Thorny

Florida would have won without him, yes lol

And they ditched the korpisalo contract

We missed the boat on this imo that thought can change, though

Prime Crosby played less than 10 minutes and was held pointless in his first cup clinching game

A neutral moment

I don’t get Maurice saying he wishes for the Jets to win the next Stanley cup. Is he retiring? Even if he was..wouldn’t he want his panthers to repeat? odd

kevyn Murray would be a good GM

Excellent, well said. As on point now, as then. I thought I wanted to add something but realize I can’t. I suppose other than just to say, the reason this stuff matters is because all the reasonable transaction babies gets thrown out with the bad overall team bath water and the stylistic, strategic nature of certain moves that are actually reasonable in strategy get ruled out because “Murray did that and we sucked.” It’s like he ruined trading for a goalie or players to jumpstart your core for everyone. Not only weren’t the theories all bad, even some of the *execution* wasn’t, just the overall body (sometimes the threads are filled with too many eye rolls to delve into this stuff I guess) That’s what I was alluding to upthread, the 1st 2nd thing offsetting

At the end of the day, if you didn’t want to give it to McDavid this year, fine. You’d be wrong but w/e But for gosh shakes just change the definition of the award to “most valuable player to the team who wins the cup” because if what McDavid did in a losing effort wasn’t enough then nothing reasonably is. It shouldn’t be a consideration at all because it’s just insulting everyone’s intelligence to entertain that there’s a good-faith debate where a losing player can win it, when the stats can indisputably, so obviously point to one guy being the best and it still not matter.

I didn’t write the criteria buddy. Nor am I the one who voted him the winner I was just right

No it means he feels the award should go to Carter Verhaeghe He’s embarrassed for the league

Reality disagrees. Connor’s name is on the trophy. its not an award for “player you couldn’t have won without”. Multiple fit that criteria every year. You are literally just inventing your own criteria because you are unable to cope with the actual terms of the award by all means, you and the other one can continue dealing me your eye rolls and vomiting emojis because you are in your feels and want to kick and stomp your feet about it

And McDavid set the assist record

McDavid scoring 42 points is more unprecedented (3 times before this year) than a player from a losing team winning the Conn Smythe (it’s happened 5 times before today). It would have been a far bigger blunder to not reward his playoffs, in a historic sense

There isn’t a player on Florida who did more to lead Florida to one that McDavid did. Or even as close to as much. McDavid as an ingredient supplied more than any other player. Florida just collectively averaged more contribution over a 23 man roster people need to stop acting like this is some sacred thing. It’s not like a player from a losing team winning is unprecedented. Giguere did it. McDavid was all time good. If not him? Who? I get for you the answer is “no one” but that’s a personal bias moreso than an accurate reading of the award’s criteria

It didn’t “blow up in their face” it went to the guy who most deserved it. Like by far. Him not being there is whatever. Everyone with half a brain can understand why. To not you’d have to be willfully choosing to not look beyond the optics. You are just salty because you said there’s no chance it would happen

Forsling saved it

The mental dynamics change when the teams are back on equal footing. It’s not a house money situation anymore

Do people still think Florida has no chance?

You absolutely need to go get your stick A free 5 on 3 because you want to be a useless pylon

Speaking of, this was a heck of a call, minus Girgensons obviously @GASabresIUFANI take your points, was definitely just mostly remembering my reaction at the time and probably dudaceks lol.

No I mean Lehner wasn’t half bad for us and the ROR trade was great. Those 2 deals worked in combination with eachother because yes I’d have preferred to give up a 2nd for Lehner but also would have willingly dealt a 1st for ROR instead of a second (which, IIRC, is what we paid in that trade) Edit - the “we all said” thing was bad wording on my part, I meant/should have said that it was a point raised by many at the time. But you are right the reaction at the time was bad, even worse looking back just now

“Do you think we will win a cup in Buffalo?” ”oh, I definitely don’t think we’ll win a cup in Buffalo.”

lol didn’t matter at all