NEPA Phin Phan
Club Member
Man, if the Marlins could do something, we would become one of the best areas for sports. Heat and Panthers in their Eastern Conference Finals, Fins on the rise. Now we just the Marlins to spend a littttttttle money, and put them over the top.
Canes men in the final four in MM. Ladies in the elite 8 as well. Baseball team ranked #11
Great year for Miami sports
Man, if the Marlins could do something, we would become one of the best areas for sports. Heat and Panthers in their Eastern Conference Finals, Fins on the rise. Now we just the Marlins to spend a littttttttle money, and put them over the top.
Looks like we were both wrong about Maurice. He's got these boys playing their best hockey at the right time.Well, unfortunately, I was right about Paul Maurice. Horrible, horrible coach. It's true that the team's dealing with inconsistent goaltending (not PM's fault), injuries and illness. But there are plenty of other teams dealing with all of those things and they are still outperforming the Panthers relative to talent level. The team hasn't won three games in a row all season and we're now approaching Christmas. That's absolutely dire.
To make things worse, Barkov getting blatantly chopped in the knee on a face-off probably sticks the proverbial fork in this season. Seeing the way his knee bent, the best case scenario probably involves Barkov missing a couple of months, by which point the team will be sunk.
Maurice also has done a great job shuffling the lines. Thank God he brought up Dalpe to replace Smith after the first couple of games against Boston.I'll give Maurice some credit for Boston and Toronto, absolutely. I also give him credit for the team grossly underachieving during the regular season, due in large part to personnel mismanagement. And I still think the penalty kill structure is terrible. So, it's a mixed bag.
But yeah, Maurice deserves praise for how he's handled the team in the playoffs. I especially credit him for his handling of Lyon and Bobrovsky. Lyon was playing fairly well, but had given up a few bad goals in the series when he got pulled. The Bruins were targeting low glove and he seemed to be losing confidence. Maurice read the situation perfectly and put Bobrovsky in net. Bob got shelled in game four, but Maurice just went right back to him and basically said he thought it was proper to put the pressure on the highest paid goalie in the league, rather than the third stringer.
If you look around the league right now, you see teams that have flat out been eliminated from the playoffs because their coaches don't know how to handle goaltending decisions.
- Montgomery's awful decision to play an injured Ullmark in game six in BOS/FLA.
- Lindy Ruff starting the absolute sieve known as Vitek Vanecek for the Devils.
- Woodcroft refusing to pull Skinner last night in Edmonton/Vegas. He should have been fired before he even got to his press conference.
Pretty funny that the Panthers only made the playoffs because the tanking Blackhawks (enjoy Bedard) somehow beat the Pens in game 81, and now they're in the Conference Finals after knocking off Boston and Toronto.