There might be slightly more, but mostly I think it's more that top guys are hitting their primes at 26-30years old (McKinnon, McDavid, Matthews, etc.) and the league has pretty much eliminated less skilled players.

It's been around an average of 3.1X goals per game for a while.

I missed that, don’t know… dude’s making the most of his time if that’s the case.

Copp now out indefinitely with a broken cheekbone he got from that high stick the refs decided wasn’t a penalty and “didn’t see it”. Wings call up Zach Aston-Reese to replace.

Tomorrow’s gonna be an interesting game.

Coyotes to Utah getting more info...
"backup plan"...

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/39915208/coyotes-relocate-salt-lake-city-part-nhl-plan

Obligatory HFB threads:

https://forums.hfboards.com/threads/cxlviii-coyotes-to-bid-on-110-acres-of-land-in-phoenix-for-new-arena-development-june-27th-auction.2962811/

https://forums.hfboards.com/threads/bettman-meeting-with-ryan-smith-owner-of-utah-jazz-and-real-salt-lake-upd-smith-asks-nhl-to-open-expansion-process.2922976/

https://forums.hfboards.com/threads/coyotes-and-smith-entertainment-group-reportedly-made-progress-on-agreement-to-relocate-to-slc-team-says-focus-is-on-land-auction-mod-warning-50.2962741/

Of course the Yotes win after giving up a 3-1 lead with 10mins left.
They went into the passive prevent defense mode and gave up 2 goals.
Schmaltz shouldn't have been on the ice the last 10mins, gave them a penalty shot while on a PP in OT.
Guenther turned 21 today and had 4 points including a goal, with the GW assist to Cooley.
Kolyachonok got called up and had a goal and assist.

Fuck the NHL if they move them to SLC as soon as they rebuild the right way and finally have a bright future.

They’ll win the Cup year 2 if they do that. Historical case in point: Quebec Nordiques ——> Colorado Avalanche

Wilson finished fourth in voting for Which player do you least enjoy playing against but would like to have on your team?. He was the only Capital to land among the finalists for any question in this season’s results.

Results

29.19% – BRAD MARCHAND, Boston Bruins
17.48% – CONNOR MCDAVID, Edmonton Oilers
7.57% – MATTHEW TKACHUK, Florida Panthers
6.67% – TOM WILSON, Washington Capitals
5.23% – NATHAN MACKINNON, Colorado Avalanche
https://russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2024/04/11/nhl-players-still-hate-playing-against-tom-wilson/

Caps gotta get these points

It took Larkin getting crosschecked face-first into the boards 7 feet from a Ref facing it to get them to blow the whistle.

Wow are they on the Crosby jock. Classy of the fans to boo getting called for a very cheap hit.

The last two games have been brutal to watch the inconsistent penalties, im not blame the refs guy but holy fuck...

My bias is obvious. Crosby has had the benefit of the doubt for his entire career. He literally uppercuted someones taint and there was no repercussions.

🤣

Attached File

Stars and Jets was only game on TV here last night..it was boring. I watched a bunch of the UofM vs Boston game in the Frozen Four. Game was great. Passing, plays, scoring.

All the game played in the N and only 1 was on.

Huge amount of blown calls. I’m biased obviously but lots of obstruction, holding, tripping that helped the Pens out. It literally took Larks getting crosschecked face first into the dasher (thankfully he didn’t get Draper’d) in front of a ref to get them to all a penalty on Golden Boy’s team. Golden Boy wrestling-tackles Chiarot down and they both get a penalty.

Wings did a decent job despite that.

Sidebar: kinda tired of seeing players that “couldn’t cut it” on the Wings bounce back and do well with other teams.   Nyquist, Mrazek, Nedelkovic…

Ndelkovic is particularly infuriating. Probably recency bias.

Uggg.

Stars game, Rangers game, and the Masters all on at the same time.

Go Stars!  Go Rangers!  Go Tiger!

So nice to be able to watch my team live. I love Saturday afternoon games.

You may have a leg to stand on if an even more egregious hit on Larks getting face planted into the dasher hadn’t happened. Maybe he should have wrestle-dropped whoever did it to him.

The hit on Golden Boy was a hockey play. He squatted down and got checked. Then got up and decided it was MMA time.

CRUCIAL two points tonight. Just need to beat the Habs twice and some stars to align and maybe we’ll be in!

Not for long tho. Holy smokes these playoffs are going to be amazing throughout…

We're definitely bringing this one down to the wire.

Caps get teh shut out against the Bruins!

One more win, and they are in the playoffs!

What a rally by the Wings.

Glad to see Marchand get his pocket picked..

This teams gonna give me a fucking heart attack, between them and the lions im not gonna make it to old age....

What a game! Wow.

Please excuse my eulogy

I grew up in SW AZ as a farm boy. I've ice skated twice in my life. But I did watch the "Miracle on Ice".  We never had cable until I went to Northern Az Univ in 1989.  Back then ESPN had monster trucks, WCW (Von Erichs!) and the NHL.  Randomly I decided to become a Ranger fan.  Before Messier arrived and have been a Ranger fan since. I celebrated the 1993 Cup and the World Cup after that.  Even though I never played a second of the game I've been a huge fan since then.

So when Phoenix got a team I was happy beyond belief. And we had such a great team. Tkachuk, Teppo Numenien, Dallas Drake, Bissonete, Oleg Teverdosky, Cliff Ronning, Nikolai Khabbibulen (ignore the spelling) and later Roenick.  

Many, many moons ago I took a really hot blonde to the first ever White Out playoff game against the Ducks. We never had a lot of success but damn I loved this team. It would take too long to get into all the mistakes the team has made over years, but they were ours.  Doane's run to the Western Finals was such an amazing ride (losing the Kings was made even shittier when they beat the Rangers).

Two of my three boys have been hockey players. My youngest is a 14UAA defenseman.  I live at rinks.  So to have this group, which we had such high hopes for, f#ck things up so badly just kills me.  Especially when we have such promising young talent.

Desert Dogs por vida!

PS: President's Cup for the Blueshirts!

You had some fantastic teams, that even as the “overdogs” (Wings in their heydey) you guys were tough to play in the playoffs. Shane Doan was a beast, and I was thrilled to get Drake back to the Wings and see his name on a Cup. He was awesome in the late 80s/early 90s and it was great to have him back.

I really hope you guys can get that NHL arena going in 5 or less years and keep the Desert Dogs alive!

To the wire.

The end of this season is certainly exciting.

Condolences man, I've only seen the headlines but it seems like there was mismanagement since they had to drop Phoenix from the name, was it all ownership problems?

Most of it. They moved to the (then) America West Arena with the Suns. But the arena had serious obstructed view issues.  The ownership wouldn't deal with Jerry Colangelo so he wouldn't change the arena. They had a chance buy an old mall in central Scottsdale, but there were issues with the mayor and accusations of land fraud, so they moved to the west side of Phoenix.  They got a smoking deal from the Gila River Inidian Community, but it was a bitch to get to.  No one seemed to understand that people would drive across town on a Sunday afternoon to see the Cardinals 8 or 9 time a year but wouldn't fight rush hour traffic on a Tuesday to watch the Yotes for a 7pm game 40+ times a year. So they never got the crowds. And even when we had decent teams we had no sustained success.  

They tried bring in Gtretzky but he was a shitty coach.  The other issue is that while Maricopa County has 7 youth hockey programs, 6 of them are on the east side of town. And you couldn't take your kid to a 7pm game on a school night when you had to leave your house at 4pm and got home at midnight.

We suffered through the NHL running the team even though we knew they wouldn't spend any more than they had to.  

When Murello bought the team we had high hopes.  But there seemed to be issues with paying their bills.  And Murello put all his eggs in a basket of buying land in Tempe to build a new stadium.  He barely spent any money and seemed to just think people like the Tempe council/mayor and Doane being for it was enough. But Sky Harbor whined about the glide path for no reason and Murello wouldn't commit to using union labor so they spent millions to defeat the measures.  Murello was going to spend his own money for the facility with big tax breaks.  The commercials convinced everyone that the taxpayers would be on the hook for it. It was crushed.

So they had to move in with the Sun Devils and Murello promised to buy land for a new barn.  But it never seemed to get anywhere until there was an attempt to buy the state land in north Scottsdale.  But even if he won it would be years before it was built.  And there are reports still of issues of paying bills.


This is a pretty good summary:

https://thehockeywriters.com/arizona-coyotes-ownership-history/

LCA never sounded like JLA until last night.

Alright boys. This is a big one. Let's make it count.

C-A-P-S CAPS CAPS CAPS

Seider ties it, whew!

Lucky Yzerman jersey is working hard the last couple nights.

Wow, if Vancouver chokes, Dallas clinches the Western.
I did not know that.

Im only able to see the Florida Vs Toronto game..Haven't seen any new highlights.

Florida is taking Toronto to task this 2nd period. Paul Maurice still looks pissed..lol

Holy shit!

Flyers pulled there goalie tied with 2 minutes left and let the caps score? Wtf?

C-A-P-S CAPS CAPS CAPS! Battled for the last few weeks to make the playoffs. Fantastic effort.