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The Official 2008 NHL Playoffs Thread

bromance

bromance

Bluelighter
Joined
Nov 20, 2006
Messages
4,228
Man, I can't believe that round 1 is almost through and there's not even a thread for this yet. Last year there were some decent hockey fans to at least discuss the playoffs, but this year things are looking slim. Hopefully people can chip in some!

I'm a die-hard Sharks fan, and their game last night in Calgary was excellent. Thornton, Cheechoo, Marleau, and Campbell are finally starting to click. Nabokov is stellar as always, and I think Kipprosov finally is cracking. Maybe Calgary should've been starting Cujo after his great performance earlier in the series.

Where's Ryanlaughin? He always had informative hockey input. Please tell me there's some NHL fans around here, because this year's playoffs are shaping up to be amazing. Oh shit, and also the 2 OT Washington game last night?? Holy hell that was some exciting end-to-end action.

<3 NHL
 
ooooooh snap! bromance, good call on gettin this goin! i hadnt posted in a while and since last season there were only a few of us die hards and a few stragglers, i didnt get it goin this year. glad to see you're taking charge! :D

as far as the playoffs go, they've been bittersweet for me thus far. i REALLY wanted minnesota to beat the avs cause i hate the avs. not to mention i'd like to see adam foote get hosed for hosing us. he knew full well that he was offering way more than the jackets were willing to pay all the while making arrangements to be in calgary (or vancouver... i forget) to play the same night it was announced he'd be traded. his house was already on the market and he had a private jet waiting at the airport. its one thing to leave, but to play us like fools was a shameful move on his part. i hope he doesnt get the satisfaction of winning another cup.

im glad the wings beat nashville also because i cant stand them either. not to mention tootoo's a biatch as well.

i'd like to see the habs beat the bruins, but they've been playing with a lack of urgency the last couple games. with saku not in the line up and their golden boys not being their golden boys, they havent shown much to give the city of montreal something to be optimistic about. if they can pull it together for tomorrow's game, i have full confidence in them making it to the finals.

san jose and calgary. im for the sharkies 100%! i had a couple sharks on my fantasy team this year and for that reason watched more sharks games than any other team (maybe even more sharks games than jackets games, but that's partially because FSN always shows the cavs instead of the jackets when the two are playing simultaneously). im a huge HUGE fan of good goaltending and obviously nabokov has been a fucking BEAST this year. he was on my fantasy team too (along with pascal leclaire, what a tandem!). i also had brian campbell, craig rivet, and milan michalek... all of which helped me out largely. not to mention drew ramenda and randy hahn (the sharks tv play by play) are my favorites in the nhl and i wouldnt mind listening to them throughout the playoffs. i still think they've going all the way to the finals and i said prior to the end of the season that they'll likely win it all. their defense is so solid and their offensive lines work well together. throw on top of that (in my opinion) the best goaltender in the league and you're not lookin too shabby. :D

pens downing the sens in 4 was alright cause the sens turned out to be a farce. they dont have much depth offensively past their top line. also ray emery's a complete shit head. they started out way too good to be true and obviously it turned out to be that way. what a failure this season turned out to be for them. not to mention, sidney crosby, evgeni malkin, marian hossa, jordan staal, marc-andre fleury... they're an exciting team to watch. if the habs dont make it to the finals, i wouldnt mind watching the pens. they certainly have enough weapons to dominate. btw... keiths31, if you read this you know i still like ya, i've become semi-biased towards the eastern conference teams. hehe.

rangers and devils. i had no particular preference there. i cant stand sean avery, and man was he tooling around on brodeur lol. i do like lundqvist though so i suppose if i had to say it, im happier that NYR won than had NJ.

ducks and stars. i actually thought the ducks would be putting up more of a fight than they have. i realize that had selanne and neidermayer not come back halfway through the season, they'd have been a complete bust anyways, but man... this is a whole lot of shitting on the ice happening by the defending stanley cup champions.

capitals and flyers. the nhl would benefit by ovechkin remaining in the playoffs :D. i'd MUCH rather watch the caps win this series. i cant stand briere... he pretty much ruins it for me when it comes to the flyers. ovechkin, ovechkin, ovechkin. i could have just said that. i really like cristobal huet also. i feel bad for him because as soon as the habs dished him off to washington you could tell he felt betrayed. he had no interest in going to the caps. im just glad to see him do so well there. between him and ovechkin and the caps earlier in the season naming boudreau the coach... they've turned this team around. im glad to have seen them pull through to make it to the playoffs.

the first round has been pretty good so far and hopefully the remainder of the playoffs matches it. i'd still say habs vs. sharks in the finals, but should the montreal get eliminated, i would love to see the pens play the sharks. that series would be absolutely brilliant!

.02
 
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lol no offense, hockey is kinda lame.

i mean, i see the hockey plays in the top 10 reels and i'm not impressed one bit.
 
^ good for you. 8)

glad to see the habs pull through in game 7. and im glad to see the caps stay on their feet against philly. you were right bromance, the first round is shaping up pretty nicely.
 
Shut up airforlife.


Oh man I'm glad you decided to stop by ryanlaughlin. I was really glad to see the Habs win game 7 too. Also seeing them riot and torch police cars for winning in the first round is great too. I'd love to see what a Canadian team would do if they won the cup. That stuff is great for the sport. :)

I'm not feeling so great about the Sharks lately. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if they pulled off the game 7 win, but its SO like the Sharks to drag it out to game 7. Sharks are certainly the better team, but the Flames are not slouches either. I'm beginning to feel more and more each year that unfortunately the Sharks are simply the best regular season team, and not much more. :/


Nabby has been a beast this year, and so far in the playoffs. He's really kept the Sharks in it, especially when they decided to stop playing at certain intervals so far this playoffs. Kiprusoff has played amazingly too. It really is a treat getting to watch he and Nabokov square off against each other, because Kipp really turns it on in the playoffs. Having your goalie get hot is certainly the key in the playoffs, and this season has not failed to disappoint yet.


I'd love to see the Caps get to meet up with the Pens in round 2, and I think the NHL in general would like to see that. Ovechkin is earning his paycheck and its exciting as hell. His breakaway goal last night was incredible.

I completely agree with your statements about Briere. Everyone sucks his dick for scoring a couple powerplay goals, ok, fine, but look at his +/- rating. He was like -18 on the season, and is on the ice for practically every single of Washington's goals. So overrated. The positives he brings to his team are completely negated by his awful defense.
 
yeah, when the sharks first secured a playoff spot i thought they were golden. i actually have full confidence that they can beat the wings, but as soon as i found out they were playing the flames in the first round i'll admit i got a little worried. calgary plays a pretty physical game and has a strong and pretty balanced offense with a pretty decent defense to boot. though i would say the sharks have every bit of that with maybe a slightly less potent offense, but seeming to click better as a unit on the ice from offense to defense. the sharks tend to clog the shooting lanes about as good as any team in the league. i'd say nabokov had an edge though this season over kipprusoff. any given night this season i would have been willing to put money on it that nabby wouldnt let more than 3 goals by him and the sharks play some pretty shut down hockey when they've got the lead. kipprusoff's been a little off at points during the season. when the jackets played calgary he was coming so far out of the net that he was compromising his reaction time to accommodate cutting the shooters' angles down. i just thought he had a lot of times where he just didnt look confident. that's not to say he cant play at the top level because he's proved he can, i just was more confident in nabokov than kipprusoff.

i still think the sharks are the real deal this year.

the red wings however may be the only team left in the west that i think could eliminate them at this point. they have such a crazy arsenal.

that sucks that the flyers won though because i really wanted to see what ovechkin could do in the playoffs. i think that's pretty lucky for most teams though, because he has the ability to win games on his own stick alone. f'n sick. the habs broke his nose earlier this season on a big hit and he still scored 4 goals that game, bloody broken nose and all. he's a machine. and yeah that break away goal was so smooth. he's incredible to watch.

the flyers have to play montreal in the second round though and montreal fans are gonna rain down on briere. he's gonna be playing under a microscope cause they do NOT like him and they are LOUD. its gonna be another physical series im sure, but habs fans seem pretty confident in this match up and i dont see why they shouldnt be.
 
airforlife said:
lol no offense, hockey is kinda lame.

i mean, i see the hockey plays in the top 10 reels and i'm not impressed one bit.
Click to expand...

That's cause you don't know anything about the game. Lace up some skates and tell me if you come close to anything that resembles hockey.
 
Wow, what a night last night. I am really disappointed about Philadelphia advancing too, oh well. I'm sure Montreal will make it really difficult for Philadelphia though, so that's good. I love seeing the Canadian teams fans get rocking.



Roenick, Roenick, Roenick. I had no idea he would come out and play so huge after being a scratch in the previous game. I'm really glad Ron Wilson went back to his first and second game lines. Roenick is a veteran with much playoff experience. Pretty much exactly how well Owen Nolan played in the series, the playoff experience really did pay off for them.

At the end of the game, it was pretty sad watching Nolan shake hands with everyone too. I've never been a big fan of his, but he did get dicked out of a cup with Colorado after their Quebec move, and was a loyal Shark and captain for so long. He still lives in San Jose and is friends with a lot of the current Shark's roster, so I bet that was tough for him. I couldn't imagine how it would feel to lose in the arena you spent so many years calling home, in front of fans that no longer root for you (directly), and it also maybe being your last shot at the cup you'll have.

I was very happy to see such a convincing Sharks win, and am very confident that they will pound Dallas. This next round should be very entertaining.
 
^31% of people said that the Flyers were going to win the Cup?!? Goodness. Those Philadelphia fans must have made sure all their friends voted too.
 
i was thinking the same thing. :D

no offense to philly fans, but i dont think they have much of a chance of making it to the finals let alone winning the cup. they're gonna have a rough time playing montreal let alone trying to face the pens or the rangers??? it just doesnt look very promising for them. besides that i dont think they could beat a single team that's left in the west either. MAYBE they could beat the stars, but i dont think the stars stand much of a chance against the sharks so we'll see how that pans out. :)
 
I beg to differ. The only weak point I see is Derian Hatcher. That and Martin Biron is no Nabokov. I wouldn't go as far to say that they have no chance, but the cards are stacked against them. They are a pretty damn resilient group, and our forwards are probably the deepest in the NHL. Imagine if Gagne was still in the lineup....which he says he may be if they make the cup finals. I have mixed opinions about that tho. I don't think you should shake up your roster, unless he skates with the team for 2-3 weeks beforehand. But in the playoffs, you get no such time unless you close out a series quickly.

Also, Knuble is a pretty big missing piece. We need him back soon. I hope he doesn't miss more than 2 games. Richards went down late in the season the same exact way and missed about 3 weeks.

And as for stacking up to teams in the west, I think we can beat any team. I think the cup is gonna be won by the east. If we get past the next 2 rounds, I feel very confident about the finals.
 
the habs are nothing to shake a stick at either though. i just think its gonna be difficult for them to get past the habs, who themselves have a pretty deep offense as well as a good defense. im slightly nervous about how price will play in net, but i think he's got it in him to play well. sometimes he still looks like a kid in there. and theres no doubt the flyers have a pretty good corp of offensive players, but i think they're gonna try to play a more physical game and in my opinion the habs have the upper hand with their ability to play as a unit on and off the puck. they have a good flow to their game when they're on and i think they woke up after almost losing the series to the bruins. with koivu, kovalev, plekanec, the kostitsyn brothers and crew... not to mention that the habs have proven time and again this season that they can play the skill game as well as the physical game... i just think philly's gonna have a rough time.

as far as the western teams going, i think its mostly based on my theory that either the wings or the sharks will be in the finals and wings are a dominant team when it comes to offense. they're unbelievable the way they come on sometimes. they had a bad stretch after their boys started droppin like flies, but all in all, they're still a pretty deep team clear through their line up. they're such an adaptive team and so so so quick on the transition. and the sharks can play a tough game, but for the most part they're reliant on skill and puck movement, shut down defense (who works the puck out of the slots pretty well and as i said earlier likes to get bodies in the shooting lanes). then throw nabokov in there as the icing on the cake.

with the exception of briere... i dont dislike the flyers, i just dont think they're gonna do it. plus im biased and i'd rather see the habs or sharks win. hehe. sorry sticky! :D
 
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Dallas is pretty undersized compared to the Sharks. Richards, Ribero, and Modano have been putting up big numbers, but I'm interested to see how Dallas's top lines can function against the fast Sharks defense. I think if the Sharks play their extremely aggressive forecheck and grinding offense, Dallas's d will have a lot of trouble moving the puck.

And if Turco plays well, Dallas plays well. So I'm also interested to see if the Sharks can rattle Turco, and how he as well as his team will respond. It should be a good series regardless.
 
ryanlaughlin said:
but i dont agree with barry melrose. :D
Click to expand...


Agreed. He's gross. Why can't hockey get some spokespeople that aren't completely offensive to most of my senses? I feel like between Melrose, Don Cherry, Engblom, they make hockey look terrible. I think the NHL needs to hire some "consultants" and make over these guys so that they don't look like creepy rapists from bad 70's pornos. Get a real fucking haircut, and stop wearing disgusting pinstriped suits. /rant :D
 
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