**** Official 2023-24 NHL Thread ****

[RockChalk]

Time to reboot for the upcoming season.

Anyone interested in doing a fun (or even low cost $25) Fantasy NHL League?

[Fish]

Wow. That was crazy. I had zero confidence in the Avs after a couple minutes of OT. Stars had 100% of the momentum. Avs couldn't even get the puck out of their own zone.

Great tough win. Those home fans gotta hate that..

[GeorgeZimZam]

Rough night for Stars and Mavs. Not a good sports news day out of the big D.

[Bearcat]

Ha, I was thinking last night it seemed like every few games I watched in the regular season was a 3 or 4 goal comeback, so who knows... guess I have some OT hockey to watch this afternoon.

[JohnnyHammersticks]

Originally Posted by Pushead2

Cogs with a sick pass and the Avs take it.

That was such a sweet pass! And Wood is almost as fast as MacKinnon.

That being said, the Avs 100% stole that game. Dallas outplayed them, especially in O/T. But to win a Cup, you've got to steal a few games over the course of the playoffs.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by JohnnyHammersticks

That was such a sweet pass! And Wood is almost as fast as MacKinnon.

That being said, the Avs 100% stole that game. Dallas outplayed them, especially in O/T. But to win a Cup, you've got to steal a few games over the course of the playoffs.

Eh, I don't know about that. Even in the first period, the Avs got a little unlucky with bounces and penalties. I felt like the first period was a little slanted toward Dallas early and pretty even late aside from the 5-on-3. The second and third periods were all Avs - I mean, Dallas only had 7 total shots in the 2nd and 3rd. OT was slanted back toward the Stars a bit, but we got a little lucky to balance out the first period.

Overall, I thought the right team won, and the fancy stats seem to back that up. (They have expected goals at 2.50 to 1.07 in favor of the Avs, for example.)

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Eh, I don't know about that. Even in the first period, the Avs got a little unlucky with bounces and penalties. I felt like the first period was a little slanted toward Dallas early and pretty even late aside from the 5-on-3. The second and third periods were all Avs - I mean, Dallas only had 7 total shots in the 2nd and 3rd. OT was slanted back toward the Stars a bit, but we got a little lucky to balance out the first period.

Overall, I thought the right team won, and the fancy stats seem to back that up. (They have expected goals at 2.50 to 1.07 in favor of the Avs, for example.)

Yeah, the first half of the first period was pretty sloppy all around, neither team had a ton of zone time and the Avalanche offense was completely discombobulated all period. They only had a couple of sustained trips into their zone and one of them was like :40 with maybe one SOG. And I wasn't concerned they'd give up 7 goals like game one against the Jets... most cases, it would have been 2-0 if it wasn't for the 5 on 3.

And then the ice tilted about 4 minutes into the 2nd... the Stars couldn't even get into their zone on the PP until like 30 seconds left. And the first 7-8 minutes of the 3rd was spent in the Avalanche zone, and a good amount until a few minutes left, even though the Avalanche went a while without a SOG in the 3rd. OT was strange because the Avalanche had plenty of zone time in the first few minutes, yet like 1 SOG to show for it. The Stars of course carried play for several minutes.

A little surprised Oettinger was so confused on the OT winner... Wood was in no position to shoot near side, but Oettinger played it like he was and looked completely baffled Wood would cut across like that.

A choppy game overall... not a ton of sustained offense or SOG, but still a lot of dangerous players on the ice at any given time. Maybe the best night of the playoffs so far.


And on a side note, it's times like these I really appreciate YTTV over most cable/satellite boxes... no more bullshit with recording the 6 shows after hockey to make sure you catch all the OTs, much less screwing with one game being on ESPNU for 2 periods and then switching back. It ended up with one recording of the 2nd on ESPNU and then a second for the 3rd period on ESPN. Mildly concerned at first seeing that it cut off, but caught both the Canes/Rangers OT and the entire Avalanche game across channels.

(and that Canes crosscheck was weak)

[UChieffyBugger]

To all you bitter, hater AVS fans!!..congrats on your win In game one. I hate Dallas and Deboar and believe it or not I'm rooting for you guys to knock them out after them chumps got so much puck luck against my knights in round one.

(Then if you beat Dallas I'll return to rooting for you to lose again but we'll cross that bridge when we get there )