Hockey kicks off tonight, what are you looking for with your team?
What are you watching tonight?
5 Games on Tap tonight, I will likely have Pittsburgh and Philly on tonight as a Caps fan.
Interested to see the effect Covid has here, with the realignment of divisions so all the Canadian teams are in one division due to Covid Quarantine rules between the US and Canada.
All teams will play only divisional opponents in the regular season. Teams in the North division will play each other nine or 10 times, while everyone else will face their divisional opponents eight times.
The North Division may also be forced to play in a Hybrid Hub most likely in Edmonton due to travel restrictions between territories in Canada.
Some of the California teams may be forced to play in Arizona due to competitive event restrictions there.
There are also quite a few players that are still going through Quarantine protocols and won't be available early in the season.
As the league prepares to kick off the abbreviated 2020-2021 season, it announced that each division will have corporate sponsorship.
The Scotiabank North Division
The Discover Central Division
The MassMutual East Division
The Honda West Division
Comments
Your boy Farabee putting on a show. That third goal was way too easy
On pace for a 224 point season!
Really slick hands, couple times he made the puck float to a teammate over multiple sticks. Saw some twitterverse calling him Special Delivery.
Stanley cup or bust baby!!!
Edit: Better GIF
Absolutely fucking nothing, apparently, because Sinclair broadcasting is the absolute worst
As for the Canes, I'm just glad we are away from the Metro for a year. But yeah, we should be a pretty good bet to make the playoffs. And as long as we don't play Boston, who knows, we might win it all.
My in laws gave me their login information for their DirecTV account, so now I should be able to watch this year.
Phew, things were looking dicey there for a while!
Since I'm in Wisconsin, I now have an rink in my backyard which replaces access to Caps broadcasts. I'll be playing hockey pretty terribly all winter, but I'll definitely yell OVI every time I shoot.
I'm a career beer leaguer, so I play hockey pretty terribly all year long!
The Broadway Babies are here now. Laf, Kakko, Chytil, Miller, Fox, Lindgren, Shesterkin. Youngest team in the league by a mile. It's gonna be a rough year probably, but I'm cautiously optimistic, even being in the buzzsaw division we might make the initial round of playoffs.
The Rangers don't open until tomorrow night. There are some interesting storylines...
1) The Rangers are overloaded at left wing, with Panarin, Kreider, and Lafreniere. At the same time, they are very inexperienced at right wing behind Buchnevich. Kaapo Kakko and Julian Gauthier need to take a major step forward.
2) The Rangers have a major hole at second line center. Ryan Strome had a career year playing with Panarin, but he is woefully defensively and doesn't carry the play. Filip Chytil is the young center in waiting, but I still think he is more suited for wing and hasn't showed the passing skills to be relied on as a top two line centerman. There isn't a big time young center draft pick or prospect in the system, despite mountains of young defensemen and wings. Rumors have been swirling that the Rangers are interested in Pierre Luc Dubois, a 23 year old No. 1 center , who is unhappy in Columbus. He was also Panarin's centerman two years ago and both had huge seasons. If Chytil isn't the guy, does he get exposed and loses value as a potential trade piece for Dubois?
3) First full year with The Czar in nets. If he can stay healthy, I think he is a Cup-caliber goalie. And, ignore the chatter. The Czar is a vastly superior goaltender upside-wise over Georgiev.
4) The big story- K'Andre Miller won the job as Jacob Trouba's partner in camp, which leaves Tony DeAngelo as a third pair offensive defenseman who isn't so hot defensively paired with Jack Johnson (analytics worst player in the NHL last season) or Brendan Smith. I hope Miller can hold up because I think you can't have enough long rangy defensemen who eat up space on the ice in today's game. At the same time, with Adam Fox around and Zac Jones in the pipeline, DeAngelo is a very expensive luxury on the third pair, and his social media adventures (which I won't get into) have made him very unpopular with a large part of the fanbase. If things go badly, he is going to be public enemy number 1. He is also likely trade bait.
No matter what happens, we will always have the greatest radio call in history:
Fetisov for the Devils plays it cross-ice, into the far corner. Matteau swoops in to intercept. Matteau behind the net, swings it in front, HE SCORES! MATTEAU! MATTEAU! MATTEAU! STEPHANE MATTEAU! AND THE RANGERS HAVE ONE MORE HILL TO CLIMB, BABY!
just waiting for my Kraken's expansion draft in July!
Going to make for some interesting calls by a few teams on who they protect
Thinking this could be the year the bottom finally falls out on my Pens. Aside from getting rid of Jack Johnson (addition by subtraction) they didn't do much in the offseason to address the things on the roster that have been killing them the last two postseasons. Playing in the B(east) division isn't going to help either.
New assistant coaching staff though so maybe they'll address some issues and have us competitive
Excited to see what Laviolette can do with a talented, veteran roster. Hopefully Samsonov can step in and do an admirable job. No way he can be any worse than Holtby was last season. I definitely feel like the fans are expecting too much out of Chara just because of his name. He's old. I hope the shortened season doesn't ultimately hurt Ovi's quest to pass Gretzky.
No, no, no, no, no. My wonderful wife is from Edmonton. That p___y had better not catch The Great One.
I'm talking about Ovi, not Crosby.
If by too much you mean serviceable 3rd pairing defenseman, than I'm guilty.
That is what I'm expecting. Another Brooks Orpik essentially.
The lockout season and Covid seasons greatly hurt his chances, otherwise he might have gotten there. I hope he does but I'm not very confident at this point.
Ovie may close out like Jagr just to get there. Hope not but I could see it happening.
Agree with you there. Jagr played
forever... holy shit he's still playing pro hockey in Russia at the age of 48. Drafted by the Pens in 1990. That guy is an animalYeah he is, loves the game...
Actual footage of Jagr during his rookie season:
I just wanna watch hockey😂
Being a casual NHL fan I watch all Caps games I can on NBCSN but what the hell happened with Kane? I keep seeing he is filing for bankruptcy but I thought he was a big earner in the league?
Reddit has been saying among other things, he's a big gambler (had like a $500k unpaid marker with a Vegas casino at one point), then I think he's been sued a few times, and also living that baller lifestyle I'm pretty sure. From the snippets I saw, wouldn't be surprised if he ends up being like many other former athletes who end up with nothing after their playing days are done, and that's honestly kind of sad. I think the deal he's currently on was 7x7 when it was signed, so it's not like he isn't bringing home the bacon from that end.
The only thing I'm optimistic about with the Caps is that they should be first in line in the league to get their COVID Vaccine.
Really excited to watch the Canes! Don't think they have the goalie talent or depth to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals, but should be an interesting season either way.
Goalie is such a ridiculous crapshoot. It certainly helps to have a top notch one, but its definitely not vital.
If the defense can play to its potential, which is honestly the best defensive grouping in the league, then Mrazek and Reimer are more than capable of leading them to a title. Where we really need improvement is scoring depth. Svech-Aho-Teravainen is a legitimate top line, and probably one of the top quartile scoring lines in the league. But we have been spinning tires behind them.
Necas should continue to improve, and that's always good. But we are going to need Trochek to step up and be the kind of guy we brought him in to be. We need Neiderriter to not suck this year. Its probably asking too much to think Staal has much left in his offensive tank, so we'll probably need Foegele to develop a little more consistency.
Also very curious to see how some of the new kids work out. Bean has been hyped for years, and I'm looking forward to seeing how good he really is. Suzuki was hyped a lot after the draft last year, so I'm curious to see what he brings. If we want to have a legit shot at the Cup this year, we might need some of their offensive skill to be realized in meaningful games.
To your goalie point, you can have Patrick Roy in his prime but if the defense in front of him is terrible you won't win.
And likewise, if you have an excellent defense, you can make the finals with someone like Michael Leighton
Eh, Roy won a title with a defense of Kevin Haller, Eric Desjardin, Mattheiu Schneider, Lyle Odelin and Patrice Briesbois. Sometimes a goalie can do it on their own, without being a trapping team. It takes a very unique talent (Hasek in Buffalo for example getting his team to a Final with hot garbage in front of him.)
But it is rare.
I always liked going to Canes games- very accessible arena and good sight lines/game day experience. Now being in Richmond, that is the first place I would head for games. Much cheaper than going to Caps games, for sure. Plus, they have one hell of a top line. It is hard to root against Svech and Aho, even when you are rooting for their opponent.
I'm excited to watch (read: sleep through) a lot of Caps-West games (read: Vancouver).
I always like to pick a team in the west to follow. For a few years it's been Edmonton with McDavid and Draisaitl. I figure this is a good year to change it up with Beagle, Schmidt, and Holtby in Vancouver.
Was just excited to see the puck drop yesterday.
A Flyers win over the Pens is always a good day, just felt a little different without 20k there to chant "Crosby Sucks!" Although his goal was a pretty.
Interesting year for the Flyers. I feel like if Covid hadn't broken everything up, they could have made a serious run the way they were playing to close out the regular season. They just couldn't quite get back into that gear offensively especially the top line.
Looking for a big year for Hart. The kid might finally be the goalie Flyers fans have been waiting for since Hextall was between the pipes.
Be forewarned- if you order NHL Center Ice without having a cable package, they will nail you with all $99 at once, rather than splitting into multiple payments like they have with full seasons. It is an automatic billing if you subscribed last year, so that hit caught me a bit off guard.
Only regret is not getting to see Lundqvist in a Caps jersey this year, but was happy to hear his open heart surgery went well.
#AllCaps 6-4 over Buffalo. Not a great defensive effort but 6 goals with zero from Ovi
As a Caps fan, have to tip the cap to the Penguins goalie tonight for his Ally oop in a two man disadvantage that led to a shorthanded goal for the Pens. It was pure magic how he dropped it over all the Caps.
Hated getting swept by those games, especially after the way we lost in game 2. The good news is that we are four games in, all on the road, and have six points. We get a two game home stand agains the Sabres which should get us up to 10 points. Just have to figure out the special teams.
Ovechkin, Kuznetsov, Orlov and Samsonov all in Covid tracing seclusion after violating NHL Covid social distancing policies. Caps hit with $100K fine.
Apparently the players gathered in a hotel room after an away game. Not sure how long their absence is in effect or if any actually tested positive.
Out at least 4 games. That hurts especially in this shortened season.
Doh
DuBois to Winnipeg and Laine/Roslovic to CBJ. It will be interesting to see how that all plays out, but I will say that I'm happy Columbus isn't in the NYR division this year. That's a lot of goals they just added.