April NHL News & Stuff

cshea

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Nov 15, 2006
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Here's the timeline on the Lehner story.

3/8- Injured
4/3- Retuns from injury
4/18- His 5th game back from injury is a loss to New Jersey. DeBoer rips him and says he prefers Logan Thompson.
4/20- The next Vegas game, against Washington. DeBoer starts Lehner. Lehner stops 12/13 in the first period and DeBoer yanks him. Post game, he says he was trying to change momentum by pulling Lehner.
4/21- Reports come out (via Kaplan at ESPN) that Lehner is undergoing season ending surgery. The Knights laugh at this and say not true, they expect him at the next practice.
4/22- Lehner does not practice.
4/24- Lehner suits up to backup Thompson in a 5-4 OTL.
4/25- Vegas announces Lehner is undergoing season-ending surgery. Reports trickle in that Lehner was advised to have the surgery by his doctors last Thursday, the Knights medical team agreed on Saturday, but they still dressed him as the backup for Sunday because of cap issues.

The Vegas organization is quickly developing a bad reputation. They traded franchise icon Fleury without even giving him a heads up. They tried to trade a player who had a no-trade clause (shared blame here but egg on their face) and now forced an injured goalie to suit up and essentially called a well respected national reporter a liar because they mangled the cap and can't even get a backup G on the roster.

Rotten all the way at the top.
 

burstnbloom

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Jul 12, 2005
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It certainly doesn't look good. DeBoer is definitely a shelf life coach. I think he's reached the end of his use in Vegas. I think a lot of this comes from their extremely aggressive ownership group. Ultimately that's good for hockey but I expect them to have some challenges attracting talent in the desert if that reputation for being cut throat continues to proliferate. They have major cap issues, minimal low cost assets and a legitimately bad prospect group given they've traded everyone. Only Brendan Brisson is really interesting and he's a middle 6 winger. They've created a really strong brand by finding success early, but I can't help but wonder if they would be better off having been patient. They've traded the following assets in the last three years:
'
2019 2nd
2020 2nd (DAL)
2020 2nd (VGK
2021 2nd (STL)
2021 2nd (VGK)
2022 1st
2022 3rd
2023 2nd
Peyton Krebs
Alex Tuch
Glass
Brannstrom
Nick Suzuki


They did get good players for those hauls (Eichel, Stone, Pacioretty, Martinez) but they only have 2 of the 7 1st rounders in their existence on the roster. They are already over the cap next year and Nic Roy needs a raise. They simply cannot resign Reilly Smith so they have to slot someone into his spot. Brisson maybe? There will likely be a bunch of changes again this offseason. It's going to be interesting to see what they do in response to missing the playoffs.
 

PedroSpecialK

Comes at you like a tornado of hair and the NHL sa
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Dec 12, 2004
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.926 with Nizhny Novgorod, .921 in the AHL, 90 NHL minutes thus far... something tells me the Canes defense is good enough that it won't matter all that much.

I think I prefer playoff Andersen over a rookie anyway
 

amfox1

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The back of your computer
CAR beats NYR (CAR clinches Metro division, NYR are M2)

WAS & PIT both lose (one will be M3, the other will be WC2)

BOS beats FLA (BOS will be WC1 and face CAR, unless BOS gets 3+ more points than TB over the last two games - BOS would win the tiebreaker should it and TB finish with the same # of points, due to a greater number of regulation wins)

TB @CLB (Thur), @NYI (Fri)
BOS vs.BUF (Thur), @TOR (Fri)

Edit: added tiebreaker info.
 
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cshea

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Dallas beat Vegas in a shootout, 3-2. 7-round shootout, only 1 scorer. VGK was pretty much porked when it got to OT, but the nail is 99% of the way there now.

LAK, NSH clinch. Dallas needs 1-poin in their final 2 (@ Arizona tonight; vs. Anaheim on Friday). Vegas needs to win both of theirs to have a chance (@ Chicago; @ St. Louis).
 

Green (Tongued) Monster

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Dallas beat Vegas in a shootout, 3-2. 7-round shootout, only 1 scorer. VGK was pretty much porked when it got to OT, but the nail is 99% of the way there now.

LAK, NSH clinch. Dallas needs 1-poin in their final 2 (@ Arizona tonight; vs. Anaheim on Friday). Vegas needs to win both of theirs to have a chance (@ Chicago; @ St. Louis).
Welp, it's over. No playoffs for Eichel and Vegas heads to the lottery. Not without drama though, as Dallas blew a 3-0 3rd period lead, only to lose 4-3 in OT to Arizona. They get their point to clinch, but stumble into the playoffs not playing great hockey. Vegas didn't do themselves any favors, losing to Chicago in about the 20th round of the shootout (Eichel missed). They have lost their last 3 games via the shootout. Amazing. So the playoff teams are now set, but the matchups still need to be determined. I believe they currently line up as follows:

West:

(C1) COL vs. (WC2) NSH
(P1) CGY vs. (WC1) DAL
(P2) EDM vs. (P3) LAK
(C2) MIN vs. (C3) STL

East:

(A1) FLA vs. (WC2) WSH
(M1) CAR vs. (WC1) BOS
(M2) NYR vs. (M3) PIT
(A2) TOR vs. (A3) TAM
 

amfox1

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The back of your computer
BOS @ TOR tomorrow at 7pm
TB @ NYI tomorrow at 7:30pm

If BOS wins, TB needs a win (regular, OT or SO) to retain A3
If BOS ties, TB needs a win or tie during regular time (OT/SO result is irrelevant) to retain A3
If BOS loses, TB retains A3 and BOS will face CAR in the 1st round.
 

durandal1707

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Apr 18, 2007
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My schadenfreude is off the charts for Vegas. Hopefully this is the last we've seen of the LTIR cap dodging gambit.
 

Cotillion

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Jun 11, 2019
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BOS @ TOR tomorrow at 7pm
TB @ NYI tomorrow at 7:30pm

If BOS wins, TB needs a win (regular, OT or SO) to retain A3
If BOS ties, TB needs a win or tie during regular time (OT/SO result is irrelevant) to retain A3
If BOS loses, TB retains A3 and BOS will face CAR in the 1st round.
I thought with the loss tonight and the Bruins win, Bruins get 1 point tomorrow to make life miserable for Tampa needing a win to retain A3.


but it’s alway confusing to me.

edit thinking about this more.Bruins need the islanders to do a solid and hold the lightning to a regulation/ot loss basically. That gets both to 109 right? And we have regulation win edge right? If the bruins win their game.