tampa scored on so many tipped goals its ridiculous. ive heard of having good puck luck but that was just unreal.

paquette is coming from behind the entire play, he sticks his stick out to the left which tells mcavoy hes probably got me beat that way i have to go up the boards. Thats 100% a penalty if the ritchie call is one. that shoulda been at least 2 if not 5. only problem with ritchies hit was he was late. which had happened all series.

It's telling that the Blues and Bruins, the finalists from 2019, are both out by the 2nd round. So much parity in this league. Not only that, and I don't care what anyone else says, the COVID issues and the bubble hit some teams worse than others. It's different than normal. Way different than normal. Some teams have embraced it and gone on a run and for others it presented real problems: Blues and Bruins among them. I keep hearing over and over from players leaving the bubble: it doesn't feel the same, it doesn't seem like the playoffs, there isn't the same pressure and urgency. It's just not the same. I'm not claiming there will be an asterisk next to whoever wins the cup this year, but it sometimes feels like an extended men's league tournament at the highest level where the prize for winning happens to be the Stanley Cup. Whoever wins it will be deserving. But it won't stand up next to the winners that had to do it in normal times. I don't have a good way to say it...

essentially this was all a money grab and if you compare this cup to any other cup in terms of legitimacy its not even close in comparison, it might be "the hardest one to win" but its also been designed in a way for some teams to succeed more than others. for example basing seeding on 3 round robin exhibition games vs the 70 game regular season we had. hurt the bruins helped the lightning.

I don't have a problem with the round robin ... you've made the playoffs and it just determines who you have to play in the first round ... you'll have to play a really good team eventually. And yes, I know it's about how the teams match up, but sometimes it's an advantage to play against the 8th seed team and sometimes it's an advantage to play against the 5th seed team.

If the Blues and Bruins were still in, I bet your opinions would be very different.

ive been saying this since march.

Edit: March is an exaggeration for sure more likely may/june since thats when playoffs should have happened... but ive been saying it well before they even started practicing that this was a sham playoff and they should have cancelled it.

I think you can see which teams are actually playing to win and which ones just kinda rocked up. The Bruins coasted through the round robin games and then checked out when Rask left.

which in all seriousness, i think the lightning are the better team. but and huge but here, if this was your typical playoffs and this happens in april. I think the series outcome is flipped.

I dont know about flipped. 4-1 Boston. I dont think the Bruins are that much better. Would've been a good series if Boston rocked up. That final game that occured before the pause was evidence enough it wouldn't be that cut and dry. There's still depth scoring issues in the Bruins lineup. And as we all learned last season, regular season doesn't mean anything come playoff time.

You can go down the hypothetical rabbit hole all day and never emerge.

Well, they're not, and partially/mostly because of the novelty of this bubble environment/situation. Edmonton and Pittsburgh might join in the argument too, though it's not as clear with those 2.

man i remember when people **** on my team going out, it was because of the 40 million forwards and the team having no heart or whatever.

when other teams go out, i guess blame the bubble? it's okay to give up in the playoffs because the circumstances aren't perfect.

Boston needed tuukka, and to play their speed/skill guys. they didnt have tuukka, and cassidy wanted to play ritchie and then tried to copy cooper in game 3 and failed miserably. should have played bjork and studnicka with coyle the entire series. losing kuraly on that 4th line hurts a little too but lindholm played pretty well. IMO if you negate the puck luck its a much tighter series.

How did I "blame the bubble"? It was a real factor and a real issue for teams. That's about all I said. Which is true. The Blues had the series by the go-nads when they were up 3-1 in Game 5. They had found their game again and were playing well. And then... and that collapse was their fault. For sure. But the overall macro situation hit them, the Bruins, other teams hard. That's just a factual statement, not so much an excuse.

I'm not sure who your team is but I haven't s*** on any team for anything that happened to them in Edmonton or Toronto. I'm not sure how much there is to take away from this whole playoff run: positive or negative. You don't throw it in the trash, but every takeaway you can get from the bubble playoffs is tempered by the unique situation its in.

True, I absolutely agree. The number of bounces and weird deflections were crazy. But to an extent you make your own luck. Boston didn't push the tempo enough to get any puck luck.

When I first saw the shot, I thought it went bar-down and I didn't realize how much net he actually had to shoot at.

Didn't you get the feeling last night that when Dallas scored to make it 5-2 that they could possibly come back? Avs were taking so many penalties and Hutch was shaky at the time and it just seemed like goals were coming easy. The feeling only lasted like a minute, though. Burakovsky's goal obviously sealed the deal.

I think most of the unbiased hockey fans of the world are hoping for VGK/COL in the West Final. It'd be a shame t o see MacKinnon's scoring streak end in the 2nd round.

i thought the same thing, it was a wobbler off the heel of the stick got just enough on it to zip it past vasy but if vasy saw any of that pass thats an easy save.

No, I didn't really. COL looked a bit shaken but it didn't look like DAL was decisive enough when it counted.

But yeah overall I'm surprised by how troubled Avs have looked constantly over this series. They've played like 15 periods of hockey and in terms of playing level DAL looks like they're leading 13-2...

sports radio is a cancer on society

Dear Tuukka:

As a lifelong Bruins fan, I’m disgusted by your cowardly decision to give up.⁰
You QUIT on:
• Boston
• Your Coaches
• All of Your Teammates
• Yourself
• Every Bruins fan

I hope that I NEVER have to see U in a Black & Gold Sweater with the spoked “B” Again!

— Marc James (@marcjames) September 1, 2020

i literally have no idea who marc james is and i listen to sports radio IN boston.

I couldn't care less about the Ritchie hit. We're talking about McAvoy and Paquette. No he was not behind Mcavoy the whole time. McAvoy turns and to his left and looks at him. Continues, and tries a stop and turn play to lose him. He only exposes his back when he turns. McAvoy had complete control of how he would get hit. How is Paquette supposed to know he's going to reverse the last second? How can he react that fast? He can't. The ref saw the whole thing. Former players are saying McAvoy put himself there.

I did a similar move when I used to play and got rocked. But it was my fault. I saw him coming and tried to lose him. I lost that battle and so did McAvoy. Luckily neither of us got really hurt.

At the very least he didn't quit on his family.

That guy is a f*cking piece of sh*t.