The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

[Majingir]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

Leafs/Senators and Canucks/Blackhawks are current playoff matchups. Yeah, sure.

It'd be great if it happened. Leafs-Sens where winner plays the Habs. After last year's bad ratings playoffs with no Canadian team in it, having something like that would be great for the NHL.

About the halfway point in the season, anything can happen, but would be cool if leafs did make it. They're not supposed to be good, maybe a .500 team, but right now they got playoff shot. Hopefully season doesn't end same way so many in past have,and lots of games this year have, with a collapse in final third of it.

[Madman55]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

Jake McCabe with a candidate for hit of the year?

https://www.nhl.com/news/patrik-laine-leaves-game-for-jets/c-285433666

[slickdtc]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

Laine collapsed in slow motion. LOL

[pietasterp]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

Laine collapsed in slow motion. LOL

This is also the description of the Red Wings franchise over the past 5 years.

[gopher_guy]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

Wild come back to win in Anaheim.

10-5-1 this year when their opponent scores first. Last year they were 5-25-1 when the opponent scored first.

The Boudreau effect.

[ImTellinTim]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

Wild come back to win in Anaheim.

10-5-1 this year when their opponent scores first. Last year they were 5-25-1 when the opponent scored first.

The Boudreau effect.

But Money says comebacks don't happen in the NHL.

The Wild haven't lost two games in a row in regulation since the first week of November. They're 2 points back with 4 in hand and have an 8-game home stand to look forward to in February. I'm starting to get somewhat optimistic. Still don't think we have the firepower to win a series against Chicago. Even with home ice.

[daflyboys]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

I still don't know how that first goal for the Flyers was disallowed vs. the BJ's. I guess this is where the BJ part comes in.

[DrJones]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

I guess this is where the BJ part comes in.

[Majingir]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

Leafs currently in a "bye week", which doesn't sit well with Mike Babcock. Sure it's nice to get a week off, but then it also means somewhere down the road, you'll be having abunch of games grouped together. Leafs will have 5 days off, then have a back to back right after. And have a total of 8 back to backs(not including this upcoming one) in the 2nd half of the season.

They're already behind most teams in games played, and this week off doesn't help. Just means a much more tiring finish for a young team.

Like I've said in the past, if NHL wants to reduce number of back to backs, just space out the schedule better. 4 times on Leafs schedule for example they have 3+ days off. I'm sure they could probably fit 3-4 extra games in that timespan, meaning there's 3-4 less back to backs needing to be played right there. That combined with starting the season a week earlier, and you cut the number of back to backs teams play in half.

[Madman55]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

I agree with the number of back to backs being ridiculous. Buffalo's schedule starting tomorrow is 1/12 @ TB, 1/13 @ CAR, 1/16 vs DAL, 1/17 @ TOR, 1/20 vs DET, 1/21 @ MTL. 3 consecutive sets of back to backs followed by a 2 in 3 stretch (1/24 @ NSH, 1/26 @ DAL)

[DrJones]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

Ovechkin becomes 84th player to record 1000 career points.

Fastest to 1000 Points

1. Wayne Gretzky - 424 games
1a. Wayne Gretzky - 433 games (points 1001-2000)
2. Mario Lemieux - 513 games
...
12. Jaromir Jagr - 763 games
...
24. Alex Ovechkin - 880 games
...
84. Patrick Marleau - 1349 games

[DrJones]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

Other 1000-point Trivia:

- Henrik Sedin will be the next player to reach 1000 points, likely in the next week or so. He'll become the first Canuck in the 1000 point club. Daniel will join him early next season.
- Sidney Crosby will reach 1000 points in a month, and will be 12th or 13th fastest to do so.
- Shane Doan's corpse is 44 points away from 1000. If he hangs on, he'll smash the record for slowest to 1000 by 200 games or so.
- Nobody else is particularly close. Evgeni Malkin will hit 1000 points before the inevitable 2020 lockout; Jason Spezza, Henrik Zetterberg, and Eric Staal are iffy.

[slickdtc]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

Wayne-O insane-O.

[DrJones]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

There are not one but two segments on TSN.ca right now with the header of "Auston Matthews: Second or Third Best in NHL?" Guess Canadians can't laugh and point at Skip and SAS anymore.

[Majingir]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

There are not one but two segments on TSN.ca right now with the header of "Auston Matthews: Second or Third Best in NHL?" Guess Canadians can't laugh and point at Skip and SAS anymore.

And that same media will be the first ones to point fingers at others when talking about amount of pressure put on certain players, or amount of media attention gets put on a team or something like that.

A few months ago, the media was jumping all over Andersen and his slow start to the season, and now that he's done so well, they're putting out articles being like "Are the Leafs playing Andersen too much".

Canadian sports media really does get annoying at times. Which is why it's nice that the Leafs have the types of people they have at the top, the ones who know how to protect these young guys from getting bothered/distracted by this types of stuff.