Current Events > NHLCE - Official Playoffs Topic

(+) Yeah! (+)

The playoffs are set to start on Saturday when the Washington Capitals host the Boston Bruins. These two teams will kill one another and I have no idea who will win!

... beyond the North Division it is all REALLY hard to predict this year. Ooof.

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Sounds like Stamkos and Kucherov will be available Game 1 of the playoffs for the Bolts. That changes that series with the Panthers immensely.

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Go Blues! Though they will probably get stomped by the Golden Knights.

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Boston fan.

I think this the last real year for them. There is a real lack of promising young forwards, they need to start a rebuild but keep the top line as mentors.

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doomcrusader posted...

Boston fan.

I think this the last real year for them. There is a real lack of promising young forwards, they need to start a rebuild but keep the top line as mentors.

I don't believe Boston will get it done this season. They're definitely going the way of Chicago IMO.

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Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

I don't believe Boston will get it done this season. They're definitely going the way of Chicago IMO.

I thought the same thing until this Hall trade panned out and gave this team the 5v5 scoring depth its desperately been missing for years.

Pretty strong competition this year though. I don't favor them but I wouldn't be surprised if they took the division.

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The thing is, the Bruins and Caps will destroy each other in what I imagine will be a 6+ series. Whoever comes out of that is gonna be bashed. Even compared to Pens vs. Islanders. Those teams aren't gonna kill each other in the same way.

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I predict that the leafs will collapse and be knocked out in the first round.

Washington has so many players out who only might return, they're in a bad way going into the playoffs. They need to get their guys back and have them come back strong.

I'll laugh my ass off if the Panthers beat the Lightning even with the Lightning's salary cap shenanigans.

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are we expecting the north to actually finish, or after the last relevant games get played (iirc, no later than friday), they'll just call it?

it'd be really weird for the regular season to go for almost a week into the rest of the league's playoffs.

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super dumb. but much thanks for the answer.

i think the matchups are actually set with a Winnipeg win tonight, too. (edit, one point, actually. WPG has the tiebreak) but sure, let's keep going for another week for reasons.

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The NHL is going to pander to their Canadian cities. As much as they love trying to reap those American dollars because there are potentially much more of them, they still get a lot of ratings and advertising dollars in Canada. It's not surprising at all that they're playing out the string in Canada. If it was Arizona and Dallas, not so much.

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Toronto/Montreal in the first round confirmed! That is gonna be fun.

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go bs

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Bullshit? Yup.

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ugh, there's only going to be an hour when the playoff picture is 100% settled before the first game starts. getting my picks in will be tricky this year, i guess. though, i don't have Boston coming out of the East, so i guess it won't really be necessary to wait.

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Would be an utter calamity if leafs lose to that trash habs team.

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Calamity? You mean comedy, right? Because pretty much every non-Leaf fan will be howling with laughter.

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North Division will play back to backs for games 3 and 4 to help catch up.

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ShineboxPhil posted...

Would be an utter calamity if leafs lose to that trash habs team.

as a habs fan, I have zero expectations but if the leafs even struggle in this series it'll be hilarious

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Avs are your President's Cup Trophy Winners!

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brilliant, Gary. just. fucking. brilliant.

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Avs are gonna win it all

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I'm drafting tonight and I still have no idea my strategy. Do I jump on the Leafs early? Do I just get the best player available?

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alright. not waiting on tomorrow's game. (i'm going to assume an Edmonton win for clarity. if anyone uses my matchups, be aware boston and edmonton could flip the 10th and 11th seeds)

Round 1:
E1/5 Pittsburgh in 6 over New York
E3/11 Boston in 7 over Washington

C1/3 Carolina in 5 over Nashville
C3/9 Tampa in 6 over Florida

W1/1 Colorado in 5 over St Louis
W2/2 Vegas in 6 over Minnesota

N1/6 Toronto in 4 over Montreal
N2/10 Edmonton in 5 over Winnipeg

Round 2:

E1/5 Pittsburgh in 6 over Boston
C3/9 Tampa in 6 over Carolina
W2/2 Vegas in 5 over Colorado
M2/10 Edmonton in 7 over Toronto

Round 3

2 Vegas in 6 over Edmonton
5 Pittsburgh in 5 over Tampa

Finals

2 Vegas in 6 over Pittsburgh

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Go Caps.

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SimpleMan posted...

Go Caps.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

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Go... uh... Oilers? I have a couple friends who are Oilers and as a Canucks fan I don't hate them. Fuck the Flames forever.

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Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

Go... uh... Oilers? I have a couple friends who are Oilers and as a Canucks fan I don't hate them. Fuck the Flames forever.

This is a playoff topic, you don't have to worry about the Flames.

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How the draft went. We have an interesting rule that makes this make more sense.

- You can only pick 2 players per team, with the exception of ONE team where you can pick 3. As you can see, my "team" is the Penguins as I have 3 players on that team.

I ended up kinda anti-picking some teams since they went so deep on some of the favorites. If the Blues can beat out the Av's I'm sitting pretty. I think Nashville has a good chance at beating the Canes so I got their best player. The Wild actually have a winning record against Vegas for the regular season, so getting their best player made sense.

While I feel the East is gonna be a crap shoot, Pittsburgh is the best team there especially with Washington and Boston killing each other in that series.

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Rust at 40? what a steal.

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Yeah, I already got Malkin and Crosby and I was pretty sure I could get Jarry later in the draft. I've never done my "3 player team" without the goalie. With so many tandem goalies it's nice to pick what I think is a solid number 1 goalie.

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Fuck David Perron is on the Covid-19 list. That means one of my picks is entirely fucked plus like, it is also REALLY HARD for St. Louis to put up much of a fight without Perron.

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it's barely made the news, so maybe just a short precaution before some negative tests? probably out for game 1, but i wouldn't worry yet about the rest of the series.

also: 1 hour. drop the puck already!

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lol, did NBC make new graphics for two months? also, definitely don't need the shot clock up at all times. clutter bad.

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that's not great for Washington

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Fuck Tom Wilson.

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Why are none of you playing SATURDAY PICKS over on the NHL message board?

You missed the 1st game but we're gonna have 15 games this round.

If you need help/a tutorial, DM me

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i stopped visiting the NHL board years ago, unless i want to see the reactions to something major. i honestly don't know why.

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The refs are in fine playoff form already
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one game, one bonus hockey.

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looked a little high.

and apparently offside maybe

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Wasn't even close for either lmao
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yeah, definitely not offsides. never saw another look at the tip after my post, but since no one else mentioned it i have to assume i saw something that wasn't there.

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The tip was around his waist iirc.

But anyways if this is the kind of reffing this series is going to get I honestly don't know how Washington can win the series. Lauzon literally forearm-barred Oshie in the head and ripped his helmet off (forcing Oshie to leave the ice for an extended period of time because they needed to grab his "backup") and it didn't even get called. Ovechkin getting "helped" falling down right before that gets called 10/10 times in the regular season as well.
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Yeah it kinda seemed like the Bruins were getting more of the calls.


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The power plays were 4-1 for the Bruins and the only PP the Caps got was after Lauzon cross-checked Ovi in the upper body into the boards/glass like 5 times after the play lol.

Plus it legit did look like Lauzon tried to kick Ovi which is what I think Ovi was so pissed about.
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