Special Event: 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs 🏒 - Third Round

June 1, 2022 9:34 PM

The second round of the playoffs is over and we're into the conference finals; the Western conference will be a high-stakes 🥩 battle of elite scoring talent, as Connor McDavid 🥇 turned from the best player in the world into one of the best players of all time with his Edmonton Oilers kicking out 🦵⛸ the Calgary Flames. They face a stacked and favoured Colorado Avalanche, where Nathan McKinnon 🍝 and Cale 🥬Makar scored some beautiful goals in a sometimes ugly (by which I mean racist) series against the St Louis Blues. In the East, it could be the matchup of the best two goaltenders 🥅 in the world. Tampa Bay's Andrei Vasilevskiy 🦁 led his team into a dominant four game 🧹of the Florida Panthers, the regular season winners. Meanwhile NY Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin 🤴 slammed the 🚪 on the Carolina Hurricanes to turn the tables in game 7 after the home teams won the first 6 games.

The story so far:

🏔️COL 4__                                           ___4 CAR💨️
😿NSH 0  \                                         /   3 BOS🐻
          🏔️COL 4__                       __3 CAR💨  ️  
          🎺STL 2  \                     /  4 NYR🗽
🌲MIN 2__/          \                   /          \___4 NYR🗽
🎺STL 4             \                  /               3 PIT🐧
                     🏔️COL___🏆___NYR🗽
                     🛢️EDM         TBL⚡				 
🔥CGY 4__           /                  \            ___4 FLA️🐆
⭐DAL 3  \         /                    \          /   2 WAS🔠
         🔥CGY 1__/                       \__0 FLA🐆️  
         🛢️EDM 4                             4 TBL⚡
🛢️EDM 4__/                                         \___4 TBL⚡
🤴LAK 3                                                3 TOR🍁

posted by Superilla (16 comments total)

The internet assured me the score in Rangers vs. Tampa was going to be super low yesterday.
posted by drezdn at 7:30 AM on June 2, 2022

Colorado took a strong lead in the first two periods of Game 1, but us long time fans know they can easily let that slip away - and the Avs almost did it this time as well. Hopefully they'll settle down and just play hard all 60 minutes of Game 2 tonight.
posted by jazon at 8:27 AM on June 2, 2022

Someone somewhere probably something intelligent to say about the "path to the cup" and the impact of goalie injuries - has there ever been a playoff with so many back-up/AHL goalies playing?! But I'll settle for either of the Western teams winning in the end.
posted by beaning at 8:53 AM on June 2, 2022

My beloved Capitals were bounced round 1 (picture my surprised face - it's super easy, because it looks just like my regular face), so I'm all in for the Avs! (sorry if my Caps-stink jinxes them...)
posted by ersatzkat at 9:08 AM on June 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

Solid Game 2 performance by the Avalanche. They played well all three periods, and Darcy Kuemper was an impenetrable wall. Things got ugly at the end of the 3rd, so the next two games in Edmonton will be interesting.
posted by jazon at 8:27 PM on June 2, 2022

I'm not mad with the Oilers for all those penalties in the first period. I'm just disappointed.
posted by Johnny Assay at 12:47 PM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

Darcy Kuemper was an impenetrable wall

Where credit is due: Kuemper left in the first game and hasn’t returned. The impenetrable wall was Pavel Francouz!
posted by the fringe of the flame at 6:43 AM on June 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

It's going to be another year without a Canadian team in the finals, isn't it?
posted by Johnny Assay at 5:50 PM on June 5, 2022

Avs sweep the Oilers! On to the Stanley Cup!!!
posted by jazon at 9:04 PM on June 6, 2022

Like, I'm a Calgarian and I hate the Oilers, but it's so fucking depressing that they have McDavid and Draisaitl in their primes and the team has apparently never thought that maybe you should get someone better than Mike Smith in net. It's like watching Sisyphus play hockey, McDavid skating up the ice working magic to score a goal and then having the puck roll down the hill and back into the Edmonton net.

Colorado seem absolutely terrifying; if Markstrom had played as well has he normally did (instead of a Smithee performance against the Oilers) and the Flames had advanced instead, I don't think Calgary could have taken them either, but it might have been more than a waste of eight days.
posted by Superilla at 10:51 PM on June 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

Little known fact, in a past life Pat Maroon was a tubercular Victorian chimney sweep, and is now being cosmically rewarded with ridiculous good fortune.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 2:00 PM on June 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

There hasn't been a ton of comments, so I'm thinking that this thread can work for the finals as well.

Looks to be an all-timer, and I'm excited. My pick for the series is 🏔️, and it was before they got to this very good start.
posted by Superilla at 5:35 PM on June 15, 2022

Another barnburner (3-3 at the end of the 2nd).

Super curious how the rest of the series will shake out.

The Avs have historically been the team I root for after Canadian teams, after Vancouver.
posted by porpoise at 6:58 PM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

Insane. Unbelievable.

Col wins 7-0 to take the series to 2-0.

Makar's PP goal near the end should absolutely be saved, on the replay Vasilevskiy's glove dips as he completely misreads a rising shot, even after a super pretty passing play against a dead tired PK.
posted by porpoise at 8:33 PM on June 18, 2022

I watched this one just via the highlights, but boy do the Avs look terrifying, although part of that was Vasilevsky looking ordinary. He let in like three unscreened shots from in the faceoff circle.
posted by Superilla at 11:16 PM on June 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

I've been sending around GIFs of avalanches when the Avs win. I'm gonna need a bigger GIF.
posted by beaning at 7:13 PM on June 19, 2022 [1 favorite]