TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING ARE THE CHAMPS 2020-2022 THE NHL 2020-2021 SEASON THREAD (INCLUDING LIGHTNING HANGOVER AND OFFSEASON SHENANIGANS. HOCKEY IS THE BEST)

i see that no one has the hart to discuss that first game. i get it. pretty dire for the habs. kinda concerning. now i'm worried about a sweep, which would be a boring way to end what's been an absolutely wild playoffs. so, please, habs, make a go of it! also, i hope gallagher is ok. hopefully he just got his head scraped across the ice rather than bashed into it. the slo-mo looked scary. but he looked more annoyed than concussed after, just bloodied. so hopefully that's a good sign.

agree that the Habs look outclassed, maybe Price can save them but idk how

my main hope these past couple of years is that Stevie Y does as great a job rebuilding the Wings as he did building the Lightning

Still a bit stung by the Isles game 7 loss. Isles-Habs would have been so exciting and unexpected. Tampa seems unlikely to be fazed by the Habs, but I hope to be proven wrong.

Tampa seems unlikely to be fazed by the Habs, but I hope to be proven wrong.

same

i thought the habs looked quite overmatched in their first game against Vegas. Hoping they can find matchups/get a lucky bounce tonight. When they get that first goal they're almost like a different group

the lightning illegally circumventing the cap has given them an edge. if the nhl is going to turn a blind eye, i kind of hope all teams start doing it. but putting kucherov on LTIR, and only activating him recently, thus not counting his $9.5 million salary toward the cap, allowed them to get savard

I don’t think it’s technically illegal? Kind of a loophole. I assume any team in the same position would do the same thing. Should probably be a rule that a person has to play a game in the regular season in order to qualify for the playoffs.

it's not illegal, sorry. i guess this just has me upset over how this league operates

This is just LTIR? This has been a part of the CBA since the first lockout in 04-05.

So maybe shooting less than the opponent was the best strategy.

So you're telling us we've seen this before from Blake Coleman.... 🤯 #StanleyCup

(🎥: @Sportsnet) pic.twitter.com/Jx2Xz3h1CX

— Hockey Night in Canada (@hockeynight) July 1, 2021

welp

Yeah this is gonna be over soon

Fuckin Sun Belt franchises

- edmonton carolina
- ottawa anaheim
- mtl tb

- calgary tampa

I’ll add Buffalo - Dallas

i didn't even remember these ones this is how dead to it ive become

idk i live in montreal and hockey isnt my sport but any other year idve been swept up in it? but not seeing people & also it not feeling "real" and also being all-in on ottawa and edmonton those years (i lived in ottawa just before that year, and ryan smyth was a great mascot) i just... i can't

but ill tell ya

i watched a video of quinn hughes skating yesterday and it almost was enough to reawaken the hockey fan in me. unreal

in more trivial matters, victor hedman became the first player to score a goal in all 12 calendar months

and

At 19,786 days, the @MapleLeafs have officially tied the @NYRangers for the longest @StanleyCup drought of all time. #LeafsForever #NHLPlayoffs

— Since Leafs Last Cup (@LeafsIastCup) July 2, 2021

better than coleman's

🤯🤯🤯#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/xVA5FC498i

— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) July 6, 2021

☺️

just as well they choked in '16 and '19 or we'd have an honest-to-god dynasty on our hands

even so . . . pretty fucking impressive

congrats florida! you have a good team, especially when you egregiously bypass the cap

i kind of hate this team, because a younger team like tampa winning it three times symbolizes such a disgusting trend. horrible, undeserving fan base to boot. all business over love of the sport.

kudos to vasilevskiy, though. he was out of this world. he looked possessed whenever he was on the ice.

i also noticed this was probably one of the few times i didn't hear people booing bettman. the sooner he is out, the better this league will be.

Lol @ egregiously bypass the cap. They are only like the 50th team to ever do that in the last 17 years.

what they did is legal per the rules, like it or not.

had few illusions that the habs could dig themselves out of that hole, but was really hoping for one more win for them. oh well. was kind of fed up with caring about this season anyway. ready to move on. bring on the expansion draft so we can get that over with too! maroon to seattle, kraken win the cup, maroon gets back-to-back-to-back-to-back!

totally legal! totally common! but egregious, and this habs homer will not let the Lightning forget it. given how much the cap constrains (most) top teams, it is literally unfair (although definitely not illegal) for that roster to have played.

the purpose of the salary cap isn't to create parity (which the nhl has more of than any other pro league I follow anyway), it only exists so team owners can avoid paying their employees their actual worth

agree! but better parity's clearly one of the side-effects, and there are clearly a slew of rules surrounding the cap that are meant to maintain that. (the LTIR loophole remains baffling - best i can see it's from the lack of a super easy fix?)

it's not all black and white. there's levels to circumventing the salary cap that are more acceptable than others. the LTIR loophole that the lightning found and abused of is on a bigger scale

Habs should have circumvented the cap too.

That being said I don't mind younger teams winning it 3 times, hockey has room to grow, I just wish it was Winnipeg, or Nashville, or San José, or whatever, just not Winterbirdopolis.

Where does this Tampa team rank against the greats? They seem pretty tough.

"Winterbirdopolis"?

Hillsborough County (where Tampa and Tampa Bay is located) has a median age of 37.2, which ranks 58th of 68 counties in median age in FL, in fact is below the median age for Florida as a whole (42). snowbirds don't go to TAMPA, they go to places like Sumter County

this tampa team is one of the best. the players themselves are extremely skilled.

neanderthal, it's a reference to a lot of canadian snowbirds vacationing anywhere in florida, i assume, not moving there. also, i imagine canadian snowbirds visit anywhere where they can stretch their canadian peso, so you even get people going to the less popular parts of mexico

still don't think 'Tampa' is their destination but

snowbirds definitely go to clearwater, st petersburg, tampa etc.

yes, it doesn't define the city, the probably make up a perishingly small % of the population in the winter. although i imagine they're overrepresented at hockey games

A lot of the snowbirds I know congregate around Tampa.

But in the context of hockey, where Tampa and Sunrise share the division with Toronto, Ottawa, in no small part because of the snowbird audience.

At any rate, I have my doubts Tampa will ever become a hockey city.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfwEHN7rEvY

Nikita gueule.

Too bad he doesn't have a legion of cheering drunk fans to talk to

this is all steve yzerman's fault

Love it. Best presser cap space can buy.

lol the sens hired pierre mcguire as a vp of player development

also the oilers traded actual assets for the right to pay the ghost of duncan keith $11m over the next two years

that's some peter chiarelli shit, despite him being gone for two and a half years

You have to feel bad for McDavid (until you remember he's making $11M a year or something like that).