Wow! Last night's Montreal/Boston game was crazy. In the regular season 0-0 games are the worst, but the intensity of the playoffs makes them awesome. I was hoping it would go to a double overtime, but honestly, I was low on beer, so I am glad it was over quick.
Even if I am cheering for the Habs.
Why? It's easy: P.K Subban. Turns out that P.K Subban is one of, if not the most, exciting player to watch in the NHL. The guy does it all, offense, defense, hitting, mixing it up......he's the best.
It blows my mind that there rumours the Canadiens might fight with him over a contract again this summer. How much proof do you need? He's the Con Smyth Trophy winner so far, and he's proving his Norris was much deserved.
Just give the kid a blank contract and let him fill it in himself. Who cares? The Canadiens literally have a license to print money, they are that popular, so just pay him and shut-up.
It wouldn't be out of the question to make him the highest paid player in the league (remember guys who currently compete for that title might get bigger contracts if signed this year and comparisons are not really relative b/c of inflation).
PK is so good that if there is any conflict in getting him re-signed, the ownership should fire the GM and Coach.
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PK makes me realize that the NHL and its fans do not account for the value of goals properly. All you have to do is check out some of the ridiculous articles written about my man Ovechkin to know this is true.
People like to pretend defense is as important as offense, but it isn't. There are 200 guys who are good at defense in the NHL. There is only one Ovechkin, and only one Subban (well maybe Karlsson makes two) but regardless, the ability to score goals (and to a lesser extent create offense) is so rare, comparatively, that if we were more accurate in our assessments, we would forgive everything wrong with OV's game because his 56 goals more than make up for any defensive problems. The only problem is people see how good he is and can't fathom why the team isn't better. Hint: it's a team sport with 20 guys on a roster.
Anyways, this is just me saying we ought to value offense more: if a guy can score, lay off. PK takes way too much crap, but it isn't fair because there are dozens of defenceman who can do the things he apparently isn't good at, and yet there are like maybe two who do what he does.
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Also, it didn't even take a whole series to show the incompetency of the Norris Trophy voting. Chara is not a top three defenseman in any league where Subban, Suter and Weber lace up the skates. Not to mention Doughty and Keith. I like Chara, but - and I don't see all their games, so I could be wrong - his selection seems reputation based if you ask me. Subban has been far superior this series anyway.
I watched a lot of LA games this year too, and I would say that Doughty is better as well, and that Ekman-larsson is Doughty's equal and a nomination for him wouldn't have been out of place either.
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The Leafs re-signed their coach, Randy Carlyle. This was met with an insane amount of hate here in Toronto. Personally I don't like Carlyle, but it's hard to blame him when the team dressed five or six offensive defenseman on most nights. As much as I think offense is undervalued, you do need balance.
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Just wondering how many shutouts does Marc-Andre Fleury need to get before he gets any respect?
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Finally, I would have thought that the advent of advanced statistics would prevent this kind of stupidity, but people are still bashing Rick Nash, saying he is costing the Rangers.
Rick Nash leads the playoffs in shots. His advanced statistics indicate he is actually playing great. It's imperative that we remember that in a short sample size (like 9 games into the playoffs) goals are not a good metric to determine who is playing well because they are so luck based and as such are super prone to variance.
Over a year, this tends to balance out, but just because Nash has no goals doesn't mean he is playing bad. He is in fact playing great and has just been unlucky.
That is all.
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