I’m disappointed that the Isles are out, but they put up a good fight.
Two stunning upsets last night! Maybe I’ll get on the Kraken bandwagon.
Did Pasta just take a dive to draw that penalty? I didn’t see any contact with his face at all. Does someone have a good video that shows he wasn’t just being a soccer player?
I noticed a few dives in the first round.
One more game 7, I guess that the Devils are the favourites but there was only a 5 point difference between them and the Rangers this season.
Toronto or Carolina must be the favourites in the east and I guess Dallas and Edmonton in the west. It’s wide open and I am looking forward to the second round now, almost as much as the first round.
Maybe, but Carolina has had a lot of injuries and just squeaked past the Isles (and the Isles just squeaked into the playoffs). I think the winner of the Rangers/Devils series and Toronto for the eastern favorites.
The Seattle Times couldn’t help but troll Russell Wilson a bit about the Kraken beating the Avalanche.
What I find interesting is that Bobrovsky was on the Blue Jackets team that swept the Lightning and is now on the Panthers team that beat the Bruins. So, while he didn’t really carry the Panthers during the season, I’m sure he was at least able to help in the locker room.
Ouch for the Bruins. This is a veteran team and they ain’t getting any younger. Magical regular season and now they’re making golf plans.
Absolutely fucking fuck the Panthers organization.
What a fucking shithead move - never seen this done in pro sports, other than footy matches in SA and Europe with the occaional empty stadium due to strife of some sort, but even that’s not a solid comparison. And I’m not even a Leafs fan!
Wow, the Bruins, as mentioned upthread, especially after the ridiculous season they had.
I’ve had it planned for days to watch the Leafs in a game 7 tonight, because it’s 30 years to the day since the Borschevsky goal. But they couldn’t even do that right and had to get their OT series winner a game early 
Funny headline on one of the Sports sites:
“The Leafs haven’t lost a second-round series in 19 years!”
I suspect the reason for it might be the insane Toronto fan base. Home game tickets are notoriously difficult to get even for regular season games, and the waiting list for season tickets stretches across generations, so it’s very common for Leafs fans to travel to see their beloved team in road games. The number of Canuck snowbirds in Florida may also be a factor if tickets are in short supply.
I thought I might have been there, because I always used to be present when the Leafs totally fucked up, which is one reason I hate them now. But no, the last time these overpaid complacent hicks were in the second round and got kicked out, in 2004, it was in Philadelphia and a 2-3 loss against the Flyers.
I do remember being present in a playoff game where the Devils scored a goal early on, and the Leafs gave up. The game ended 1-0 Devils. Another time (not a playoff game) the Leafs got hammered 7-0 by the Sens. I was there. Did I mention that I hate the Leafs?
It’s quite common in the NHL. I remembered the Predators doing the same thing.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/nashville-predators-ticketmaster-blocked-1.4632129
Was anyone aware of the Valeri Nichushkin incident? It, apparently, involved booze and a Russian woman who may have had her passport taken by someone (possible human trafficker).
Ah yes, 
I forgot about that one. At least in that case the restrictions only affected the 100 upper level seats the team puts out for each playoff game, and at least they attempted to provide a reason - protecting tickets against bots (of which I have no clue to the legitimacy of that claim).
Not sure about how common the practice is, though.
I knew there was an incident, I mainly use the Athletic for NHL news and they were extremely vague about it. I figured it was nothing good but not related to an injury or his play on ice.
Back in the 1990s, when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were not very good, and played in the NFC Central Division, they had an annual home game against the Packers (a divisional rival). The Bucs didn’t draw fans well at that time, and Packer fans travel well, especially to warm-weather sites, which meant that the raucous Packer fans made those games in Tampa seem like a home crowd for the Pack.
As a result, the Bucs tried to limit ticket sales to Wisconsin residents. An article from a Tampa newspaper, from 1998, about this:
I used to work in Seattle, very close to the stadiums. (I could literally see them from my office window.) Any time the Blue Jays were in town to play the Mariners, when I went out for lunch I saw nothing but Toronto jerseys and other merchandise. It was like I’d been transported to Canada. It was mind-boggling.
I actually might try to find a Toronto sports talk radio station to listen to tonight. Florida Panthers getting hotter.
I can only laugh joyously at such a body snatcher scenario. 
I really hope that the Stars do not waste the amazing effort from Pavelski…
And they did 
Well, sadly, even a Texas sized hat trick from St. Pavelski wasn’t enough tonight, yeah. Oh well, there’s at least three more games. That was an excellent one, even though I wasn’t particularly happy with the outcome.