Riviera82

Higgins earned his spot in Utica with his play in Vancouver.

Comfortable with our tandem for now because the Canucks are not yet ready to contend anyway. Let Lack and Markstrom learn and grow together as hopefully the other younger players will do at the same time. Once the team is ready to challenge in the playoffs, if our goalies are a problem then seek out an upgrade.

Yeah that's 3 times it's happened since maybe the 1980s? And the difference with Luo is that he never outperformed his regular season stats except for his first year.

That seems to be about it. Unstoppable force vs. Immovable object. Wouldn't be surprised to see several more cups between the two of them over the next number of years. Also, LOL at the Rags. No chance in this series.

Missing the playoffs, losing in the SCF, the end result is the same, no cup. Personally I dont want the Canucks to be 4 time cup losers before they even win once.

Just my opinion but I think the Kings won the Stanley Cup last night.

I was just gonna say he looks like he's watched too many Vietnam war movies. Obviously he's a psychopath who's lost touch with reality, I hope they get him before he does anything else.

What do you mean constantly? 3 times in 43 seasons, lose and then drop off the face of the earth. +1 though. I dont think there's any stopping the Kings now, I know it's only one game but if it takes more than 5 games for them to win I'll be surprised.

All that lineup is missing is a #1.

Maybe I'm missing something here but I'm not understanding all the Ranger love on this board. For those of us who remember '94, who wants to see that again? And on the 20th anniversary of when the best team(and officials) money could buy beat our Canucks. No thanks. I might be mistaken but I believe our friend Mark Messier has some token front office job with the Rangers. Who wants to see his name on the cup for a 7th time? Not me. AV deserves a cup because the Canucks fired him? It's true, AV seems like a nice guy and he's a good coach, but he had the best chance at a cup anybody could hope for a few years ago and he blew it. It's not all his fault but he was the coach and he couldn't make the correct decisions which would've allowed the Canucks to squeeze out that 4th win. That guy had high scoring, good defense, ace goaltending (at times), division title and Presidents Trophy winning teams, and all he could manage was one failed cup run sandwiched between 1st and 2nd round knockouts. Now he's in his first year in New York with another shot at the cup and Canuck fans are cheering for him? Obviously I'm not. If he wins with the Rags my question is why couldn't he do it here first? His team only managed 93 points in the weak metro division. Martin St. Louis deserves a cup? Martin St. Louis already has a cup. Dont get me wrong, I feel sorry for the guy because of his mom's passing and all but what does that have to do with hockey? St. Louis had a hissy fit when Yzerman left him off the olympic team, Yzerman then puts him on the olympic team and he wins the gold medal, he then pisses and moans his way out of Tampa because his GM Yzerman hurt his feelings or whatever, and now he deserves another cup? I dont know about that. I do think Lundqvist deserves a cup, his whole career has been great with a team that's mostly been average. I hope he gets traded somewhere else and wins a cup before his career is over.

Yes, I need another excuse to drive up to Port McNeil again.

People get irritable and therefore negative when they're starving. Long time fans like myself and others are starving for a Stanley Cup, just one. If this team could eventually put their sh*t together, stop teasing the fanbase with these good/great regular seasons but no playoff results and finally get the job done, guaranteed the negativity towards the team from fans and media would evaporate and be gone for a very long time.

Not rigged just slanted, and sometimes it doesn't work out as the NHL would hope. This is why I still believe the Canucks will win their first title someday, probably not soon though.

Well Montreal is down 2-0 to the Rags now. It's not over yet but I could've sworn that when the Canadiens beat Boston, this would be their year to make it to Game 7 of the SCF.

Ahhh, I laughed and laughed and laughed some more. Goodbye sharks, nobody chokes better than you.

You make some good points but lets not forget that our Canucks team was an overtime goal away from perhaps the most epic collapse in playoff history in 2011. It could be said that Burrows saved AV's job twice between 2009 and 2011, first with that shorthanded game winner to end the 9 game losing streak and of course the "dragon slaying" goal a couple years later. I guess Burrows ran out of miracles and the result was AV getting canned.

San Jose dodged the reverse sweep in 2011 against Detroit, I have a good feeling they wont be able to do that again tonight.

Agreed, I dont think the game is fixed indefinitely. The NHL does clearly seem to favor certain teams in the playoffs from year to year, but I think if a Canadian team or one of their less favored American teams happen to win a cup in spite of the bias they have to overcome perhaps the league would just try a little harder to get the result they want the next season. I would be very interested to see what kind of aftermath (if any) would result from that.

On the AV front, he's one game away from being eliminated in the first round tomorrow. He also now has the benefit of playing in the Metro division which in terms of just making the playoffs is a cakewalk compared to the Pacific.

MG tied his own hands by hitching his wagon and padlocking it to a group of players who'd become too old, complacent, and had diminishing or not that much talent to begin with.

They're a lot like the Canucks (usually), terrific in the regular season but never able to get the job done in the playoffs. I would actually be more surprised if they didn't lose Game 7 on Wednesday.

That Sharks team will get blown up if they lose this series. Which I hope they do, that'd be hilarious.

The Sharks are collapsing, the Habs beat up on a team without a #1 goalie, and the Bruins knocked out a Detroit team that are barely a shell of their former selves. Dont count on Anaheim either, they needed 6 games to beat a Dallas team with very little playoff experience and goalie who's a playoff sieve. These Blackhawks are the defending champions and while I dont like them, I'd put more stock into what they're doing than what any of those other teams have done.

I think the question now should be, who's going to stop the Hawks from repeating? To me it looks like they're primed to steamroll anybody.

AV had become a big part of the problem. Just because the Rags have won 3 games in the first round with home ice advantage against a team that's a couple hours bus ride down the highway is supposed to mean he wasn't part of the problem? C'mon. When AV coached here in his first year we won the first round. That has yet to happen for him in New York, let's see what he does over the next couple years and then talk about it.