Opening Round: Tampa vs Columbus

[ZBBM]

From invincible to invisible.  They sure had me fooled.

It's not that playoff hockey is a different game.  It's a different game on a different planet.  Circling a different sun.  In the next multiverse over.

 

[Nik]

Honestly this is shocking.

Has there ever been a more shocking upset?

Nope. Not in the NHL.  What about other sports?

It's not that shocking. I wouldn't have bet on this but no individual game in the NHL is much of an upset. Stringing 4 together is pretty unlikely but we're not talking about a legitimate out of nowhere thing where a team of some ridiculous quality gets beaten by a team of much lower quality.

Take a fair read of what happened here without getting caught up in typical signifiers of quality. Is Vasilevsky better than Bobrovsky? Is Tampa's defense on some other planet from Columbus'? Tampa has three elite forwards and nobody else who cracked 50 points.

 

[Nik]

From invincible to invisible.  They sure had me fooled.

It's not that playoff hockey is a different game.  It's a different game on a different planet.  Circling a different sun.  In the next multiverse over.

Then what even is the point of the regular season?

 

[Bender]

Honestly this is shocking.

Has there ever been a more shocking upset?

Nope. Not in the NHL.  What about other sports?

It's not that shocking. I wouldn't have bet on this but no individual game in the NHL is much of an upset. Stringing 4 together is pretty unlikely but we're not talking about a legitimate out of nowhere thing where a team of some ridiculous quality gets beaten by a team of much lower quality.

Take a fair read of what happened here without getting caught up in typical signifiers of quality. Is Vasilevsky better than Bobrovsky? Is Tampa's defense on some other planet from Columbus'? Tampa has three elite forwards and nobody else who cracked 50 points.

Yeah I mean CBJ found a weakness and exploited it. At the same time I think record setting team who torched most teams routinely vs a team that was a shit show for most of the year... Still has to be fairly unlikely.

I don't recall most people thinking Bob was going to play well. IIRC most brought up that he wasn't a great playoff performer.

At any rate Dom said his model at Tampa getting swept at 2%.

 

[Nik]

Yeah I mean CBJ found a weakness and exploited it.

Is it exploiting a weakness or one goalie being hot and another being off his game? We can attach narrative significance to one thing or another but this feels more like the result of the league feeling more random than anything else. Even the Lightning's season as a whole seems less like the result of genuine quality(unless you really look at the Lightning and think they're one of the best collections of hockey players in the sport's history) than being a good team in a weird year that caught some lucky breaks.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Yeah it's not like Columbus found some hidden secret to defeat Tampa that nobody else could find. The Lightning just crapped the bed and Columbus played well.

 

[hockeyfan1]

What's shocking to many is that Columbus won...in four straight.

Never would I have believed that such a thing to be the case.  Okay maybe Columbus winning it 4 games to 2, or in 7 perhaps.  But not 4 straight.  No.

So, does Jon Cooper get fired?

 

[ZBBM]

From invincible to invisible.  They sure had me fooled.

It's not that playoff hockey is a different game.  It's a different game on a different planet.  Circling a different sun.  In the next multiverse over.

Then what even is the point of the regular season?

To hop the fence between multiverses, silly.

 

[Nik]

I mean, if the reason Columbus won is that they're just more suited to beating Tampa than another team then why did Tampa kick the holy crap out of Columbus during the regular season?

Or, if the reason Columbus won is because the Playoffs are just a different game where it's all about mental focus and fortitude and gritty gritty leadership grit and Tampa doesn't have it then why did Tampa do well in the playoffs last year with basically the same team?

 

[Bullfrog]

...
So, does Jon Cooper get fired?

After his team putting together one of the best regular seasons......ever? I'm going to guess no.

 

[Nik]

Never would I have believed that such a thing to be the case.  Okay maybe Columbus winning it 4 games to 2, or in 7 perhaps.  But not 4 straight.  No.

See, this just makes absolutely no sense. So you could imagine if two teams played seven games that either team could win four of those seven, but somehow the idea that one of those teams would win four of those games in a row is beyond the realm of possibility? Why? How is a second game different because of who won the first one? Isn't a team more likely to lose the fourth game if they've lost the first three?

 

[CarltonTheBear]

...
So, does Jon Cooper get fired?

After his team putting together one of the best regular seasons......ever? I'm going to guess no.

He was signed to an extension less than a month ago.

 

[Nik]

...
So, does Jon Cooper get fired?

After his team putting together one of the best regular seasons......ever? I'm going to guess no.

He was signed to an extension less than a month ago.

Or even for a second to pretend that coaching changes aren't basically meaningless and are done more to protect a GM's job than anything...what would be the actual nuts and bolts reason for firing Cooper? What would a new coach do that would have prevented this outcome?

They might fire Cooper, crazier things have happened, but it wouldn't be a rational response based on any failings of his.

 

[hockeyfan1]

Never would I have believed that such a thing to be the case.  Okay maybe Columbus winning it 4 games to 2, or in 7 perhaps.  But not 4 straight.  No.

See, this just makes absolutely no sense. So you could imagine if two teams played seven games that either team could win four of those seven, but somehow the idea that one of those teams would win four of those games in a row is beyond the realm of possibility? Why? How is a second game different because of who won the first one? Isn't a team more likely to lose the fourth game if they've lost the first three?

It oftentimes depends on who the team is.  Why is this a surprise?  Because of the simple fact that Tampa Bay was the best team in the league this year.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/sports/nhl-playoffs-tampa-bay-lightning.html

The playoffs are a second season.  Amything can transpire, as we've seen.

Still, to lose four in-a-row after having acheived so much does not resonate too well.

Again, I'll repeat, Columbus winning is not the surprise here, it's how it was done that is.[/b]

 

[TheMightyOdin]

The Leafs have won more games in these playoffs than Tampa, Pittsburgh and Boston combined.

 

[ZBBM]

The Tampa Bay Lightning turned out to be the Tampa Bay Drizzle.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

I like goals and I prefer they not be deleted on the basis of this technicality.

It's not a technicality, it's a rule.

 

[herman]

https://twitter.com/krrutherford/status/1118335940676554753

SportsNet!

Tampa has a great season and this ending will mar that story in the minds of many. Let?s remember that the Lightning won many games by virtue of slightly unsustainable things going very well during the season: PowerPlay success (single opponent tactics generally neutralizes this), one goal/OT/shootout games (tantamount to coin flips season to season, see the year Chicago got wiped out in round 1), above average but not overwhelmingly superior goaltending masked by a very strong team defense, and said defense that was crippled at the end of the season when 1D Hedman was concussed.

I still thought they?d make a series of it, but that first game blown lead must have really rattled them.

Columbus still had to do their thing with a side of luck, and they did, so all the credit to them for putting it all on the line and pulling it off.

 

[hockeyfan1]

[tweet]1118335940676554753[/tweet]

SportsNet!

Tampa has a great season and this ending will mar that story in the minds of many.  Let?s remember that the Lightning won many games by virtue of slightly unsustainable things going very well during the season: PowerPlay success (single opponent tactics generally neutralizes this), one goal/OT/shootout games (tantamount to coin flips season to season, see the year Chicago got wiped out in round 1), above average but not overwhelmingly superior goaltending masked by a very strong team defense, and said defense that was crippled at the end of the season when 1D Hedman was concussed.

I still thought they?d make a series of it, but that first game blown lead must have really rattled them.

Columbus still had to do their thing with a side of luck, and they did, so all the credit to them for putting it all on the line and pulling it off.

Explain that to a certain poster around here.  (You know who he is).

 

[herman]

I don?t think that is his contention, hf1, but I?ll let him explain if he wants.

If hockey games are coin flips, it is entirely possible for tails to turn up four times in a row. An unexpected and rare occurrence, but not impossible. Everyone is going to read way too much into this and apply some sort of morality to a result of small samples (players and fans and management alike).