The Chicoutimi Cucumber

On another note, this is a golden era for Leafs ridicule. This meme is especially crushing:

We’ve been over this…I think it was dlbalr who pointed out that the habs really don’t have room for him at C, and that he has not shown much effectiveness at W over his career. So he’s not really a roster fit. For my money, the past shouldn’t be relevant to the specific question of whether KK can help us in some way. That would be purely a question for the pro scouting department: is there truly untapped potential there that MSL can perhaps bring out? Or is KK basically just a flop? If the former, and if you think he can fit on the roster, then why not take a flyer on him, assuming a buyout? Whether KK would want to come back is another question. Like you, I doubt it.

Hey, I was open to bringing him in on a cheap deal, but point taken. Just another in a long line of disastrous high picks from the Habs in the pre-Hugo era. This time, though - just for a change - Carolina paid the price for our managerial incompetence rather than us. And that commupance could not have been more richly deserved for an organization that acted like a bunch of trolls.

🤪

It really is an astonishing record, given the mass of genuinely elite talent on this core.

Hahahahaha, I think they will do the classic thing and just fire Keefe. As the old saw has it, you can’t fire the team. They will keep tinkering around the edges with Reeves-type acquisitions being hailed as master strokes, and hoping that some way, somehow, this group finally goes on a run. That GWG was bizarre, but Pasternak showed incredible hands on that play. I also wonder whether it was a case of subtle home-ice advantage - maybe the Bruins know that the puck bounces that way when sent to that exact spot in that building. It’s possible. Certainly Pasternak seemed to anticipate it. Meanwhile, a beat-up Boston now faces bone-crunching Florida, and probable defeat. This is the best possible outcome as far as I’m concerned 🥳

And all of Canada rejoiced. Well, except for Toronto 😁

Not only was I on a BC Ferry during the game, but it was an older model of ferry with no TV hookup. So I was reduced to following the game via spotty cell reception - actually missed Suter’s goal. Oh well. I was glad they started Silovs. I liked his swagger in the earlier games. He just seems to have that “it” factor that some guys have. That was an absolute meat-grinder of a series; almost a caricature of NHL playoff hockey (right down to the bizarre refereeing that is always a talking point at this time of year). Obviously the Canucks will not be favourites against mighty Edmonton - BUT. It will be a wildly different series and might come as a relief to Vancouver. Plus Van has zero pressure now, while EDM has a ton of it. Vancouver is also an elite defensive team capable of grinding with the best of them. If they can get Pettersson going - a big “if” - and if they can continue to get stellar netminding - another big “if” - then an upset is far from impossible.

Very disappointed in the Bruins. Those bastards had ONE JOB and couldn't even do it. Good-for-nothing pukes 🤮

I don’t see how you “protect” a player from what are basically clean hits. Especially in the playoffs, when an instigator penalty is very damaging. I agree with Alfredoh that Hutson, like Hughes, will have to protect himself. And Habs29 makes the point that Hughes has never been targeted like this. Next time around, he’ll probably be more ready for it. Remember in 2014 when the Bruins’s game plan involved hitting the crap out of Subban? I think it was Game 5…the announcer declared early in the game, after watching PK dodge a few attempts, that PK was simply too quick for them to hit. That was the moment when I really began to believe that the Habs would win that series (which we did). It’s not ALL on the D-man, though. One of the talking points in Van is that you ease the pressure on Hughes by having a more effective forecheck, which prevents Nashville from winding up and driving into the zone with the crushing speed that leads their captain to get splattered. The Canucks implemented this to better effect last game. So, a combo of smart, prepared player learning to adapt, and smart team play, can help a Hutson to survive. I still think an under-played theme in all this is that Hronek, who wants a huge payday this summer, has not stepped up to take some of the burden off Hughes. If other teams target Hutson and, say, Mailloux is able to raise his game short-term, that would also help mitigate the danger.

Yannick Hansen was on Vancouver radio prior to Game 5 saying that Nashville has figured out Vancouver. Unfortunately, I’m inclined to agree. While the games are all nail-biters, Van ultimately seems to have no answer to the brutal pounding on Quinn Hughes, and while Hughes is gamely hanging in, he’s not himself (I’ve never seen him lose his footing so much as in this series); and that is causing their entire offensive game to suffer. A guy like Hronek, who wants a huge payday this off-season, would ideally be stepping up to compensate, but I see few signs of that. With Demko out - not that Silov has been weak by any means - and with Pettersson MIA, the best Van can hope for is to eke out a narrow win over the next two, while being at least marginally outplayed. I don’t think NASH’s model can hold up over four series, but they are definitely a team built to grind you agonizingly in one round.

The Preds smartly traded Subban when he had begun his decline. For whatever reason, PK aged out early. So I see that as a pure hockey move. Re: the Montreal trade, the thing I heard about PK was that, once he spearheaded the children's hospital charity, he didn't want to sign jerseys or do other work relating to Habs charities, because he wanted to maximize his value to "his" cause. And that didn't sit too well with the organization or other players. That comes from a former exec with the Habs foundation. Take it for what it's worth. But the wider backlash to Subban, however, was almost instantaneous when he joined the league - long before the hospital thing. And I will never be convinced that that backlash was not informed by subliminal racism. A white kid who acted exactly the same way would have been turned into a Real Canadian Hero by the HNIC/media ecosystem. Instead PK was framed as a "problem" and too big for his britches, needing to learn a lesson, to learn his place. Absolutely the classic response to a swaggering, high-achieving black man. 🙄

I always remember Game 7 of the first round in 2021. Going into that game, I had a lot of trepidation - surely the Leafs’ firepower would come out blasting and they’d bring everything they had. Instead they were limp noodles who had already given up. Defeated by the Trident and Carey Price. There seems to be something fundamentally wrong with this core, between the ears. Hopefully Boston puts ‘em out of their misery and we can stop worrying about a Leafs Miracle Run for another year.

I have a colleague from Africa. His son, who was born in Canada, plays hockey at a high level. I was chatting with the kid; his favourite players are Evander Kane and PK Subban. And considering how both of those guys were framed as "problems" for much of their careers, crapped on for not being "good Canadian boys" etc., the game is lucky that he didn't get turned off and go in another direction. The future of hockey in Canada is probably as the leading sport of a number of sports, but no longer THE iconic Canadian thing; similar, really, to how baseball went from being "America's pastime" to one of a number of popular sports. And, as has been noted, the game continues to grow elsewhere. OK by me, although it does bode poorly for Canada's prospects in international play in the long run.

Hockey is probably paying a price for all those decades of hyper-conservative whiteness. I don't know what has gone on at lower levels, but the NHL has seldom projected a welcoming vibe to people of colour and immigrants (let alone LGBTQ types, women, etc); and the whole HNIC "small town hockey" ethos further amplified the idea that this sport is really about the fantasies and memories of "old-stock Canadians." I don't care, myself, since I always found that configuration rather grating.