GDT STANLEY CUP FINALS: Game 3: Tampa Bay Lightning at Montréal Canadiens

[hab29RETIRED]

17 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

Wow. One of the worst passes you could possibly make at this level, with these stakes, by Gustafsson. That will likely end any hope he had of being re-signed here.

 

That said, as Craig Simpson noted, Price failed to corral the rebound.

 

I don’t care what anyone says, Price has been nowhere near top of form this series. His puckhandling has been bad by his standard, and he has let in two softies, plus things like we just saw.

That was a horrible pickup. I don’t get why we are playing him and Merrill. Thanks also don’t get the live for stall. Perry has played his heart out and created opportunities and has contributed. Stall has been useless. They finally had Anderson on another line - don’t know if it was because of a line change. I think next game play KK with Taffoli and Perry and out Anderson with Caufield and Suzuki and sit old man stall.

 

juat a sad, sad performance at hime on the first final in friggin 28 years. Price just not good tonight. Not just jot good enough - but not good. Pathetic save percentage. I give him the pass the first two games. But he has to find a way to make saves. This D is built around Prixe being superhuman. This D is enough to win a game if we just get above average, or mediocre Price. This series is exhibit A, why your best and highest paid player can’t be the goalie. Only so many games you can win 1-0 and if a Crosby, Kucherov, or Ovechkin are mediocre or average, their teams can still win. If price is average we are dead.

 

we need to show more pride next game. It’s not about winning the series at this stage, it’s just go in the next friggin game, and don’t let someone else raise the cup in Montreal. Win the next game and than deal with what follows afterwards.

[hab29RETIRED]

20 minutes ago, alfredoh2009 said:

Two minutes to go and I am enjoying watching the Habs showing so much courage and heart 

 

a bad game by Price and quite a few costly mistakes resulting from the relentless play of TBL

 

i am a happy fan 

A happy fan??? Seriously. I’ve got a headache watching this game and being so pissed off. Watching with my 11 year old, so have to bite my tongue from searing out loud.

[DON]

15 minutes ago, Habsfan89 said:

First off did anyone really think we could beat Tampa??

Yes, i do.

But, Habs are the underdogs for sure.

[hab29RETIRED]

12 minutes ago, Habsfan89 said:

I just think cooper is showing he's one hell of a coach. He's just simply out coaching us.

With some of the personal decisions in this series, I think Barry melrose would have out-coached us.

[dlbalr]

24 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

Embarrassment for Montreal, yes. I don’t see why the NHL should be embarrassed; it’s not as though the Habs beat Pygmies to get here. Tampa is a terrible match-up for them, TB got all the breaks, and most importantly, Price missed the opportunity to cement his legacy with the all-time greats by being merely ordinary in the most important series of his life.

 

I'm not even prepared to call it an embarrassment for Montreal.  No one expected them to get anywhere near this far and that buys them a lot of leeway.  And they've had their moments in this series but as you said, the breaks have mostly gone to Tampa thus far.  It hasn't been fun but I don't think anyone on the Habs is embarrassed at this point.

[Toronthab]

10 minutes ago, dlbalr said:

 

I'm not even prepared to call it an embarrassment for Montreal.  No one expected them to get anywhere near this far and that buys them a lot of leeway.  And they've had their moments in this series but as you said, the breaks have mostly gone to Tampa thus far.  It hasn't been fun but I don't think anyone on the Habs is embarrassed at this point.

The guys are giving what they've got out there; every shift. Its just the cracks showing when playing a really good team. We needed Price to be Superman again. He's been Superman plenty this year. 

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

19 minutes ago, dlbalr said:

 

I'm not even prepared to call it an embarrassment for Montreal.  No one expected them to get anywhere near this far and that buys them a lot of leeway.  And they've had their moments in this series but as you said, the breaks have mostly gone to Tampa thus far.  It hasn't been fun but I don't think anyone on the Habs is embarrassed at this point.

 

The Finals are an embarrassment. The playoff as a whole should be a source of pride, once the pain of this humiliation recedes.

[tomh009]

1 hour ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

Wow. One of the worst passes you could possibly make at this level, with these stakes, by Gustafsson. That will likely end any hope he had of being re-signed here.

No worse than Petry on the second goal, though.

 

Neither one of those lost us the series, in any case.

[tomh009]

1 hour ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

As usual, you set the bar far too low.

The reality is that we are not good enough to beat Tampa. However, I'm with Alfredo -- I'm still proud of this team.

 

 

[Prime Minister Koivu]

Bolts capitalized on every mistake we made and we made too many. 
 

Price was not great. He certainly has been great these playoffs but this series he looks poor. How on earth are some of you posting otherwise?

 

I posted game one that Gustafsson was a problem against the bolts because they were eating him alive. Put Romanov in to break some heads. 
 

Sergachev is amazing and it hurts the way Mcdonagh did/does. 
 

We need a huge shift to have the smallest chance - what do you have Ducharme?

[Prime Minister Koivu]

5 hours ago, tomh009 said:

No worse than Petry on the second goal, though.

 

Neither one of those lost us the series, in any case.

Gustafsson also stood there and watched the first goal happen while doing nothing. 
 

He is a liability this series 

[johnnyhasbeen]

If only we had another 10mil or so in cap on our team.......

I am fine with being over cap due to injury. but the team dressed for every game should have to fall into the cap rules. It is that simple to fix. Bettman does not fix things though. Ever. 

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

10 minutes ago, johnnyhasbeen said:

If only we had another 10mil or so in cap on our team.......

I am fine with being over cap due to injury. but the team dressed for every game should have to fall into the cap rules. It is that simple to fix. Bettman does not fix things though. Ever. 

 

I don’t think there should be any question but that the league should do this. It’s a great point.

 

I suspect that, if the Habs were the ones $15 mil over the cap or whatever it was, the NHL would close the loophole; but because they want sunbelt expansion teams to win, they’ll regard this outcome as satisfactory and leave it alone.

[johnnyhasbeen]

The whole cap situation is trash due to different tax situations in varied states and provinces. All these things could be brought in to account to make it an even playing field. An even field is not what Lord Gary wants. 

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

To be fair, I don’t think the cap cheat is the reason TB is manhandling us. Without it, we might be losing by 1-2 goals instead of 3-4, perhaps…

 

But it’s still a ridiculous arrangement. If the cap is justifiable, then it should exist equally for all teams, including the playoffs. That’s just common sense.

[johnnyhasbeen]

Outscoring us, not manhandling. Last night was the only lopsided game in their favour. Game 2 was lopsided in ours except for where it counts. 

IMO, if you brought that team down to the cap, I don't think they get past Fla.

[BCHabnut]

As fanpuck said, if you told me on day one of the season that I'd watch the Habs make the final and lose, I would take that. Add to that the two Crosbys worth of salary that they have over us. I'm quite happy with the way the playoffs are going overall. Lots to look forward to with Caufield, Suzuki, and Toffoli.  I suspect that Anderson will be the new whipping boy.

[Fanpuck33]

47 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

I don’t think there should be any question but that the league should do this. It’s a great point.

 

I suspect that, if the Habs were the ones $15 mil over the cap or whatever it was, the NHL would close the loophole; but because they want sunbelt expansion teams to win, they’ll regard this outcome as satisfactory and leave it alone.

 

It's hard to justify enforcing the cap at a time when the players are not being paid salary. Do I think there is a problem with a system where it is beneficial to acquire dead money like Gaborik and Nilsson? Yes. Do I think a 10 million dollar player missing an entire season being eligible to return in the playoff is an issue? Not really.

 

40 minutes ago, johnnyhasbeen said:

The whole cap situation is trash due to different tax situations in varied states and provinces. All these things could be brought in to account to make it an even playing field. An even field is not what Lord Gary wants. 

 

Now there I can agree with you, at least in the first part. Not gonna touch Bettman conspiracy theories. But making the cap based in player net pay instead of gross? That would be interesting, wouldn't it?

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

2 minutes ago, Fanpuck33 said:

 

It's hard to justify enforcing the cap at a time when the players are not being paid salary. Do I think there is a problem with a system where it is beneficial to acquire dead money like Gaborik and Nilsson? Yes. Do I think a 10 million dollar player missing an entire season being eligible to return in the playoff is an issue? Not really.

 

 

Of course he should be eligible to return. But as johnny points out, Tampa should be required to adjust its lineup to fit him under the cap when he returns, just as it would have to do during the regular season.

 

FWIW, I wasn’t advocating a Bettman conspiracy theory, just saying that Bettman probably doesn’t see the cap issue as a problem because it is currently facilitating the desired outcome of success in US expansion markets. Were it having the reverse effect - benefitting, say, Winnipeg at the expense of those markets - he would probably be taking it more seriously as an issue.

[Fanpuck33]

15 minutes ago, BCHabnut said:

As fanpuck said, if you told me on day one of the season that I'd watch the Habs make the final and lose, I would take that. 

 

I might have said something along those lines earlier in the playoffs, I don't recall. But once we made the final... I threw consolation pride out the window and wanted the Cup. Largely because beating Vegas was the first time I felt like the team actually could win this year.

[BCHabnut]

4 minutes ago, Fanpuck33 said:

 

I might have said something along those lines earlier in the playoffs, I don't recall. But once we made the final... I threw consolation pride out the window and wanted the Cup. Largely because beating Vegas was the first time I felt like the team actually could win this year.

My mistake.  It was revvvrob 

[Fanpuck33]

2 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

Of course he should be eligible to return. But as johnny points out, Tampa should be required to adjust its lineup to fit him under the cap when he returns, just as it would have to do during the regular season.

 

But the main point is how do you justify enforcing a salary cap at a time when the players are not being paid salary? At a time where every team close to the cap is over the salary cap by calling up half a dozen or more "black aces"?  And the only reason teams who make deadline additions aren't over the cap by the end of the season is because of the daily calculation?

 

Also, I keep hearing 15-18 million being mentioned as how far their roster is over the cap. Outside of Kucherov's 9.5 million, is the rest of that just a bunch of "black aces" salary? Did I miss another big money player coming back into the lineup?

[DON]

10 hours ago, hab29RETIRED said:

With some of the personal decisions in this series, I think Barry melrose would have out-coached us.

So, it isnt that Tampa is winning because it has more better players (they have best goalie, d-man and 2 forwards + supporting cast in the playoffs) It is coaching that is the difference?

[DON]

1 hour ago, johnnyhasbeen said:

If only we had another 10mil or so in cap on our team.......

I am fine with being over cap due to injury. but the team dressed for every game should have to fall into the cap rules. It is that simple to fix. Bettman does not fix things though. Ever. 

Bettman?

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

10 minutes ago, Fanpuck33 said:

 

But the main point is how do you justify enforcing a salary cap at a time when the players are not being paid salary? At a time where every team close to the cap is over the salary cap by calling up half a dozen or more "black aces"?  And the only reason teams who make deadline additions aren't over the cap by the end of the season is because of the daily calculation?

 

Also, I keep hearing 15-18 million being mentioned as how far their roster is over the cap. Outside of Kucherov's 9.5 million, is the rest of that just a bunch of "black aces" salary? Did I miss another big money player coming back into the lineup?

 

It’s true that the calculations would have to be different - but big whoop. E.g., you could just say that, for the playoffs, a player’s annual salary for that year has to fit under the cap. You can’t ice a squad whose annual salaries total more than the cap. Wouldn’t that solve the problem?