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NHL December 2016 |OT| Best Christmas Since '93

S

SmackCrackleNPop

Member
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Good game though, Canucks
Wjt3V38.jpg
 
M

MetatronM

Unconfirmed Member
CreeperBlocks said:
Yup.

https://streamable.com/uh8q
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That puck took some of the weirdest bounces on its way in. :D

Even aside from that really bizarre one (which the more I look at it the less I can blame Hank for), he had a really strange game in general last night. He made a number of really great and very difficult saves, but then on a bunch of theoretically easier stuff his angles and positioning were way off. Even with the flukey goal, though, I'd have to put the loss on the team in front of him first and foremost. There were several stretches in the game where they got absolutely dominated by the Sabres, and Hank actually bailed them out of most of those.

The big difference between this season and last season is last year Lundqvist was Super Hank, effectively rescuing a bad team over and over again and stealing wins that they had no right winning and thus creating a bubble ready to burst by season's end. That makes his lack of Vezina votes last year all the more ridiculous, because it was one of the more impressive feats of his career, regardless of what his stats say or how it ended.

This year's Hank, though, is basically league average so far. Maybe even a little less. But this team was still winning games because they were out working teams and their defensive coverage had vastly improved. What has happened over the course of November, though, is that this team has reverted to some of (but thankfully not all of) last year's habits. They're no longer outplaying and out working teams. In fact they're getting beaten in that category, and even being blown away sometimes, basically every single night now. But they were still shooting at an extremely high
(unsustainable)
percentage because what scoring chances they did give themselves tended to be of generally high quality, and meanwhile their defensive zone coverage has still been way better than last season, making those "open man on the doorstep" freebie goals much much fewer and far between than they were last year. So they were still winning, just less convincingly than they had been. Now, finally, that shooting percentage is beginning to come back down to Earth, and they're being outshot and outplayed even worse, and Hank is playing like a typical mortal goaltender.

The result is they're now 3-4-1 in their last 8, and quite honestly aside from the 2 Pittsburgh games (which they were 1-1 in), they haven't really played any other legit contenders in that stretch. It was the surging but not-quite-convincing-yet Blue Jackets, a Panthers team about to fire its coach, a Flyers team on the outside of the playoff picture, a Senators team playing a neutral zone trap, the forever not-quite-good-enough Carolina Hurricanes, and now the basement dwelling Sabres (who are now suddenly on par with the Hurricanes in the standings).

It's not quite panic time just yet, given the absences of Zibanejad and Buchnevich, and we are somehow still in first place in the division, but it's getting pretty close.
 
I

imBask

Banned
zroid said:
it's amazing how successful the rangers have been over the last 10 years with Girardi being so bad for so long, while playing a prominent role most of the time
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you mean advanced stats bad kinda like how Shea Weber is consistently "bad"? or just clearly bad
 
S

Silexx

Member
I don't know if the REDBLACKS winning the Grey Cup would have anything to with it, but Bruce Garrioch is saying that Melnyk has greenlit an outdoor game at TD Place.
 
P

PillarEN

Member
Gaming side suddenly became extra negative. So much misery after yesterday's show for such trivial things. It's tiring to even waste energy on such things.
 
I

imBask

Banned
PillarEN said:
Gaming side suddenly became extra negative. So much misery after yesterday's show for such trivial things. It's tiring to even waste energy on such things.
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Game Awards were really, really, really bad

they were fine last year and people expected more is my guess
 
L

lamaroo

Unconfirmed Member
imbask said:
Game Awards were really, really, really bad

they were fine last year and people expected more is my guess
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I just love how every single thing they show is a "World Premiere" so they can say they have twenty premieres to show off.
 
P

Pikma

Banned
Yesterday some piece of shit forced my car open and stole my backpack

The backpack that had followed me all over the world for the past 8 years...

Motherfuckers
 
S

Silexx

Member
Man, I'm listening to this Pierre Dorion interview right now and he's just said that Thomas Chabot, Logan Brown and Colin White are pretty much untouchables right now.
 
C

Cake Boss

Banned
Silexx said:
Man, I'm listening to this Pierre Dorion interview right now and he's just said that Thomas Chabot, Logan Brown and Colin White are pretty much untouchables right now.
Click to expand...

Cock Boss prediction time : Dhalen, Jaros and Perron will end up being players than those 3.

*Bookmarked by Soc*
 
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