.
StoiCynic
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I won't pretend to know the particulars of the Caps' contract situation, but I know it's very not good. They weren't gonna blow it up after a cup and then covid muddied the water, but it should of been blown up. Easy said in retrospect, but if i'm the Caps brass i'm buying as many 2022/23 lotto tickets as possible next TDL. Gonna have to make some tough choices.
Ovie won't win another cup with the Caps. He got his ring, now he'll want the solo records.
Merrith
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He can't win another one if we're going to have this same problem the last couple of years cost us potential years. Backstrom and Carlson have gotten dinged up and haven't looked great either of the last couple playoffs. It's nice to grab some PP assists feeding Ovechkin but other than that if you're doing nothing, that's pretty rough as the supposed top defenseman on the team and one of the top 2 centers. At this point it might be too late, because you really can't move either of those two contracts. Guys like Kuznetsov or Oshie are other candidates to move, but it's not going to fix the main problem of the other guys.
None of the rest of the guys on that list are THAT bad, though. Eller had an abnormal year with injuries coming off his best ever regular season last year, Hathaway might be a tad expensive at $1.5M a year, but that's mainly because of covid flat cap. Frankly he and the 4th line in general were pretty good all year, even in this series, too. Hagelin's cap hit is the one other one that is very high for his role, but might be able to sell him off to someone looking for vet experience and PKer. He still can skate pretty good even at his age, too.
There is some youth in the pipeline on D, and McMichael looks promising, but he's not going to solve the issue of our top 2 centers not matching up come playoff time if this is the new normal.
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Byr
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CapFriendly is a great site to use for contract stuff:
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the problem the caps has was game 2 and 3.
thru game three the bruins had had a lead for 8 minutes TOTAL thru 3+ hr of hockey..yet WON 2 of the 3 games in overtime. the caps losing both of those games in double overtime(think both were dbl ot games) was a killer. they win one of those 2 games and i think the series would have gone 7.
marchand(my oldest kid's-he'll be 20 in july- favorite bruin) has cleaned up A LOT of his act (he does digress on occasion- that penalty last night was tick tack but with what happened over the past few games with head injuries i can see the league telling the refs head hits get called-even glancing blows that normally are brushed off - and is one of the best winger's in hockey atm.
thru game three the bruins had had a lead for 8 minutes TOTAL thru 3+ hr of hockey..yet WON 2 of the 3 games in overtime. the caps losing both of those games in double overtime(think both were dbl ot games) was a killer. they win one of those 2 games and i think the series would have gone 7.
marchand(my oldest kid's-he'll be 20 in july- favorite bruin) has cleaned up A LOT of his act (he does digress on occasion- that penalty last night was tick tack but with what happened over the past few games with head injuries i can see the league telling the refs head hits get called-even glancing blows that normally are brushed off - and is one of the best winger's in hockey atm.
Merrith
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To be fair, we didn't have the lead very much in those games (or any of the first 3) all that much either. But we did have 1 goal leads heading into the 3rd period of each. Game 2 under 3 minutes left, Carlson has an easy step up and rub out Hall on the boards play he could make, and we're likely up 2-0 in the series. Instead Hall gets by him somehow, scrum in front of the net, eventually Hall puts it home to tie it up. Game 3 another 1 goal lead, Caps held the Bruins without a shot on goal at 5 on 5 play for the entire 3rd period, but Nic Dowd gets called for a penalty that wasn't even around the puck to give Boston a chance on the PP with under 10 minutes left, they tie it, there you go.
Marchand is fantastically skilled, one of the top wings in the league. He also still does his usual dirty stuff from time to time. After the whistle slashes/spears, the occasional obvious elbow to a guy's head. Some of him being a pest makes him effective, but frankly he's been more than great enough a player the last ~4 years to not need to do all that.