2025-2026 NHL Offseason

mrussel1 said:

HesCalledDyer said:

Meltdown99 said:

Since the inception of the PT in 85/86 only 8 teams have won the cup...call it what you want...curse, jinx or whatever ... it appears the effort it takes to be regular season champion does not carry over to the playoffs.

4 more have made it to the Stanley Cup Finals, and 5 more have made it to the Conference Finals, though.  So half of them have at least put up a great effort, but that also means half crumbled.  I'm glad it's not predictable like the NBA.

Totally agree here. I love  basketball,  but the concentration of the great players has made the first two rounds lame for a long time. 

There is a huge advantage leveraged in basketball based on star-power.  You get a team there more often than not with 60-70 wins.  The best players play a huge portion of the game and carry the ball more often than not.  They also dont have goalies who can randomly get hot and tilt the scales.  


Svechnikov should have known better than get into a fight with Ovechkin

CBJ, BABY!!! one of “my” many teams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlK-IEXdiJY

One of the toughest fellows ever....

Meltdown99 said:

Some Americans should stick to soccer, the NBA and baseball...us purist hockey fans have no problem with fisticuffs in hockey....

Who are you talking to here?

Bob Probert lived a few Kms from me when he passed away far too young...easily the nhls toughest character ever...

mrussel1 said:

Meltdown99 said:

Some Americans should stick to soccer, the NBA and baseball...us purist hockey fans have no problem with fisticuffs in hockey....

Who are you talking to here?

No idea...

"Americans" nor Bettman are taking fighting out of hockey.   In fact, id argue that bettman has preserved it the best he can.  (Although they put in the instigator and 2 refs to crack down a bit early to clean up the game from the 70s to early 90s).  Actually, david branch and the ohl was at the forefront of creating the most strict anti-fighting rules in recent years.

The problem is a few things.  Instead of players who were like 6 feet tall duking it out, starting around 2000, we got players 6-4 and like 230 throwing devastating punches.  Nobody else could withstand these guys, each team would typically have 1, and their fights felt just forced and were often just grapple matches.

Then you have the cte issue and the ex-fighters killing themselves, along with all the litigation the nhl is facing.  How could the nhl defend itself, while openly permitting bare knuckle boxing.  This is where i feel gary bettman has sat on the fence and done 'just enough' to make it look like good faith efforts.  The nhl could have banned fighting and made it a game misconduct (and supplementary discipline for repeat offenders) long ago, and nobody would have batted an eye.  

Then, you have the money these players make, everyones a millionaire, the speed that is required to play, and how players co-mingle in and out of teams and teammates.  These guys just dont want to fight and risk a good thing.  Plus the above mentioned cte scare.  You hear interviews with ex-fighters, and many of them would dread doing the deed and hated it, and couldnt eat and sleep anticipating a game, but knew they needed to.  

Meltdown99 said:

Bob Probert lived a few Kms from me when he passed away far too young...easily the nhls toughest character ever...

And had CTE to show for it.

Neat. 

mrussel1 said:

Meltdown99 said:

dankind said:

Meltdown99 said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcamX6oRvmg

Ovechkin imitates Rocky...

Except Rocky fought fairly.

And the NHL will not have the balls to suspend the piece of shit simply because he's a star player.

Let me recap for you sissy Americans...2 guys dropped their gloves, 2 guys threw punches, one guy was clearly overmatched and got smacked on the way down...hardly the first time 2 combatants have continued punching once going down...You must enjoy Bettman's pussification of the league.  That was a great fight, no matter what the sissy announcer said at the end...

As a Canadian, I'm surprised you forgot to apologize to us before this stream of insults. 

some people think they are tough because they like to watch fighting. 

fighting in sports is just so ludicrous. and so juvenile.  

And then they take a stupid penalty.  Fuck this shit.

CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ!