Frankie is on the bench tonight. He's bruised but appears to be OK.

Good to hear. I hadn't noticed. :thumb:

That was crazy. Hanging out on the bench and get smacked right in the face by a piece of vulcanized rubber going 100mph. An inch away from possibly blinding him.

Just saw this replay. WOW....

This is one of the worst shootouts I've ever watched.

JFC, can both teams be eliminated after that? LMAO

Suck it, Vegas.

I ****ing hate Binnington

He looks lost tonight.

So now the Stars would have to lose in regulation to both the Yotes tomorrow (LMAO) and the Ducks on Friday.... and the Knights would have to win in Chicago tomorrow and in St. Louis on Friday.

An interesting note on that.... the Wild lost to the hapless Yotes tonight (LMAO) or else they could have wrapped up first round home ice on Thursday.

So, no matter what happens tonight, the Wild loss guaranteed the Blues will have something to play for against Vegas on Friday (whether Vegas does or not).

Tough loss, Avs have our number. Not worried about home ice. It's nice but not a necessity by any means. The real games begin next week.

Man, that turned into a really tense finish there, before Kadri got that steal pass on open net. Wow, exciting game.

Go Avs!

Wow, started sweating there at the end. Avs needed a game like that tonight to get back on track. I know we were getting guys healthy and didn't have anything really to play for except the Presidents' trophy, but you don't want to go into the playoffs on a losing streak with zero momentum.

You can really tell how much we miss Landy and Rants in 6-5 situations. We just have trouble muscling it out of the zone.

Panthers have suddenly lost two in a row, yet have the freakin' Senators and Canadiens to finish out the season.... unless they rest their top 3 lines for the playoffs, I assume they're still getting the Presidents trophy.

Yeah, and Kadri was just coming back after a few weeks, too (think he was out for the first loss at least).... and Toews. That's a pretty damn good lineup of players.

Hey, the Kings are back in the playoffs! Woo hoo!

I don't even know what's up with Binnington, it's trouble. He's a shell of him former self from three years ago and still a young player. Baffling to watch him last night. Needless to say who will be the starter in the Playoffs.

First letter of every word, at last night's Sharks game...

https://i.imgur.com/5zZF9Va.png

Stars up 3-0 to start the 3rd and give up 3 goals in 12 minutes to the ****ing Coyotes with the playoffs on the line. LMAO

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Now I'm officially excited for the playoffs.

He's a goalie.

Goalies are like kickers. They're all !@#$ing headcases except for a handful of the true greats.

You name a goalie, no matter how great, and unless he's a HoFer, he's had a year or two where he's just eaten shit. And Binnington is weird even for a goalie - so you're looking at nuts squared.

That said, I'm not sure Binnington has EVER been that great. He wasn't a highly regarded prospect. He doesn't have much of a pedigree. He wasn't great the year after the cup run.

He's probably a fairly average goalie. He'll have some good years and some bad years. He'll win some series he should lose, he'll lose as many he should win.

He's probably a roughly 91% save percentage sort of goalie who shouldn't have a 6 year deal with 5 more still in front of him. Armstrong hasn't made a lot of mistakes in his time in St. Louis - but he made one here. Ideally the cap will start to creep up with the NHL getting involved w/ ESPN again. As it does, that deal will be slightly less painful.

And maybe a few years down the road when some of the $$$ has been paid and the Blues have accumulated some draft picks, you can attach a 2nd round pick to him to get out of the last 2-3 years of the deal.

Or they can just continue forward w/ an overpaid but probably average goalie.

I think Preds/Avalanche could be a fun yet dangerous series, given Duchene and and Forsberg have 40+ goals and they're a pretty middle of the road team (with a good PP)... and the potential preview tonight.

I'd rather them sweep the Stars though... definitely wouldn't mind making quick work of them and the team getting some rest (of course I say that and it'll go 7).

And if not the Blues, get out of the first round and would be interested in this "new Wild" that's top 5 in goal scoring with three 30 goal scorers (even if they drop off steeply after that) and one of the worst PKs in the league.... the antiWild.


...and it's kind of shitty for the league to schedule a bunch of back to back games in the last two days of the season, given two days of rest before the playoffs. :facepalm:

Yeah, I think I'd take the Stars matchup if I had to pick, though it doesn't matter a ton either way. It's a bit ironic that we kind of have some control over it tonight - if we want to play the Stars, we take it easy and let the Preds win. If we want to play the Preds, we need to beat them tonight.

I've been a bit surprised the Preds didn't capture the top WC spot earlier, but then went and look at their schedule... and crap it's been brutal. Flames twice, Blues, Wild, Lightning. Yotes tomorrow, at least.

But yeah, believe they need 3 points if the Stars were to win tomorrow night since they at least have the tie breaker, so have to at least get to OT against the Avalanche.

I didn't plan very well... should have done a camping trip or something for the hockey-less weekend.

I wanted to see Calgary vs. Nashville. That would be a fun series. Instead, Nashville concedes a goal with 0.1 seconds left and drop a point in the standings.

Dallas vs. Calgary won't be as exciting. Certainly from a physicality standpoint it won't match Nashville/Calgary.

Yeah, would love to see more Preds/Flames after the game the other night.... probably wouldn't even tune in to Stars/Flames.

I'm likely tuning into Eastern Conference only for the first round.

If Nashville plays Colorado, I'm interested in how much Nashville goons it up. They were by FAR the league leaders in fighting majors. There's little to no fighting in the playoffs, but they have no other edge over Colorado.

So, the fifty loss Coyotes after losing 10 straight and 17 of 19.... beat the Wild, Stars, and Preds for some playoff drama (and took the Blues to OT).

Preds scored on their first 3 shots and were up 4-0 halfway through the first and lost 5-4. :eek:


Stars/Flames is probably the one series worth skipping... looking forward to the others though (and hopefully Ovechkin is good to go).

A surprising number of penalties in the TB/Toronto game... TB may need to adjust.

Highest scoring season in years. A lot of 100 point teams. Read it's the Blues' highest scoring season in 30 years and the Wild's highest scoring team ever. Only day one, but penalties are being called in both games.

Just maybe we won't see another Knights/NYI/Canadiens/Lightning final four (and there's hardly a worst case unless the Stars advance).

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Probably the best team the Wild have ever had, and a terrible draw for the first round - they just don't match up well with the Blues. Hoping this is just nerves of a young team, and they put on a lot of good pressure in the first period, but I don't have high hopes for this series.

I love the NHL on ESPN theme. Love that it is back.

It's true, but I also think they're just not built well for the playoffs. They rely a TON on Kaprizov, and, as the Avs have learned over the years, the physicality of the playoffs can wear those kinds of guys down. I kind of expected them to crash and burn.

I see so many people complain about it, but I think ESPN+ has been a huge upgrade from NHL.tv and I think ESPN's coverage has been fine... and yeah, love the classic theme music.

And having the first round on national TV and not the regional channels is huge for blackout reasons (not that living in Arizona matters much in that regard). FSN KC would always opt for the Royals over Blues playoff hockey.

McDavid scores 1 on 4. :eek:

Yup.

The Blues know as well as anyone (see the Brett Hull years) that one line can always be shut down. If you can't roll at least 2 scoring lines while also sending out elite special teams units, you're largely drawing dead.

You may steal a series if your goalie catches fire and badly outplays theirs, or if they're slow to figure out how to deal with that single superstar line. But by the 2nd round you're usually drawing dead. It'll just exhaust that star player/line getting through even a single series and then it will all come crashing down.

Wild's Cs don't matchup well with the Blues at all and I think the difference on D is marginal at best in favor of the Wild.

The Wild's special teams are atrocious.

One of my favorite series ever was watching Jake Allen come out of nowhere and butt-**** the Wild when they simply out-played us across the board.

Didn't matter. Sent the 'State of Hockey' home crying.

Tonight reminded me a lot of that series. That 2nd period could've gotten away from us. Minnesota was far sharper and really had some high-quality chances that period. By all rights they could have/should have tied it up there and then who knows how the 3rd goes.

But Husso was outstanding.

So good times.

Not taking anything away from Husso, but Allen won a game in OT on the road in which the Wild outshot the Blues by like 20+ shots (the Wild had 50+ SOG). Husso concerned me on some plays (he was playing way out of position) but played fantastic overall.

Tonight was just an ass whooping and the Wild lost their composure.


If the Blues don't take dumbass penalties (both Perron penalties and Bortuzzo's were dumb), I think the Blues can win this in 5. Curious to see if the Wild turn to Talbot though I think Fleury played OK.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">look at this TRASH <a href="https://t.co/LB6qjXlMBi">pic.twitter.com/LB6qjXlMBi</a></p>&mdash; Tony X (@soIoucity) <a href="https://twitter.com/soIoucity/status/1521342556944089095?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 3, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

If Spurgeon's out for the next game, Game 2 could be ugly.

LET'S GO BLUES

What's kind of crazy is that this gamed really could've gone either way. I didn't even expect the Blues to steal this game. Just hoped for 1 of 2. MIN gifted this W. STL better come into Game 2 like they're down 1.

Playoff Mike Smith is always fun to watch.

GKG!

I wonder how long it will take me to forgive the wild for once employing Mike Yeo?

I hate that guy so goddamn much that merely by extension I enjoy beating the Wild probably more than any other team in the NHL. And the hell of it is that Wild fans hate Mike Yeo as much as I do. Doesn’t matter - had they not given him a shot, we’d have never hired him.

Mike Yeo can eat all the dicks.

He got fired from the Flyers, so he'll have more time on his hands for that.

I hope someone else hires him just so he can get fired again.

You get points towards heaven by firing Mike Yeo.

It was so awesome watching the Blues kick ass and then in the middle of it seeing Mike Yeo get canned. Glorious night last night.

The Kings/Oilers game was awesome! It's great to see LA get it done...I don't know how far they'll go, even in the series as EDM is more talented/deeper, but with Jonathan Quick in net and a team playing with house money, who knows?

GKG!!!!

If you could only set one Mike on fire, who would it be, Yeo or Keenan?

I think Keenan wins a poll here, but for me it's unquestionably Yeo.

On paper I figured it would either be a quick series or Quick series if the Oilers had their shit together. Great game and hope it continues like that.

On the Duncan Keith shot/pass that was tipped past Quick, I thought.... what year is this?! Great to see these guys who have been around forever still making big plays.... and McDavid vs Quick was fun.

That was peak Mike Smith Playoff Experience at the end.... **** that guy in particular.

Duncan Keith is still in the league?

I'm against whoever he's playing for, then.

GO WHATEVER TEAM IS PLAYING DUNCAN KEITH!!!

(unless they employ Mike Yeo in any capacity, including beer vendor)

I'm already nervous. This has GOT to be the Avs' year.

Heh, yeah he got traded to the Oilers last summer and at 38 still sees ~20 minutes/game. There's probably some kind of Mike Yeo Degrees of Separation, but don't believe there's a direct link.

Was it Tarasenko that got butt-ended like 3-4 years ago and then the Blues scored like 4 goals during the major penalty and just embarrassed them? I think it was some bullshit club like Buffalo or Edmonton; just a team that was barely icing an NHL roster so they were gooning it up.

Just go out there and embarrass the dirty mother****er. Beat 'em like 5-0 on their home ice then finish the job in St. Louis so it's the last thing the State of Hockey remembers about the 2022 season.

****s.

I get that there's nuance in hockey that will never go away, but I don't really understand why there's any tolerance at all for plays like that. If you're just plain trying to hurt a guy, it should be an automatic suspension, IMO.

Yeah, it was refreshing to see Clifford get the game misconduct last night... the boarding itself didn’t look awful since the Leaf was so close to the boards, but it was clearly unnecessary and had nothing to do with the play.

I'm not sure he even gets 5 minutes for that in the past... we'll see what comes of the hearing.

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$5k fine.

Because the NHL Department of Player Safety is a joke.

I'm cautiously optimistic... they're getting healthy, with Kadri and Rantanen back and Landeskog back tonight. Preds are without Saros for at least the first two games (I originally saw 4-6 weeks).

The playoffs are such a bitch though...

Looked like 1v 5 and all 5 sitting back in/near the zone and he went around 4 of them untouched not even a stick got close , different gravy my friend.

I thought this was tongue in cheek, but just saw that's actually it... :facepalm:

Clifford got one game for the boarding, so once again there's no consistency at all.

Easy mistake to make.

It’s hard to tell truth from satire with the NHL DPS.

At least he didn’t call him a bundle of sticks like Andrew Shaw. Would’ve gotten a game off for that.

Just a complete joke.

5K fine is OK along with a 1 game suspension...I understand that he has a reputation for being a nice guy and all but that was malicious and has no place in hockey...

Sure would’ve been. But there was no suspension.

Try to break a guys ankle out of nothing more than raw frustration at getting your ass kicked (again) on home ice - pay a small fine.

Say something mean to the ref, get suspended.

Really, when it comes to the DPS, I should probably just be happy that Buchnevich didn’t end up suspended somehow.

And here we go. Fully healthy team and up against a backup goalie. No reason the Avs shouldn't win this.

ESPNU to start... excited to see them at full strength for the first time in a while.

Rangers/Pens has been a great game, Panthers/Caps has been good...... it's going to be a great postseason.

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Well, that was quick.

Oh shit.

So was that. ROFL

They're really buzzing around the puck... the PK energy was great, then of course the shorty.

They're winning a huge majority of puck battles right now.

OK, it's now a "don't get hurt" game.

Kuemper didn't have a highlight yet. :eek:

I mean, I'd also probably try to take MacKinnon one on one in goalie gear at the blue line as opposed to dealing with a clean breakaway... LMAO

Was fun to watch though.

Can't have a much better start than that. PBJ

Nashville's really gonna goon up the last 2 periods.