LOL, I was working in Sioux Falls working last week, but had to call the son and get him out of bed once the Blues scored. For our side it was a pretty awesome night.

Roy is back in 2016-2017. Yay?

Kind of getting tired of not having much to root for around here. :sulk:

Guess I'll bandwagon the Blues for the playoffs.

Tell me if this reminds you of a certain NFL team...

Hasn't advanced in playoffs since 1993

Has lost 8 consecutive playoff series

For good measure, when playoffs begin this week, it will mark the TWELFTH consecutive time they will NOT have home ice advantage in a playoff series.

The team I'm referring to?


The New York Islanders


Long suffering Isles fan, but still vividly remember the Dynasty - still the last team in the four major professional sports leagues to win four straight championships.

About damn time they win a playoff series but is it better to win tonight to draw the Penguins or tank tonight so they instead draw the Panthers?

That does sound familiar! Was the last series they won the series where the Dale Hunter/Pierre Turgeon incident happened? I remember wathing that on TV and screaming to the Isles to kick Hunters ass. What a cheap shot. If they can get the 'good' Greiss in the playoffs they can make a good run.

Where is 'the creature?' Are you going to bring him back this season?

2011-12 season but it's felt way longer then that lol

Enjoy the extra 4 games. I full expect the Blackhawks to sweep, because you know because of Blues.

Bring on the Rangers.

Capitals over Flyers in 5
Penguins over Rangers in 6
Panthers over Islanders in 7
Lightning over Red Wings in 5

Stars over Wild in 4
Blues over Blackhawks in 7
Ducks over Predators in 6
Sharks over Kings in 7

---

Penguins over Capitals in 7
Panthers over Lightning in 6

Blues over Stars in 7
Ducks over Sharks in 5

---

Penguins over Panthers in 5
Ducks over Blues in 6

--

Penguins over Ducks in 6

Creature is dead. Chiefs are loaded man...

Got the year right but wrong series.

That Dale Hunter/Pierre Turgeon incident was in 1993 but it was first round. Ray Ferraro won three consecutive games in that series with OT winners in each.

But then they advanced to face the two time defending champion Penguins without Turgeon but somehow they would win Game 7 in OT on the road in one of the great upsets in playoff history.

Then Montreal beat them in 5 and so began the long drought.

Isles need to be on the other side of the handshaking line for once...

You expect a wounded Lightning team to take us down? I scoff at you young man... SCOFF... Edit: oh nevermind lol

Yeah, that should be Panthers over Lightning.
I goofed.

Absolutely! Pens are on fire. Hope they continue their momentum all the way to the Cup.

News boys go one and done?

Preds draw one of the hottest teams in the NHL. Going to be tough to avoid the golf course in two weeks. They can do it but Pekka needs to be the good Pekka.

R.I.P Flyers owner and founder Ed Snider. Passed away at the age of 83

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/blogs/n...132109607.html

Stars over Wild in 5
Blackhawks over Blues in 6
Ducks over Predators in 6
Kings over Sharks in 5

Capitals over Flyers in 5
Penguins over Rangers in 6
Panthers over Islanders in 6
Lightning over Red Wings in 7


---

Chicago over Stars in 6
Anaheim over Kings in 7

Capitals over Penguins in 5
Lightning over Panthers in 7

---

Blackhawks over Ducks in 6
Capitals over Lightning in 5

--

Blackhawks over Capitals in 7

So, the blues draw the blackhawks again. Life is funny sometimes

I don't think there is a chance that the Lightning get out of the 2nd round, and they will be lucky to win the first round without Stamkos.

I actually think we take them out this year.

Stamkos has played his last game as a Bolt. They better figure out how to win without him.

I'm not buying any hype until they finally get out of round 1.

I made the mistake of buying the hype last year vs the Wild.

Mildly hyped for tonight.

Excited for tonight but its going to be tough waiting until Friday. The Preds really need to get one of the first two on the road or they could get Apollo vs Drago'd.

Let's go Pens!!!

****ing awesome start, especially considering Zatkoff was in net.
Hope Fleury is ready to roll on Saturday afternoon.

Blues!!!!!!

Can we just all agree that goaltending isn't the Blues issue in the POs and that offense is?

The Pens were lucky that Lundqvist got poked in the eye by his teammate.

Rangers in 5.

Great game.

Had we lost it would have sucked! LMAO

Backes and Elliot :clap:

Not to mention Mr. #91...

What a game by the Sharks and Kings. Definitely another 7 rounder there.

ROFL Pens are on their 3rd goalie. Nice try dickhead

You know why I'm rooting against the Pens, right?

Bjugy baby! 2-0 Cats

http://bracketchallenge.nhl.com/#/league/211879

I made a hockey bracket. I made it just now so even though playoffs started you can still pick all the way through but I think it locks as soon as done.
I made it public,you should jus be able to join. you pick winners and amount of games and amount of goals in last series.

bracket name: black ice
tag line: I dont know how to skate

Man that game was tense down the stretch but Kulikov gets an empty netter and the Cats even the series up 1-1. Let's go
Boys

Congrats buddy. **** the Isles

Because of me?:D

Go the **** away SmellyPitts

As much as I'd like to see Chicago lose, that was offsides and the right call was made.

Blues are going to Chief this one up. Guaranteed.

Yup. They're ****ed for this one.

If that's not called goalie interference, that arena might explode.

The NHL is becoming too much like the NFL with all these bullshit reviews.

I have some beach front property in North Dakota if you believe that challenge is going to be called in St. Louis ' favor.

MLB also. Sox had a review on a trapped ball that was as clear as day.

The **** plays 4 Non Blondes in their rink?

The worst part about the last 3-4 minutes for the Blues is having to listen to the Blackhawks TV team jizz all over the decisions.

Yep, that's getting stupid too. They review every damn slide at 2B at this point.

Thanks Chase Utley lol

If the Blues players aren't fully pissed-off right now they have no heart.

The ****ing NHL Blackhawks are the NFL Pats.

And Why aren't the Blues all over Crawford? Now that they know how the officials are going to call interference (or aren't going to!!), they need to play to the officials!

Then there's that! ****!

Corruption, yeah I'm done.

Blues won't live to see a Game Six.

The Blues very-much went Chiefs there. Junk time score!

Unless they can pull their heads out of their asses, you're right.

Officials made the right calls. It just took the Big MO away from the Blues and they were sunk.

Chicago is in their heads. They just choke on ****ing cock everytime they play them in a high pressure situation.

Had a feeling last week when all that was unsettled wqs the seeding between Chicago and STL that it ultimately wouldn't matter. The Blues weren't making it past the first round against Chicago.

Of course the Blues would get ****ed by the new challenge rule. They gonna lose this series because a guy's skate was 1 inch off the ice.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...40&oe=57BC3D46

No where in the rule does it say anything about your back skate coming off the ice.

http://www.usahockeyrulebook.com/pag...-630-off-sides

What am I missing, or is that not the NHL rules or something?

http://www.nhl.com/nhl/en/v3/ext/rul...e-rulebook.pdf

Page 123

Anyone catching the Ducks/Preds?

Turned the channel when they upheld the Hawks goal.

And I see no reason to ever watch another NHL game under Gary Bettman's leadership.

They do not even attempt to mask the favoritism and the bias. It's in every part of the game from suspensions to penalties. With replay in place they'll just openly manipulate scores now.

I'm done with the NHL.

Did anyone see that flop by the Ducks player at the end before that commercial LMAO

I could just roll my eyes when the took the Blues goal away, but when Shaw pushed Elliot into his own net and they allowed the goal to stand, that did it for me. I'll probably just check the scores on the ESPN app because the bias is real.

Well that is interesting.

What a load of mother ****ing shit last night's game was. Just a ****ing bull shit travesty giving the game to those scumbags. Two bullshit calls is just too much. I can't stomach another game of this crap.

Wish I could have done that, but I was 5 rows behind the Blues bench.

I've been watching hockey since I was 5 years old in the late 70's. I've never seen an officiating crew so obviously biased towards one team in a game before - much less in the playoffs.

Hawks 1st goal - VanRiemsdyk quits skating at the ****ing blue line, loafs back and the linesman actually calls icing. What you guys didn't see on the broadcast was the back referee discreetly waving his hands in front of his waist to try to signal the linesman to waive icing. When the whistle blew, the back ref dropped his head as if he knew the linesman blew it.

Of course, Hawks win the faceoff and they score on a shot that Elliott saves 10/10 times if he sees. Who scores? The guy who only received a 6 game suspension for deliberately hitting a player his the face with his stick.

Like I said, I've watched hockey since I was five, started playing when I was 10 - and I still am disgusted with the offsides call. All the talking heads are right, Lehtera's back skate was off the ice. What no one is bothering to mention is that because Lehtera was in the midst of his crossover to accelerate, his FRONT skate was off the ice as well, which means he never technically left the neutral zone. The league spent 6 ****ing minutes looking for anything they could find to overturn the call, and didn't bother to look at the front skate.

Of course, within minutes, Schwartz is chopped down in the slot - no call - and 91 takes a bad penalty. Then again, if the stick doesn't break I'd bet anything it doesn't get called. Watching the league this year, if they see a broken stick, they're sending someone to the box.

Blues just about kill yet another Hawks PP, and Shaw clearly interferes not once, but twice on Elliott. The rules on GI are as clear as day, no contact allowed. Of course, clear as day to the NHL is code for, "let's find a way to **** this up" and they do. There was damn near a riot last night.

I'm typically not one to complain about officiating, but the phantom icing that led to the first Chicago goal got me thinking.

The play that convinced me was the embellishment call on Fabbri. That's the most obviously biased call I've ever seen in a professional sporting event. How do you embellish getting cross checked from behind? And according to reports, the ref actually told Fabbri that he "folded like a cheap card table." Yeah, no shit. When you're 170 pounds soaking wet and get two handed in the kidneys by a guy weighing 220, you're going down. Negates a Blues PP.

Hitch is right - without actually saying it - we're playing 5-on-9 out there. The Cup Champs are going to get most 50/50 calls. Past Blues teams have flat out folded at times like this, I'd like to think this team is different - I guess we'll see over the next few nights.

It was an NFL level total abortion of officiating. Just about done with pro sports.

The Caps are going in dry on the Flyers. I really thought this would be a tough series because of how tough the two played each other during the season. The good news: my hopes were never high.</br></br>Go Blues!

That goal, I think it was the 2nd, SMH yikes.

What the **** kind of voodoo magic is this?

<iframe src="https://streamable.com/e/qibh" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen scrolling="no"></iframe>

This one I assume. It's just horrific.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pXGm3GtrOuo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This should not happen in the NHL, let alone in a playoff game.