TrueBlue4ever

At least the top line is generating zone time and chances.

Second period thoughts: Someone forgot to freeze the pucks before the game. Lots of bouncing passes Not sure what game Dubois sees out there. Trying creative passes but off the mark on pretty much all of them Montreal pounding our defence high along the boards at the blue line. More odd man rushes in that period than in the entire series against Edmonton All the great sticks the Jets had in the first round have abandoned them tonight Good news is that Montrreal’s game plan is get up by 2 and then play dump it out for a full period, and Toronto showed that they can be exploited with that prevent defence style. Hellebuyck found his game that period and kept us in it.

First period thoughts: Montreal likely scouted back door plays Jets power play looked really good, just could not bury one Hellebuyck not looking great yet, flopping on the 3rd goal and not covering the puck when he could/should Wonder if DeMelo got cut by a skate, panel pondering a high ankle. Paging Jordie Benn Wonder if Stastny pulled something due to lack of game play Maurice said the first 10 minutes would not look like the rest of the game. We can only hope Reminded that in 2018 we came off the 7 game win over the Preds and dominated the rested Knights 4-1 in game 1. After that they found their legs, got some great goaltending, and rolled over us. Patience will be my mantra tonight. Especially because all the analytics fans are waiting to label the team a fraud.

And DeMelo is gone for the night. So much for getting healthy with 8 days off.

Based on respective winning percentages, this is the 3rd biggest upset ever in the big 3 sports (football doesn’t count) for a favoured team blowing a 3-1 series lead in a 7 game series. Toronto was .161 percentage points better than Montreal. The only bigger gap on hockey was when the 2010 Canadiens came back from down 1-3 to beat the President’s Trophy winning and perennial 3-1 chokers Washington, who were .201 better in winning percentage. In basketball, in 1995 Houston was .147 worse than Phoenix and trailed 3-1 before storming back to win, and even worse was Golden State and their best ever regular season being .195 better and up 3-1 on the Cavaliers in the NBA Final in 2016 before LeBron took over and finally won a title for Cleveland. In baseball, because of limited playoff spots, no such extreme gaps in winning percentage exist, but the 1985 Royals twice came back from 3-1 down both in the ALCS against the Blue Jays, who were .053 better, and then St. Louis, who were .061 better, for the biggest upsets ever in that situation in baseball.

So my brother lives in Toronto but is still a Jets fan. He tells me that Leafs’ fans hate the Nylander contract and think he should have been let go so they could build around M and M. Yet he showed up in the playoffs, and the Rocket Richard winner had one goal, one more than Marner did. And the Joe Thornton channels Eay Boutique moment never happened. Watching Carey Price in the post game. He seems bored. He is the biggest threat to the Jets in round 2.

Wonder if there will be any blowback on Soupy Campbell. That opening goal was pretty weak by modern standards. Five hole should be closed.

Just how long did you have this queued up? Still 2:30 left in game 7. 🤣

Thought it was 3 weeks for the Pfizer.

Not sure. If I recall, CBC gutted pretty much all of its sports coverage save for HNIC because it was not profitable for them. And CTV had been virtually sport absent. I am not talking about just televising a sport (yes CTV has the NFL) but rather their own broadcast productions. Not sure how much it costs to put together your own broadcast (cameras, directors, producers, on air talent) but I suspect the reason they pick up the NFL in part is that they only pay rights fees and do not have to worry about production costs. Now with hockey or the NFL, those production costs are offset by advertising rates for a massively popular product, but the CFL may not create a good enough return on the investment to dive into. But a 24 hour sports network is more in need of a tent pole program to build their brand, so they invest. Again, I don’t know the hard numbers so I am just spitballing here. Anyone with better insight?

From what I read, they slightly altered the lyrics, but the magic D word was intended to be “deuce”. It was a production problem in recording that slurred it and made it sound like a feminine hygiene product. When the producers said it need to be changed so as not to offend, they discovered that fixing the problem for that one word messed up the rest of the track entirely. So they opted to keep it in, and some band members acknowledged that the mini-controversy likely helped get it to become as popular as it was.

Actually saw him on VH1 Storytellers special talking about it. Said “So I write a song about street racing. Put in the lyric ‘Cut it up like a deuce, another runner hits the light’. Song goes nowhere on the charts. Manfred Mann comes along and sings ‘Wrapped up like a d0uche, another runner in the night’. Number 1 on the charts. Well, the people have spoken!”

But would anyone want to see a bidding war between TSN and Sportsnet for the CFL of the end result was a Sportsnet product that is as inferior as their NHL coverage is? Maybe so since this league needs the money badly, but not sure I would want a Sportsnet panel of Arash Masani, Jessy Ferguson, and Marty York covering the games.

Imagine how Bruce Springsteen felt hearing Manfred Mann’s re-wording of “Blinded by the Light”. 😱

Singer BJ Thomas Original version of “Hooked on a Feeling”, “Raindrops Keep Falling in my Head”, and the theme from Growing Pains! https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/29/entertainment/singer-bj-thomas-death/index.html

Leafs’ Twitter blowing up today. Marner needs to go. Blow up the team. Fire the coaches since the power play is too predictable. Looks eerily familiar to what swept through Jets land during the 7 game losing streak. Fans gonna fan.

More fun with numbers: The Jets 3 OT wins was the 32nd time in NHL history that a club has accomplished that feat in a single series. Only once in the prior 31 occurrences has a club lost despite 3 OT wins in a series (Philadelphia in 2020, who lost all 4 regulation games but won all 3 OT games). Of the other 30 times that a team has won a series with 3 OT wins or more, 4 have happened in the Stanley Cup Final. Of the remaining 26, 16 times that team has lost in the next round. and 5 more have ultimately gone on to win the Stanley Cup in a later round. 22 of the 31 times a club has gone 3-0 in OT in a series, 7 times 3-1, once 3-2, and Toronto in 1951 won the Stanley Cup 4-1 over Montreal with every game going to OT. The Jets are the 5th team ever to win 3 consecutive games in OT in one series (no team has ever 4 OT games in a row in one playoff year), and they are the 4th team to win 3 OT games as part of a sweep. Chicago in 1995 swept round 2 with 3 OT wins and lost in the next round, Detroit in 1997 won 3 in OT as part of a second round sweep and went on to win the Stanley Cup. The teams with 3 consecutive OT wins include the aforementioned 1951 Leafs in the Cup final, the 1993 Islanders in round one who would lose in round 3, and the 1994 Canucks in round 1 who would go all the way to the Cup final before losing. And there is only one other team that has ever won 3 consecutive OT games in one series as part of a sweep. In 1993 the Montreal Canadiens swept Buffalo in round 2, winning games 2-4 all in OT. They would then become the only team to ever win 3 OT games in a series twice in one playoff year when they beat the Kings in the Cup final by winning 3 in extra time. Again they did it in consecutive games, winning games 2-4 in OT after losing the opener, then clinching the Cup in game 5 in regulation.

Interesting stat. Since the onset of the four best-of-7 series (1987), a team that just completed a sweep is 30-30 in the next round, but has lost the last 6 times it occurred. And when a team that swept plays a team that won in 7 in the next round, the team that swept goes 4-7. They have lost the last 5 times in a row going back to 2001.

17 more admitted to the ICU in the last 24 hours. At least 20 have been shipped out to Regina, Thunder Bay and Ottawa.

Not too surprising. Lalji and Dave Naylor were driving the bus for the XFL expansion from a media standpoint by all appearances, so he would be supportive of a commish pushing that agenda.

I don’t know how anyone could expect more concrete plans from the league with all the uncertainty surrounding every other aspect of life in each province right now. Target date is still August 5. By mid-July of training camps show no sign of opening then we may have an idea that things are being pushed back. And as always, dependent on Health Canada, not what the league decides to announce or not announce.

If the Leafs closed it out Saturday, it would not surprise me to see them start Monday to keep up with the other 3 divisions, then play Wednesday and force a back-to-back again Friday and Saturday in Winnipeg to get them on HNIC. Unless the powers that be see that as too taxing on Toronto, in which case they will have a 2 day break and jump right to Saturday. The first 2 US series can start on Sunday if the league wanted to.

So we are seeing the numbers in US arenas climbing, and even Montreal has said they could put 2,500 in the Bell Centre in the next round if they get that far. I know the Bombers have developed a partially filled stadium protocol that is supposedly acceptable once a league-wide return to play model is approved. New York has its arena divided into vaccinated (full) and non-vaccinated (socially distanced) sections last night. All this to ask the question: should the Province allow fans to attend Jets’ games in person if they have been vaccinated (and can offer proof) or should we wait until all restrictions are lifted?

Not sure I’d want to ride the ride there anyway, even if I met the height requirement.

They will want the Leafs playing every Saturday on HNIC, so I could see them pushing them to play this weekend if they finish off the Habs tomorrow. The Colorado/Vegas-Minny series likely starts Sunday, as would Boston/Pit-NYI. The other two could go Monday unless the Leafs get stretched to 7, but then we would see a 3 day gap to get Toronto-Montreal/Winnipeg on the Saturday cycle. I am happy to see us get any extra rest we can.