MN Wild 2016-17 – Official thread.

Anyone still watching? Penguins are starting to run away with this game (Friday).
DT

Yeah, Ottowa made it interesting at least.

Bitter, bitter blow for Nashville. Johansen done for season. Really an unfair deal.

Grouse

Crosby & Co demolished the Sens yesterday and Nashville found a way to win on Saturday without Johansen.

The Ducks could still make this interesting, but the Pens/Senators series, I’m having a tough time seeing the Senators stopping Pittsburgh. The Crosby haters are going to be inconsolable, he’s a baby, he’s coddled, he’s dirty, he cheats, etc, etc, etc, but tell me you wouldn’t want him on YOUR team.

There’s some good hockey being played in these series. To me this just shows how BS it is to call the Wild a “bad” team for losing in Round 1. The problem isn’t the Wild being bad, it’s that there are so many good teams in the NHL. The league really has acheived the parity it sought with the draft, rules, and cap changes over the last 20 years. The difference between good and great comes down to some tangibles plus a long, long list of intangibles and things you can’t control.

Lots of interesting rumors surrounding the Wild and potential off season moves. Is Nino on the trading block? Is a combo deal in play involving Dumba or other d-men and some draft choices?

Grouse

We have a possible elimination game starting in Smashville right now. Anyone watching?
DT

Nashville scores less than 2 minutes in!
DT

We have our first team into the Stanley Cup finals. Congrats to Nashville.
DT

Great for that city! I only caught glimpses, but I saw the shirtless guys with the catfish lol.

Looks like it will be a Preds/Pens series. I really don’t see how the Sens can come back. Maybe they can, but the Pens are just too good and with 2 top goalies are very much unstoppable in net. Far too much firepower for the Sens to shut down.
This is where 7 game series come into play. A 5 game series and the Sens could have locked this one away, but in a 7 game series you just cannot overcome a huge disparity in skill like that without playing other worldly. The Sens just have to play a perfect game and right now I just don’t see it happening.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

There’s some good hockey being played in these series. To me this just shows how BS it is to call the Wild a “bad” team for losing in Round 1.

The Wild a bad team? No!! Just not good enough to win in the playoffs.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

The difference between good and great comes down to some tangibles plus a long, long list of intangibles and things you can’t control.

Maybe Oshie, Ovechkin, Matthews, Backstrom, McDavid, Kane, Towes and a few other of these “superstar”

Go Preds! Heck of a game to watch. I started liking them when we were in the NW and they were in Central…now we’re in the same division and it’s a tough one for me.

Glad to see them take the series. I wasn’t able to watch much of the game, but they score the third goal while I was and I was hoping they could hold off the Ducks.

404 ERROR wrote:

…now we’re in the same division and it’s a tough one for me.

Come on, it’s not like it the Hawks, Blues or the Packers.

Not sure who I’ll root for if it is the Sens vs Smashville, but it is an easy call if it is vs Pens.

At this point a lot comes down to who’s the underdog and who has the most players that I like on their team. This makes the Preds the easy winner.

Rinne, the dude deserves a cup.
Fisher I have been watching and liking since his days with the Sens.
Subban is probably one of the best things to happen to the NHL in a long time. It’s too bad he isn’t a 50 goals a season forward.
Forsberg is a gamer.
Arvidsson could be an elite player

I’m not a big fan of Neil, Fiddler or McClown

Pens – Cullen is from MN is the best I can muster, otherwise I hate them all. At least the Patriots have Gronk, the Pens have no one like that for me.

Pug, I’m starting to get the feeling that you don’t love Sidney Crosby. Like, at all.

Grouse

Why should I? Its not a requirement. He has enough fan boys anyway.

About that jinx…

I have been working all night and finished. Decide to turn on the game at 0-0. 10 seconds later pens up 1-0.

What an intense game. I had it on in the background while trying to sleep and I couldn’t do it. Craig Anderson is a beast.
DT

Looks like it’s on to game 7. I REALLY hope the Sens can pull it out! I still want the Preds to win it all, but I want the Sens to get there.

I really didn’t see the Sens (even though it was at home) coming out and forcing a game 7. Boucher certainly has a system that bottles up, well, with the exception of 1 game, the Pens. Anderson is awesome! It is so easy to pull for him after everything his wife is going through and the time away from the team he has spent this year.
I would love to see a Sens/Preds Final, but the NHL would probably hate that.

CaptainMusky wrote:

I would love to see a Sens/Preds Final, but the NHL would probably hate that.

Of course…because they aren’t their cash cows…stick it to em! Sens/Preds here we go! Crybaby Crosby can do what he does best, sit in the corner in the fetal position crying, rocking himself to sleep…

404 ERROR wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>CaptainMusky wrote:</div>
I would love to see a Sens/Preds Final, but the NHL would probably hate that.

Of course…because they aren’t their cash cows…stick it to em! Sens/Preds here we go! Crybaby Crosby can do what he does best, sit in the corner in the fetal position crying, rocking himself to sleep…

I think worrying about TV ratings is… well… overrated.

While the Sen/Preds wouldn’t be a dream matchup, I have to believe that the NHL is pleased with how Smashville is embracing their team.

I’ve never gotten the whole hating on Crosby thing. Always seemed like petty jealousy to me, they haters would hate him right up to the point where he was on their team, and then they’d love him. I wish he was Sidney Crosby of the MN Wild, that’s for damn sure. The only downside to Sidney Crosby is NOT having him on your team.

I don’t get the whole “crybaby” thing as well. Karlsson has been doing way more waving of his hands and giving the refs the whipped puppy “Aren’t you gonna call THAT????” look as he fake limps off the ice after every legit hit. Gawd, the Sens embellishment last night was just terrible, if this were the regular season they never would have gotten away with all the diving that was going on last night.

Spraying an opponent with a water bottle? Really? What is this, third grade recess?

Of course, the predictable “NHL wants the Pens to win for the ratings” is out there. As if the NHL DOESN’T want all of Canada watching the cup to cheer the only Canadian team to make it in 6 seasons.

Has anyone looked at the TV average ratings? I wonder how much it fluctuates according to the population of participating teams cities.

Grouse

So what players do you hate?

Crosby doesn’t do nearly as many antics as he used to. But in 2009 his peers voted him the biggest whiner.

mplspug wrote:

While the Sen/Preds wouldn’t be a dream matchup, I have to believe that the NHL is pleased with how Smashville is embracing their team.

I would be inclined to believe the NHL would be happy with a Sens/Preds final as it would justify the reason to expand to those markets in the first place. Wouldn’t you be hoping to broaden the interest in your league? It wouldn’t make a lot of sense to expand to new & secondary markets and then cringe at the idea of those teams becoming successful because it might not maximize your viewership ratings for two weeks in June.

I don’t “hate” any players and certainly not because they’re talented and play for someone else. Which IMO is the #1 reason out there that fans hate on players–because they’re a) good and b) not on the team I support. To me this just shows a lack of game knowledge and appreciation for the sport.

The only players I genuinely don’t like are in that category solely because they’re dirty players, pure and simple. Brad Marchand, for example, is the biggest D-bag in the NHL. Can’t stand players like Steve Ott, Raffi Torres or Cody McLeod either.

But if a player like Marchand would just clean up their act and just play hockey, I wouldn’t dislike them at all. It’s the knowingly playing dirty, headhunting, leaving feet to check, head hitting stuff that I don’t like.

I don’t really have a favorite for the Pens vs Sens series. My guess is the Pens will put on their veteren team rally cap and get it done, but there’s a lot of talent on the Sens side as well, so I don’t see a G7 blowout.

Tegg is right, the NHL had no preference for who wins or loses. People don’t understand that the NHL really is just a business, and as a business, they’ve locked in the only thing that matters–money. All of the main revenue generators for the league like the TV rights to broadcast the cup are obviously bought and paid for years in advance and the league gets no more or no less money based on which teams turn up in the finals. The NHL makes money by sure bets that are structured years in advance, not by trying to game who gets to the finals in a given year.

Grouse

I don’t hate Crosby because he is good and or on another team. I love Tarasenko and he’s in the division.

I hate Crosby from watching him early in his career and the NHL making him the Golden child. And to be clear, I hate him as a hockey player, not a person. I’ve never seen Tank dive, whine or use stickwork on a guy.

I can hate who I want.

Yeah, I can appreciate the skills of a player like Crosby, but I am certainly not a fan of his either. He has built quite the reputation over the years as being a whiner and getting calls that others don’t get. He is probably the world’s best player and I can respect that, but I don’t like him.

CaptainMusky wrote:

He has built quite the reputation over the years as being a whiner and getting calls that others don’t get.

Obviously, it is–and has long been–the case where name brand players get calls that the grinders never get. I’ve commented on dozens of occasions when a Wild player gets tripped or takes a slash on the hands that that gets called every time if it’s on Kane. Or Crosby. Or Ove.

I doubt Crosby gets any more soft calls than any of the other top forwards in the league and he pays the price too. He was getting slammed all over the ice last game and as usual, the refs were in playoff mode with whistles in their pocket until he got dragged to the ice and held down in a holding that was so obvious Ray Charles could have called it. The HAD to call that one, but during the regular season he easily would have gotten 2 more calls had the same things happened.

As I said, if talking the refs is considered “whining”, then the biggest whiner on the ice in this series has been Karlsson.

I agree, Pug, the slashing on the hands and the “oops, my stick slid up the shaft of his stick and hit him” stuff that goes uncalled is stupid. But that’s the way the league has chosen to have the refs call it. If they started a strict calling of any and all slashes, there’d be 50 peanalty minutes added to each game for a while.

Grouse

Good run by the Sens. This should be a good series.

Great game, see if Cullen can get one more maybe walk away but looks like he can play a couple more years. He was on the ice a ton in OT.

Crosby looked great last night just could not get a bounce but assisted the winning goal.