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NHL: 24 team playoffs soon. Devil's season is over


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30 minutes ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

He gets a lot of hate on here because he was practically cheerleading for the Avs and Bourque back in 2001, but I loved his work with the Devils back in the day.  And I think he's got a great voice for punctuating those truly special memories (like MacLean scoring the playoff spot clinching goal, for one).  

I remember 2001, too. The whole league was cheering for Bourque, right? Speaking of disappointments, when I was rewatching Marty's 551st and 552nd wins (I attended the game in Montreal, what a great experience) I recalled how 2009 was such a special and heartwrenching season at the same time.  Clemmensen's surprising performance, Marty's return and breaking the wins record, the ZZ Pops line and Parise's star season, a first place finish in the Atlantic .... then the Carolina series. Ouch.

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1 hour ago, Jerrydevil said:

Rewatching the 1988 Devils games is awesome, too, because you get to hear the voice of Gary Thorne. He's right up there with Doc in my book.

He’s good but in my book there is Doc and then there is everyone else. Even now when I watch non-Devil games I mostly watch the ones that Doc is calling. 
 

Also, a small part of me will never forgive Thorne for butchering that Game 7 Friesen goal against Ottawa lol.

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3 minutes ago, Bonginator11 said:

He’s good but in my book there is Doc and then there is everyone else. Even now when I watch non-Devil games I mostly watch the ones that Doc is calling. 
 

Also, a small part of me will never forgive Thorne for butchering that Game 7 Friesen goal against Ottawa lol.

Not one of Gary's better calls. "NO NO!"  Clement: YES!

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2 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

I remember being upset when Gary left, but to me Doc is the best hockey guy out there. We lucked out getting him as the replacement. 

We sure did. I still miss him. This is my favorite Doc call. I rewatch it all the time. It's perfect.

 

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Regarding guys like Biznasty and Cam on the podcasts, I never fully understood the whole fascination with guys like that.  I have never gotten into the goon culture and to me they just seem like a relic of of bygone era.  I can understand the interest in some of the old heavyweights like Probert, Kocur, Twist, etc. mostly because they played in an era where fighting was still a very common part of the game.  Now, if I go to 10 games in person I am lucky to see more than 1 actual fight total.  Guys like Cam and Biznasty are goons in an era where they are a dying breed and from what I have heard from them their recollections are often exaggerated than anything else.  I guess people still like these guys in some sort of Last of the Mohicans type of romanticism.

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Those guys especially Cam and Bissonnette were hacks compared to Probert and the others you mentioned from back in the day.  Those guys threw bombs with the intention of knocking the other guy out.  They were also willing to take a punch to land a bigger one. Bissonnette threw pillows and if Cam didn't wear a devils jersey at one point he wouldn't have any of the sentimental value which is about it for him imo.  I'll show my fandom here, the guy I loved to watch fight was Leblond, he hurt people in the E and A he just came along years too late and wasn't good enough to tie up a roster spot.  If he was a few inches taller and played 10-15 years earlier he would of been fun to watch.

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5 hours ago, Bonginator11 said:

My favorite Doc call will always be “THEY SCORE! HENRIQUE! IT’S OVER!” but a close second has to be this hilarious voice cracking call on Parise’s OT goal vs MTL

 

I remember that was a saturday and i was at a party with a bunch of habs fans. After the game i went home and grabbed my parise jersey and went to every single bar in 2 different town to rub it in

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8 hours ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

He gets a lot of hate on here because he was practically cheerleading for the Avs and Bourque back in 2001, but I loved his work with the Devils back in the day.  And I think he's got a great voice for punctuating those truly special memories (like MacLean scoring the playoff spot clinching goal, for one).  

Don’t forget ‘THE LIGHT DID NOT COME ON’.

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Biz being such a meat head works for the dynamic of the show though. At least, imo. Hell, half the time he’s stoned to boot lol. Whit breaking his balls for the dumb sh!t he says is usually pretty funny. Just recently he called the best player in the world “Conor David” ffs....LOL

Edited by Nicomo
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1 hour ago, MadDog2020 said:

Don’t forget ‘THE LIGHT DID NOT COME ON’.

Plus the Avs and Ducks series he sounded completely unenthusiastic about the Devils and all over Colorado and Anaheim. It’s odd because back in the day I liked him when he was our announcer.

Edited by devlman
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15 hours ago, DevsMan84 said:

Regarding guys like Biznasty and Cam on the podcasts, I never fully understood the whole fascination with guys like that.  I have never gotten into the goon culture and to me they just seem like a relic of of bygone era.  I can understand the interest in some of the old heavyweights like Probert, Kocur, Twist, etc. mostly because they played in an era where fighting was still a very common part of the game.  Now, if I go to 10 games in person I am lucky to see more than 1 actual fight total.  Guys like Cam and Biznasty are goons in an era where they are a dying breed and from what I have heard from them their recollections are often exaggerated than anything else.  I guess people still like these guys in some sort of Last of the Mohicans type of romanticism.

The bolded is more where I am...I went into some detail with Crowder, and though his story was relatively short-lived (as was his fighting prowess...he would resurface from 1995-97 (74 games over three seasons), but wasn't nearly as formidable of a fighter as he had been as a Devil), I find him interesting mostly because of the era that he played in, and the way that he came out of nowhere to beat up on some of the most feared and toughest heavyweights in the NHL...but of course, it helps that I'm old enough to have seen his fighting prowess, and that he played for the Devils.  I can't expect anyone who was too young to have any real memories of Crowder (and when fighting was really a legit thing) to really care much though. 

I can't say that I really had anything against Cam, but even at the time, he felt obsolete...with him, it felt like much more of an unnecessary sideshow...OK, there he goes to find the other team's equally untalented goonish player so that they can have their staged fight.  Obviously this would happen in Crowder's time too (teams started dressing goons in games against the Devils strictly to fight him), but it just felt more and more out-of-place when Cam was doing it.  Really felt like he came into the NHL about 15 years too late...but what's sad is that even if he could snag a DeLorean, some plutonium, and a flux capacitor, I think the tough guys of that era would've eaten poor Cam for lunch.  

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I mean, for me, I enjoy Chiclets not so much because of Biz (Whit steals the show imo), but because they get fantastic guests that feel comfortable actually letting some stories go.  You really don't get players in such casual/honest settings anywhere else.

That's imo why the Podcast has been such a huge success for them - it's seen as a "players show" and lots of guys in the NHL appreciate that.

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35 minutes ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

The bolded is more where I am...I went into some detail with Crowder, and though his story was relatively short-lived (as was his fighting prowess...he would resurface from 1995-97 (74 games over three seasons), but wasn't nearly as formidable of a fighter as he had been as a Devil), I find him interesting mostly because of the era that he played in, and the way that he came out of nowhere to beat up on some of the most feared and toughest heavyweights in the NHL...but of course, it helps that I'm old enough to have seen his fighting prowess, and that he played for the Devils.  I can't expect anyone who was too young to have any real memories of Crowder (and when fighting was really a legit thing) to really care much though. .  

Crowder was a beast. He beat the crap out of Probert once I recall........  I remember being at MSG for a game and Crowder beat up one of the Rags......

Best part of Troy was vanquished and the Devs got my all time fav, McKay

Too busy to get to watch them now, but there are several Crowder v. Probert fights on YouTube.

I wonder if my memory served me correctly.........

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19 hours ago, Jerrydevil said:

Rewatching the 1988 Devils games is awesome, too, because you get to hear the voice of Gary Thorne. He's right up there with Doc in my book.

I don't remember much of when he was our announcer, but I've always liked Thorne as well, yet I've found for whatever reason others don't seem to like him as much, and I'm not sure why.  I always thought him and Bill Clement were a great tandem.  

In regards to Doc, I knew back when he was our announcer that we had one of the greats, before he really came to stardom in that realm and got national attention, and now he's one of the staples of the game.  He has so many great calls and his voice is just natural for the sport, but I always particularly liked when we had Langenbrunner and he would score, because his name was so long and it really let Doc emphasize the syllables in his name. It almost seemed like he was speaking it in slow motion... especially on plays where there's a lot going on and your voice can't really keep up with the action, so it's one of those moments where you just say the player's name abruptly in emotion...…….. so it would be something like "Gomez dumps it in, Elias takes the puck around the net, back to the point for Rafalski, passes into the slot, SCORES! JA-MIE-LANG-EN-BRUNN-ER!"

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32 minutes ago, Jimmy Leeds said:

Crowder was a beast. He beat the crap out of Probert once I recall........  I remember being at MSG for a game and Crowder beat up one of the Rags......

Best part of Troy was vanquished and the Devs got my all time fav, McKay

Too busy to get to watch them now, but there are several Crowder v. Probert fights on YouTube.

I wonder if my memory served me correctly.........

They fought each other four times in their careers...think Crowder won two, lost one, with the other one (their last) a draw (though Crowder did manage to take him down after they basically just held on to each other for a while).  That last one (a draw) came when Probert was with Chicago, and Crowder with Vancouver.  Crowder was definitely a beast with the fists early, but when he came back in the mid-90s, simply wasn't nearly as fearsome.  

Out of all of the players involved in Crowder's Group 1 FA arbitration hearing, McKay wound up being the best by a long shot from that point on.  Not only did he have a solid career as a Devil (with some VERY memorable moments and key goals...also ranks 7th all-time in GP for Devils forwards), the Devils moved on from him at exactly the right time.  After being dealt to Dallas (with Arnott for Langs and Nieuwendyk), he played one last season in 2002-03 with Montreal, then called it quits.  

Edited by Colorado Rockies 1976
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Very good article on the Athletic about the options to restart the season. None of them involve the Devil's which is unsurprising . 

The talk of a 24 team format with a 5 game round robin league has been talked about a lot. The Athletic article does a good job of showing why this would be incredibly unfair on teams in a playoff spot but would directly benefit three huge markets in terms of making the playoffs. 

Currently the Rangers, Habs and Blackhawks all have less than a 10% chance of making the playoffs (I think Montreal is actually nearly 0%). In the new format that jumps to 40% which is incredibly unfair. 

A 20 team format with a 4 game round robin before the playoffs seems far fairer to me. 

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nhl/new-3-on-3-hockey-league-3ice-set-to-debut-in-2021-with-star-studded-group-of-coaches/ar-BB14mb3U?ocid=spartanntp

Who knows what comes of this (a new niche league within a niche sport), but some interesting names among the coaches.  

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Gary Thorne is a hack.  He went out of his way to cheerlead for the Avs in 2001 and for pretty much everyone but the Devils in 2003.  I swear his lips were permanently stapled to Bourque's rear in the 2001 finals.  Then you have the 2003 ECF game 7 call where he kept shouting about the stupid goal light not going on right away as the goal not being a goal when everyone else with even a single functioning eyeball could see it was a goal.  He literally wanted that to not count.

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1 hour ago, mfitz804 said:

Talk about a bygone era, we got two players as compensation for a team signing one of our guys who barely played hockey. 

Some of those Group 1 FA deals were kinda nuts.  The arbitrator was supposed to award one package or the other as compensation (each team submitted one; the arbitrator couldn't take pieces from both and make up a new one...it was strictly A or B).

The Rangers signed Group 1 FA Adam Graves...his career numbers to that point were nothing that suggested he'd be as productive as he became with the Rangers (just 60 points in 217 GP).  I don't remember what the Oilers asked for as compensation, but the Rangers offered Troy Mallette, which based strictly on the numbers at that point in both of their careers was a fair offer.  That's what the arbitrator ruled...Sather (Oiler GM at the time) was furious.  Mallette would be traded to the Devils not too long after...I remember Mallette talking about how relieved he was, because Sather made it very clear how much he didn't want Mallette...and Troy said that it didn't take long for that feeling to become quite mutual.  

Then there was the Petr Nedved mess...he signed in-season with the Blues (in March 1994) and suited up for his new team before his old one (the Canucks) was awarded compensation.  One of those pieces (Craig Janney) would wind up being traded BACK to St. Louis after Vancouver had received its compensation, but that whole situation made the NHL look a bit clusterfvcked.  

Edited by Colorado Rockies 1976
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