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We Like To Watch – May 26th: #ThisTimeWillBeDifferent

By 1613

Sharks beat Blues in Game 6

It is for one team. Was it really for the other?

I suppose a trip to the conference final is different for the Blues. Winning it certainly is for the Sharks. But all the noise and concerted effort to make it clear that this was a different Blues team than before makes me wonder who were they really trying to convince? It took the Blues seven games to beat a team that basically didn’t have a blue line in the first round. It took them seven games to beat a team that certainly didn’t have a goalie in the second round. And winning is obviously better than losing to those horrifically flawed teams, and that’s what we all thought the Blues would do, but how much of a triumph these things really were is debatable.

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We Like To Watch – May 25th: It’s The Goalies, Stupid

By 1291

Penguins-Lightning Game 6

Sometimes this hockey thing is silly and simple. Now that this series is going to a seventh game the story out of it will be how evenly it’s been played and how it could have gone either way. And on the surface, that’s true. This series could well be decided tomorrow night on a high-sticking call or another offside review or some goal that goes in off Tyler Johnson’s ass (again). By definition these are all coin-flips.

But in reality, the Penguins have spent a great majority of this series kicking the ever-loving shit out of the Lightning, but Andrei Vasilevskiy has simply held them in.

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Friday Foofaraw: What Did Feather Spend $4900 On?

By 1228

As we do with Fridays in the summer, we eschew normal hockey silliness for just general silliness. This morning we awoke to a tweet that Fifth Feather had somehow accrued a $4900 on his credit card either after or during being out with the rest of the CI crew. So it got me to thinking, what could Feather have spent all that money on?

  1. David Bowie’s shoes from 1980.
  2. Signed Everett Sanipass jersey.
  3. Plane tickets and supplies to camp outside Andrew Cogliano’s house.
  4. Krist Noveselic’s….you know what? 5 grand probably just gets you Krist Novoselic these days.
  5. Every known copy of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World to erase it from the annals of time.
  6. Starting a “Save HockeeNight” campaign.
  7. Fels’s bartab.
  8. Killion’s car (a massive overpayment).
  9. Pre-IPO investment in Uber
  10. Floating Craig Button some cash to cover his ass
  11. Rights to SB Nation’s commenting system so that it can be used here
  12. RiotFest lifetime VIP passes
  13. Season Tickets to the Toledo Walleye to follow every game of Tyler Motte’s career
  14. A charitable donation to the National Hellenic Museum where his family has its own wing
  15. Jerseys for his 78 beer league teams, all of whom will now wear the Flames’ throwback template.
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We Like To Watch – May 19th: The Cream… Rises To The Top

By 1269

Pens-Lightning Game 3

As the Lightning learned, or should have learned last spring, you simply can’t hide their dreck of a blue line behind Hedman-Stralman forever. Hedman makes up for a lot, and sometimes can do it all on his own as we saw in Games 1-3 in last year’s Final. But that’s not a sustainable model. The Penguins have essentially steamrolled the Lightning in three games, and Tampa only has Andrei Vasilevskiy to thank for not being pretty much finished at 0-3 down right now. The past two games the Penguins are carrying a 62% Corsi-percentage. That’s borderline ridiculous.

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We Like To Watch – May 17th – The Vas Difference

By 1400

So it took a little bit longer than it looked like it was going to after the the first 10 minutes of the game, but the Penguins salvaged a split at home after Tampa won Game 1. These are two incredibly flawed teams, particularly on their respective blue lines, but the speed and dynamism among their forward corps is what got both within three wins of representing the East. Somehow Pengs coach Mike Sullivan allowed both Justin Schultz and Trevor Daley on the ice together at home in a conference final game, and behind Christ Kunitz (who fell down) no less. Predictably that shift resulted in the second Tampa goal. However, Sidney Crosby ended the OT period forty seconds in after cement mixer face Jeremy Roenick said that he wasn’t working as hard as Jonathan Drouin during the second intermission.

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We Like To Watch – May 16th: The Good Fortune Of Mistakes Not Made

By 1406

If you haven’t read Ryan Lambert’s What We Learned on Puck Daddy today, you should. It’s pretty instructive on not just how luck plays a huge part in playoff success on the ice, but also off the ice. And considering how most NHL teams are run, the moves you don’t make–or more to the point the ones you aren’t allowed to– can shape an organization’s future and present. It also kind of lets you know just how backward a lot of teams still are.

And that also applies here. While everyone still rushed to praise Stan Bowman and his staff, even though they might be the most born-on-third front office in the history of the game, there are slices of good fortune in moves they weren’t allowed to complete that played a huge role for them.

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We Like To Watch – May 12th: Scary In Its Predictability

By 1187

Stars-Blues Game 7:

We said it in September. I remember tweeting that old hockey adage, “If you think you have two goalies, you probably don’t have one.” Everyone knew where this was going with Dallas, and it never veered off that course. Everyone knew that at some point in the spring their goaltending would eventually be their downfall. They occasionally flashed that they might be the one team since the ’10 Hawks to overcome bad goaltending to win it all (same goalie too. That’s weird), and some of us bought into it at times. But it always came back to this.

The Stars were even with the Blues in the 1st period last night. They had the same quality chances. There’s didn’t go in. The Blues’ did. And that’s it. It doesn’t really need any more analysis than that.