Soapy,
I got time now as something I had to do was 10x quicker than I thought.
Toronto Make Me Laffs
- Leafs are the biggest market and richest team by far with insane ticket prices and loyal following even though we have won dick shit since 1967. Since then, not even a finals appearance. Just a hand full of semi finals
- The team now is underachieving and has stacked forwards (4 guys who eat up half the salary cap), always suspect defence and a streaky goalie who always lets in a bad goal at the wrong time. They are predicted to go far but always lose in the first round (last year they couldn't even past the qualifying round which means they actually missed)
- What you get are exciting games with lots of scoring and sktechy play. Not surprisingly, the opening game was 5-4 which for hockey is a high scoring game. Most teams score about 3 goals per game, so anytime you see 5 goals that's high
- The teams core skaters are all scorers with defence as probably 6th on their priority list. Even the key d-man Rielly is the same
- Auston Matthews - young and one of the top players in the league
- John Tavares - veteran player who backstabbed the Islanders a few years ago who he was captain for 10 years. Slow but always gets 1 pt per game
- Mitch Marner - young and skilled like Matthews but more of a passer
- Willy Nylander - redeemed himself last year after being a hold out asshole. young and skilled like above
- Freddy Anderson - hot and cold goalie. Kind of stuck on a team with shit defence so sometimes he can't help it. If he played on a stud defence team he'd get all-star numbers
Rules
- You said you know the basics, but just in case here's some key rules
- Cause a minor infraction = 2 minute penalty. Other team goes on a man advantage. Semi-serious = 4 minute double minor. Fights and major penalties are 5 min. Non-fight majors I think you kicked out of the game
- Minors are tripping, slashing, hooking etc.... 4 min are these kinds of penalties but more serious and draw blood. Majors are kick ass penalties like going high speed and driving a guy's head into the board from behind trying to make him a quadriplegic
- A team can pull their goalie and get another skater on. Teams do this when they are losing late in the game or about to go on a power play and get a 6th skater on hoping to score before the penalty gets called by the ref. The ref will motion for a penalty call but he won't blow the whistle until the team who is at fault gets control of the puck back
- OT is 3 on 3. No scoring and it goes to a shoot out
Format
- Covid really fucked up the league. It's usually 82 games and 4 divisions on geography. This year it's 56 games and 4 divisions based on geography and borders, and teams only play teams in their own division so it's wacky where each team plays the same team around 8 times. The standout division is an All Canadian team one
- Each division has a corporate sponsor this year which is ridiculous, but guess they need money
- And the schedule is more like baseball where teams now play each other in 2-3 game sets at the same arena. Weird. The schedule is normally like basketball of travelling to other cities, home and occasional back to back games. Now it's back to back almost every week
- Top 4 teams in each division make the playoffs. The old way was I think 4 divisions and the top 3 make it and the last two are the next two best teams (wildcard)
Teams
- The All Canadian division (North) is competitive but not the best one. I'd say the East is the best overall. West and Central have maybe 3 standout teams each and that's it
- Best team in the league is TB who won the cup. Colorado and Vegas are other teams expected to go far
- You'll probably hear a lot of Crosby and Ovechkin. Two Hall of Fame players getting old but still good. Crosby (Pittsburgh) is an aging team and might not even make the playoffs this year. Ovechkin (Washington) scores a lot and is consistently good. But aside from that one cup win in 2018, they always flame out fast in the playoffs. They been a good team for over 10 years and most of the time lose in the first or second round even to shit teams that barely made the playoffs. The team has never been built for playoffs but for flashy regular season offence that kills weak teams
Players on other teams
- The tandem of McDavid and Draisaitl on Edmonton is easily the best duo in the league. The rest of their team is terrible that's why they don't even make the playoffs half the time. But these two guys (which you'll see a lot on west coast late games on TV) are good enough to win games by themselves
- McDavid is the best player in the league. After that, MacKinnon on Colorado. Probably Draisaitl third. After that all the top players kind of blend together. Auston Matthews is a top 10 player
