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2025-26 NHL Miscellaneous Thread

It's been a wild and crazy series because both teams are young, have spots with high end talent, and a tendency to lose their identity mid-game. I'm picking Montreal because I think St. Louis will deal with the situation and rally his troops more effectively, and because Dobes on his game is better than UPK or Alex Lyon. However, he sure hasn't been on his game for a while. So this is as close to a coin toss or the bounce of a puck as you can get.
 
I know one thing for sure … this series has absolutely murdered that old “you have to score first” thing. It was always BS, so I’m happy to see it die the death it deserves.
 
I think this series is cliched (right? wrong?):
it’s not a series until you lose at home;
it’s not a series until you win on the road;
your goalie is the most important player;
you can’t let yourself get too high or too low;
play the game in front of you;
your best players have to be your best players;
special teams are key in the playoffs;
leave it all on the ice;
and the 4th game is always the hardest to win!
 
SlapShots said:
I think this series is cliched (right? wrong?):
it’s not a series until you lose at home;
it’s not a series until you win on the road;
your goalie is the most important player;
you can’t let yourself get too high or too low;
play the game in front of you;
your best players have to be your best players;
special teams are key in the playoffs;
leave it all on the ice;
and the 4th game is always the hardest to win!
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You play all season to get home ice in game 7.
 
I expected Montreal to take full control of the series after dominating wins in Game 2 and Game 3

I expected Buffalo to take control of the series after battling back and winning Game 4 in Montreal

I expected Montreal to put the series away at home after a dominating Game 5 win on the road

And then Montreal laid an egg at home in Game 6.

You can look at those results lots of different ways. 2 evenly matched teams battling to the end in a best of 7 series is probably the politically correct way to look at it. Frankly I see 2 teams that have been incredibly inconsistent, defensively undisciplined, and appear to be intimidated when playing at home. They are fortunate that in THIS series, they are playing each other because the way both have performed in THIS series the Canes would have absolutely crushed both of them.

Again that is not to say that these teams cannot beat the Canes in a 7 game series. They both can. However, whoever it is that wins tonight is going to have to play a whole heck of a lot better than they have these past 6 games if they are going to have a chance to beat us in the conference finals.

My prediction tonight? Got to go with the Habs following the same pattern they did in their first round series. Win Game 5 on the road to set up a game 6 series clincher at home. Lose Game 6 at home. Scrape out a win on the road in Game 7.

That is my gut feel. Now my wallet is going to remind me as I consider betting on a Habs win tonight that my gut has been incorrect on this series each of the last 3 games. So yeah, I have NO idea at all what is going to happen tonight.
 
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I see two teams that have very little playoff experience and are learning how to deal with playoff hockey and which players are their playoff performers.
 
cmaleski2 said:
I expected Montreal to take full control of the series after dominating wins in Game 2 and Game 3

I expected Buffalo to take control of the series after battling back and winning Game 4 in Montreal

I expected Montreal to put the series away at home after a dominating Game 5 win on the road

And then Montreal laid an egg at home in Game 6.

You can look at those results lots of different ways. 2 evenly matched teams battling to the end in a best of 7 series is probably the politically correct way to look at it. Frankly I see 2 teams that have been incredibly inconsistent, defensively undisciplined, and appear to be intimidated when playing at home. They are fortunate that in THIS series, they are playing each other because the way both have performed in THIS series the Canes would have absolutely crushed both of them.

Again that is not to say that these teams cannot beat the Canes in a 7 game series. They both can. However, whoever it is that wins tonight is going to have to play a whole heck of a lot better than they have these past 6 games if they are going to have a chance to beat us in the conference finals.

My prediction tonight? Got to go with the Habs following the same pattern they did in their first round series. Win Game 5 on the road to set up a game 6 series clincher at home. Lose Game 6 at home. Scrape out a win on the road in Game 7.

That is my gut feel. Now my wallet is going to remind me as I consider betting on a Habs win tonight that my gut has been incorrect on this series each of the last 3 games. So yeah, I have NO idea at all what is going to happen tonight.
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The last couple of games in that series have been so skewed by weird/bad goalie play that it’s really hard to map out what to expect in Game 7, much less further down the road … for either team. Put it this way, once you get to the final 4 teams, nobody’s an easy out and everybody is good enough to be there. You don’t fluke out two playoff series, no matter how dismissive as everybody wants to be about Carolina’s recent Eastern Finals appearances. From there, it’s how you step up and play in the moment.
 
I’m pulling for Buffalo with my Canes goggles on! I think the home team wins tonight, why, because all the prognosticators say it’s a road team series to win which will follow the same script…hell, the home team has to win sooner or later right…

As much as I hate the thoughts of those Buffahole fans invading Lenovo, I think the Canes match up a tad better vs Buffalo in the ECF!
 
cmaleski2 said:
I expected Montreal to take full control of the series after dominating wins in Game 2 and Game 3

I expected Buffalo to take control of the series after battling back and winning Game 4 in Montreal

I expected Montreal to put the series away at home after a dominating Game 5 win on the road

And then Montreal laid an egg at home in Game 6.

You can look at those results lots of different ways. 2 evenly matched teams battling to the end in a best of 7 series is probably the politically correct way to look at it. Frankly I see 2 teams that have been incredibly inconsistent, defensively undisciplined, and appear to be intimidated when playing at home. They are fortunate that in THIS series, they are playing each other because the way both have performed in THIS series the Canes would have absolutely crushed both of them.

Again that is not to say that these teams cannot beat the Canes in a 7 game series. They both can. However, whoever it is that wins tonight is going to have to play a whole heck of a lot better than they have these past 6 games if they are going to have a chance to beat us in the conference finals.

My prediction tonight? Got to go with the Habs following the same pattern they did in their first round series. Win Game 5 on the road to set up a game 6 series clincher at home. Lose Game 6 at home. Scrape out a win on the road in Game 7.

That is my gut feel. Now my wallet is going to remind me as I consider betting on a Habs win tonight that my gut has been incorrect on this series each of the last 3 games. So yeah, I have NO idea at all what is going to happen tonight.
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I liked the way during some point in Game 6 one of the announcers said (approximately) "the winner will not see this much open ice against Carolina. Zero point zero percent chance." So one of them has watched us.
 
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