The Chicoutimi Cucumber
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Posts posted by The Chicoutimi Cucumber
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13 hours ago, Commandant said:
Their five Highest paid players are 4 forwards and an offensive defenceman. They have 2 goals or less on 13 of their last 14 playoff games.
The team is built for offence and doesnt score.
Sorry Im not calling q defence core with Edmundson and Lybushkin soft....
Also they arent giving up tons of goals, blaming the defence for the losses is not correct either.
Every player in the NHL makes mistakes. Thats just reality. Carey Price got 10 million a year cause his job was to erase the mistakes of tbose who were paid less. The leafs are built in such a way (and paid in such a way) that their best players are at the offensive end. They need to outscore the lower paid players mistakes.
They dont do that and hence the leafs lose.
Makes sense. But of course it doesn’t answer the mystery of why the Big Four don’t produce consistently and at an elite level in the playoffs. I mean…Auston Matthews is a genuine superstar, a scoring machine. Yet he has been hit and miss over eight playoffs. 🤷♂️
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1 hour ago, xXx..CK..xXx said:
Re: Pastrnak goal
Not saying it’s my opinion once again. But The Leafs fanbase was the one commenting on his effort level on that goal. Again, not saying one goal means anything. I am saying that this criticism came from the Leafs fanbase.
No one is saying Marner should turn into Matthew Tkachuk. I’m not sure where you gathered that interpretation. When it comes to physicality, people were complaining that Marner is Marner, not that he is not Matthew Tkachuk.
Wasn’t targeting you with that crack. It’s more that hockey fans often default to the idea that if a guy is ineffective it’s because he’s not big and strong. As I say, the question with Marner shouldn’t be this; it’s whether, like Nick Suzuki in 2021, he is effective at managing the physical challenges that come with playoff action.
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2 minutes ago, Habsfan89 said:
Soft Dcore is the problem, they don’t play physical. Also bad coaching system.
I'm sorry to repeat myself, but I always think back to Game 7 in 2021. They had nothing that night - it was as if they were defeated going in. That was really striking and definitely revealed something fundamentally wrong IMHO.
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Just now, Prime Minister Koivu said:
I did see that quote and it made my laugh.
Zadorov has been simply great. I don’t know why Edmonton traded him.
Calgary traded him! He wanted out. And yes, he has been fabulous. Even my wife got a huge kick out of seeing him dump Kane into the Oilers' bench and then pound on him a few times for good measure, LOL. One of those "happy warrior" types who loves to mix it up, is strong as a bull, and has alarming skill at times. (He is also capable of making boneheaded plays and can be erratic over a full season...a classic "built for the playoffs" dude).
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2 minutes ago, Habsfan89 said:
Out of that core you do know he leads them in playoff points with 50pts.
I gave his playoff totals earlier the thread. The Leafs collectively have a playoff performance problem. I'm not so sure I would lay the blame for it at Marner's feet. But obviously, they are not going to trade Matthews (genuine superstar), Tavares is untradeable, and they seem to be all in on Nylander (who I love as a player myself). Marner is the odd man out, when it comes to the Big Four.
Trading a player of his stature does open up a chance to do a significant reboot of the roster, depending on how it's done. It'll be interesting to see what they come up with. Hopefully, more dog poop. 💩
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I think it's ridiculous to expect everyone to morph into Matthew Tkachuk at playoff time. The real question with Marner is - is he willing to pay the price to succeed in the playoffs? And is lack of this willingness a reason for his hit-and-miss playoff production?
I don't know the answer, but that's closer to being the right question.
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18 minutes ago, Prime Minister Koivu said:
10 years ago today PK Subban made this awesome statement to a reporter.
Perfection
Ahahahaha, classic PK.
As you may know, Zadorov got a pretty good zinger off re: Edmonton prior to Game Three:
“It’s fun. They have good fans, diehard fans. There’s pretty much nothing else to do in that city except watch hockey. I like what they do. That’s why they love their team for sure, and support them so hard,” Zadorov, 29, said.
Nikita Zadorov zings Edmonton, refuses to divulge on Evander Kane | The Province
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2 hours ago, Prime Minister Koivu said:
Terrifically strong performance by Silovs. Impressive that the Oil have faced him for three games and not yet found weaknesses to exploit. Au contraire, he’s gotten stronger with each game.
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11 minutes ago, Prime Minister Koivu said:
That PP goal for Pettersson will hopefully drive him to score more. He was in good position for that one timer shot a few times last night.
Nurse had some really hard hits on Pettersson and he has to find a way to avoid some of those.
I love JT Miller and wish he was a Hab.
One thing we don't hear much about (and why would we?) is the incredible acumen of Van's management group.
Cap-strapped because of the innumerable stupidities of Jim "Couldn't Get Around to Signing Toffoli" Benning, they had to choose whether to prioritize Miller or Horvat's contract. They chose Miller, then traded Horvat rather than overpay based on an outlier contract season. Fan howled. They made the right decision.
Saddled with goombah Boudreau as coach and not permitted to immediately fire him, they rode it out for a while and then brought in Tocchet. Fans were unimpressed. Tocchet has been a BRILLIANT hire. He has done a masterful job of reconstituting the team's entire identity.
Recognizing team D as a weakness, they completely remoulded the blueline and now have a strong 6-man unit with considerable size and sufficient mobility.
Seeing that they had an unexpected contender, they went out and added Zadorov and Lindstrom. Both have been critical to this run; Zadorov has been an absolute monster.
Rutherford won Cups with two separate organizations - quite a rare thing for a GM - and Alvin is his protege. They've put on a master class in organizational transformation.
(Whether it can be sustained is another matter; the Canucks have a busload of impending UFAs. However, if I were a fan, I'd be reassured knowing that key decisions are in the hands of this management group).
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Funny thing about Marner. He’s had dud playoffs, but he’s also had productive ones (2018, 2022, 2023).
Regular Season Playoffs Season Team Lge GP G A Pts PIM +/- GP G A Pts PIM 2012-13 St. Michael's Buzzers OJHL 6 1 3 4 0 14 3 1 4 0 2013-14 London Knights OHL 64 13 46 59 24 38 9 3 6 9 4 2014-15 London Knights OHL 63 44 82 126 53 36 7 9 7 16 8 2015-16 London Knights OHL 57 39 77 116 68 45 18 16 28 44 8 2016-17 Toronto Maple Leafs NHL 77 19 42 61 38 0 6 1 3 4 0 2017-18 Toronto Maple Leafs NHL 82 22 47 69 26 -1 7 2 7 9 4 2018-19 Toronto Maple Leafs NHL 82 26 68 94 22 22 7 2 2 4 2 2019-20 Toronto Maple Leafs NHL 59 16 51 67 16 6 5 0 4 4 2 2020-21 Toronto Maple Leafs NHL 55 20 47 67 20 21 7 0 4 4 4 2021-22 Toronto Maple Leafs NHL 72 35 62 97 16 23 7 2 6 8 2 2022-23 Toronto Maple Leafs NHL 80 30 69 99 28 18 11 3 11 14 2 2023-24 Toronto Maple Leafs NHL 69 26 59 85 18 21 7 1 2 3 2 NHL Totals 576 194 445 639 184 57 11 39 50 18 I heard one suggestion that he would do better in a non-Canadian market and I have a feeling that may be true. If he wound up in, say, Carolina, I would not be surprised at all to see him writing a second half of his career where he quietly emerges as a regular season AND playoff star. Or, it may just be that he needs to get out of TO, like Kessel did.
Anyway, he’s 27 so outside the Habs’ window. Forget it.
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43 minutes ago, Prime Minister Koivu said:
I had to get my butt to bed and missed the third.
Reffing was not good last night at all. The oilers should’ve had a bunch of penalties that weren’t called.
The Canucks can win this series
The reffing was terrible. McJesus high-sticked Hughes (who didn’t even have the puck) right in the face and drew blood - zero call. I thought that was outrageous and, frankly, doubt that a non-call would have happened if the players had been reversed. What I also noticed was that the refs were getting in the way of the play to an unusual degree. Pucks kept going off them, they kept interfering in zone entries, etc. It was as if the play was too fast for the officials at time and they just couldn’t get out of the damned way.
Of course, special teams heavily favour the Oilers. So I’m not sure the Canucks should complain too loudly; if the games start to become more tightly called, that would mean more PPs for the Oilers as well.
Two big pieces of good news for the Canucks despite the loss. One is that Pettersson scored and was looking like about 80% normal all night. The other is that Silov bounced back from a mediocre outing and was impeccable.
They can win the series, but what the 3rd period and OT showed is that, when #97 and #29 are on the ice together and double-shifted, it is - unsurprisingly - sheer survival time for the Canucks. The flip side of it is that Vancouver is equal to, or better than, Edmonton in every other dimension. Skinner has not been better than Silov. The Van D is better overall. And Van has stronger depth up front. But, again, they had no answer to McDavid/Dreiseitl last night. Edmonton’s superstars came up trumps.
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Oil totally dominating the third
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On 4/25/2024 at 5:50 PM, Peter Puck said:
For me we took pretty big risks choosing Caufield and Mailloux. Both risks look to have paid off. I think its a mistake to take those wins and exchange them for another risk (picking 3rd). Of course the third pick overall is a safer risk but its still a risk.
When we pick Demidov and he turns out, will we be trading him and Newhook for the 2026 second overall? Take the win or eventually we end up holding a bust.
I heard it from a lifelong friend of Timmins that Timmins was in disbelief that CC was available at #15. So no risk there - he was the BPA, in the Habs’ judgement.
Mailloux was also BPA by some distance, since his value had been deflated due to issues not related to his on-ice work. I don’t think MB, as old-school a dinosaur as any brontosaurus, had much idea of the sh*storm that pick would generate. He probably thought other GMs would be mad at him but probably did not anticipate that it would become a #MeToo-style media scandal and PR nightmare for the organization.
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If you ask me, everyone has basically moved beyond Mailloux’s crime. He put in the work to rehabilitate himself as a human being and a hockey player, and - more importantly - we now know that his was in no way an isolated case. Rather it was one instance of an endemic culture of misogyny, up to and including sexual assault, in junior hockey and probably the pros as well.
Surely, if the goal was to unload him because of his off-ice issue, that would have happened long before now?
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Wait…Shanahan was the Saviour, wasn’t he?? No wait, Babcock was the Saviour. Hang on hang on, Matthews was the Saviour. No, no, that’s not it - Tavares was the Saviour. No, hold it, Keefe was the Saviour. Wait, I mean, Ryan Reaves was the Saviour. No, no, I mean to say, Craig Berube is the Saviour…no, just a second…
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10 minutes ago, GHT120 said:
Because Abominable Snowmen is too long, Sasquatch leads to 'Quatchs as a nickname and Bigfoots isn't sexy.
Well, unless locals standardly refer to the big lug as “Yeti,” it’s an excruciatingly stupid choice - and therefore will likely be the winning moniker.
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I can report from Van that the possibility of Montreal trading down is definitely one of the major talking points around this draft, well outside of Montreal and Calgary. Everyone knows Montreal has young D up the Wazoo and has little use for one more.
One surreal scenario that comes to mind is that the D-man available at #5 might be ranked even more highly than Reinbacher by the Habs’ braintrust. In which case, could they draft that guy and then look to move Reinbacher? 🤯 (Not a serious proposal, just a bizarre theoretical possibility)
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It should be “Outlaws” but it won’t.
Please not Utah HC.
I don’t get “Yeti”…I thought that was a Himalayan reference?
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TBH I always thought the metric of “comparing two players’ production at the early same age” was a bad one. Lots of years separate Barron from his future. He has a ways to go before he even establishes himself as an everyday NHLer, let alone the #1A defenceman Petry eventually grew into at his peak. That said, if he eventually becomes as valuable at Petry, that would be awesome, because peak Petry was one hell of a defenceman.
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9 hours ago, Prime Minister Koivu said:
What a great game in Vancouver. It’s now 5-4 Canucks with 4 minutes to go in the third.
What a third period by Vancouver
I thought Van was totally outclassed in the first, but actually outplayed EDM in the second despite surrendering two goals, and completely dominated the third.
That team has a lot of resilience and just enough offensive depth to be able to score crippling goals. Hella game by JT Miller, who is one of the league’s more underrated stars.
Edmonton is lucky that Demko is hurt. If he’d been in net, the score would not been nearly as close IMHO. Silov was OK but did not impress. (I would not be surprised at all if the Canucks go with DeSmith next game).
Interestingly, McDavid was pretty much a non-factor all night. I’d have liked more analysis of that - was it that Hughes was skating with him and able to contain him? Was it something else Vancouver did? Was it the Dreiseitl injury that allowed Van to focus on McDavid more relentlessly?
Of course McDavid will break out soon, and that’s where not having Demko is apt to really hurt the Canucks.
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17 hours ago, GHT120 said:
Bergevin decided not to give Danault and acceptable offer and his re-signing Armia left no cap space for Hughes to keep Lehkonen ... on the other hand, if the Habs had both of them, even if MB was still fired who knows if Gorton and Hughes even sign on to a team likely stuck outside the playoffs but in the teens without lottery luck ... no Slafkovsky, no Reinbacher, no 2025 5th overall
I am no Bergevin-lover, but I'll point out here, as I've done before, that this board was nearly unanimous that the Habs should NOT sign Danault to a long-term deal with that cap hit. We should remember that he had 5 goals and 25 points that season. And most of us thought that Kotkaniemi would grow into being the type of C Danualt now is. So moving on from Danault seemed like sensible cap-management.
Were we wrong? Absolutely. But I don't think it makes sense for us to get in high dudgeon, retroactively, that Bergevin refused to sign a deal that almost none of us wanted him to sign.
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7 minutes ago, Prime Minister Koivu said:
The Toronto, Boston paradigm.
I’ve hated the canes since their cup years and all of their theatrical crap such as the bowling ball thing just fueled that dislike.
I hope they get swept
Plus, you have to admit that a New York-Boston semi-final would be epically old-school. Not that I’m cheering for Boston. Now that they’ve dispatched Toronto, I want them to die the most excruciating death imaginable.
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44 minutes ago, Prime Minister Koivu said:
The Bergevin offer sheet to Aho was ridiculously low ball and not a serious offer at all.
That led to revenge by the canes which has screwed them.
It also led to Bergevin paying WAY TOO MUCH for Dvorak.
So to me this entire scenario was an idiot GM being an idiot, followed be another idiot GM being an even bigger idiot, followed by the first idiot GM doubling down on his idiotness.
The only positive in all of this is that we are free of that low class idiot.
Agree with every word of this
3 minutes ago, GHT120 said:I-M-O this was another chicken-shit attempt to injure by Trouba ... if the NHL truly believed in player safety there would be a suspension ... BTW, I have heard the claim that the elbow only came up because Necas ducked ... Trouba trying to hit Necas' head with the elbow because he didn't succeed him spearing Martin (a) in the head and/or (b) into the boards head first is no excuse as far as I am concerned.
The NHL couldn’t give a whoop about player safety. If they did, they wouldn’t have a guy running that department whose entire living was hitting guys in the head.
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On another note, this is a golden era for Leafs ridicule. This meme is especially crushing:
2023-24 NHL discussion thread
in Habs & Hockey Talk
Posted
😁 haha, agree! I suggest you send these recommendations on to Shanahan. They need to hear this!!