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GoldAppleCorps

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Posts posted by GoldAppleCorps

  1. We can score goals with anybody. We can grind and claw with the best of them.

    What we can't do is withstand our own good fortune.

    The cloud in my head says that Tanev will be "day to day" until he returns late September to (somebody's) training camp.

    Edmonton knows we spread out high and look to the middle on our PP. Stop throwing the puck into the center knot of bodies. They're standing there waiting for it. FFS, get low and press toward the net. Make them come get it.

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  2. We're all sports fans here, and we've all seen it before. You gear up for a really tough game. Your game plan is to fight and scratch until the end. Then, the game starts, and you quickly put a knot on the other guys' head.

    Trouble is, you're not really sure how you did it, and you don't know what to do next. Do you keep pressing and risk losing your fortunate lead? Do you lay back and defend for basically the entire game? What to do with your 60 minute game plan that just became a 10 minute one?

    Of course, the other team can either give up and skate it out, or go into hyper-attack mode. This isn't game 30 of the regular season. This is the Western Conference Finals. The Stars saw it against the Avs in game 1. Re-finding your focus after good fortune is a tough task.

    I expect Edmonton to spend the next 48 hours putting their eggs back in the basket. They're a proud franchise with plenty of talent to win the Cup, but they have to answer the bell Wednesday night.

  3. EDM is playing like Vegas. Keeping everything to the outside and ensuring they're always shoulder to shoulder with their man.

    Dallas is going to have to play ugly. Trying to skate past Edmonton won't work. Slap the puck below the goal line, race to it, and draw the Oilers out from the middle. Skinner made the 5 saves this game where he didn't even know the puck was there. Luck had 5 to even out eventually. 

    Better second period. We had the more dangerous scoring chances. Just gotta get one in before EDM accidentally junks one in on a drive by.

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  4. Canada has some surprising entrance requirements that catch some travelers short. Drug convictions or minor violent crime (domestic violence) can require you to get special permission to enter Canada. This isn't a quick process, so start early.

    Public Service Message because this is Surly and it's likely to be germane.

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  5. I still have twitchy nightmares about JS Giguere and Jonathan Quick - two goalies who backstopped otherwise good-but-not-great teams to Stanley Cup victories. That is to say, it's possible to lose the Cup with top tier goalkeeping, but you're not winning it without it.

    Vancouver's replacement for the replacement GK rose up and stole a couple of games. Now, it seems he may have overperformed. In a scoring battle with leaky goalies, Edmonton wins.

    Besides, the Stars have to play the Oilers in the playoffs for good things to happen. It's always been that way.

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  6. The Avs have had some dangerous shots skip just away from the net all series long. Tonight, Makar was banking one in just under the cross-bar. Pucks just beating the end of the period into the net. Over the course of a series, those things even out.

    That said, I'm disappointed Otter let in only the 2nd or 3rd (depending on your opinion) softie of the playoffs.

    I suppose it's good to get them all chalked up into the same loss.

    The Colorado Avalanche aren't a bunch of suckers. They can light the lamp, and we let them play their game over the 2nd half last night. These playoffs are now more mental fortitude than anything, so rely on that moxie that dug out of an 0-2 hole against Vegas, outlast the Avs, and win Game 6.

  7. 57 minutes ago, Rex Kramer said:

    The embellishment call was so fucking bad. A PP opp would’ve given us a 50/50 chance to end the thing in regulation. Ugh. 

    I appreciate the hockey tradition of "letting them play" when it comes to the playoffs. Refs don't want to insert themselves in the game, so a hit that's likely boarding gets overlooked if the player gets up. A straightforward cross check or slash can pass.

    When the pace of the game gets changed (like the Vegas guy that broke his stick across Heiskanen's back) or the puck carrier is knocked down, then a call has to be made (I'd be curious to know if Robertson's high stick contact would have been called if he hadn't hit the ice. Clearly a blatant high-stick, but it created a 5 on 3).

    In this case, the ref had to make a call. It was a deserved call, and one so blatant that it should have legitimately put the Stars on the PP with 4 minutes left. However, he didn't have the stomach for it, so he evened up the on-ice power with an embellishment call that no one believes.

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  8. To be fair, Makar is a defender (at least positionally - I think he's a winger who chose to specialize on defense) so he's going to be on ice a lot more. He just fires slappers from the blueline with such alacrity that he looks like a forward.

    Whomever survives this series is going to see too much of Conor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl (no, I'm not giving Vancouver a chance). If you have them on your team, you roll that line as often as possible. If MacKinnon is on your club, he's on the ice whenever he can be.

    If I'm Dallas, I'm reviewing tape to see if there's any way to slow down the Avs PP. Positionally, they just made scoring too easy. Being afraid to take penalties will neuter the Stars game.

  9. Colorado is a one-line team. It just so happens that it's an All-Star line that can more than carry the load. Stars have to bog the game down by any means necessary when that line is on ice.

    The phrase "pass the puck into the net" keeps coming up. We're not playing a series changing goaltender (although he kept the heart beating during opening OT). Dallas should spend some time watching Modano breakaway tapes. When you're the first man in, load up when you're 15 feet away from the net and unleash your best blast. We're giving up too much on triple-dekes and sneaky drops to no one. Put pucks on net at every opportunity.

    Playing 5 D men (and even that's being kind) and no Marchment is rough. Colorado is a team that's built to score, and on some level, getting 3 in the first made it tough to stay mentally checked in. Win the next one, and be ready to steal the 2nd away game using more depth on the back-to-back.

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  10. Much has been said over Vegas' use of LTIR to augment their team. With the way that the Western Conference was so close among the top teams, those additions "just in time" for the playoffs legitimately changed the weight of the Golden Knights. The Knights team that played Dallas wasn't the #8 team in the West. They were legit Cup contenders.

    Even so, what kept them in the series against Dallas was unholy goalkeeping. With the Knights playing a tight defense first with big bodies, Dallas still screamed in on them with multiple odd man rushes - only to see those opportunities snuffed by a miracle save. With even a reasonable save percent, the Stars win comfortably if not easily. In short, Dallas just fought through a team that could have easily repeated.

    If Dallas goes through a brutal series against Colorado and emerges bloodied but victorious in 7, then we can talk about fatigue. As it stands, it's more likely Dallas still has the aggression dialed up at home against a talented team that didn't have to work too hard in the 1st round. I'm not predicting anything easy. The Avs are a much different team than Vegas. They have lots of "WTF" skill players that have given the Stars fits in the past. Like the Oilers, they have so many individually brilliant players that it looks like a brilliant system. Obviously, we need "good Otter" to stay around (I'm confident he's here). Both teams can score. I just haven't seen any history of the Avs netminders being able to rescue their team. It's trite, but I see that difference in goaltending winning the series for the Stars.

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  11. 10 minutes ago, PsychMike said:

    Carl Reed Jr.'s dad was once Man of the Year at Shermer High.

    image.png.13ea0455aff9a66da202c19483071d44.png

    He then pursued a career in the Custodial Arts and landed a strategic position at his alma mater in order to become "the eyes and ears of this institution." I think we can trust him.

    image.png.e9604e67d157ee64ff0421beb52d7c09.png

    Yeah, but he sometimes masquerades as "Rudy the Oily Bohunk", so tread lightly:

    kapelos+sixteen.bmp

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  12. On 12/18/2023 at 7:57 PM, bschoolprof said:

    I can't stand her dreadful transatlantic accent tho.  It doesn't fit the show in any way.  I can't believe the director signed off on that.  

    I was hoping this was going to end up a plot point. It sounds like she's trying to effect the "New England Old Money" style accent (think Katherine Hepburn in "Philadelphia Story"). This was basically a form of the English "Received Pronunciation" that posh Brits would be taught in their exclusive educational institutions. Wealthy New Englanders adopted it to ape the landed gentry.

    JJL is doing such a terrible job of it that I'm suspecting it must be on purpose.

    Spoiler

    "You're in the one house in this state that I know my grand-daughter ain't at!"

     

  13. Before you're old and wise, you have to be young and stupid (old and stupid is still a possibility)

    We're getting Sark in the 3rd act. The young hero already got identified as the future savior, got smacked down trying to claim his birthright, went on a self-destructive path to find himself, and got rebuilt humbling himself at the feet of a short, soft-spoken guru.

    He's at the point where it's time to win the kumite.

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  14. Quinn suffered when he'd anticipate the pass rush, not set his feet, and throw a high school pass. I've not seen him run, but I don't see where Maalik would overly concern himself with a pass rusher.

    After practice, the receivers need to stay late and turn the JUGS machine up to 11. Failing that, find an M40 recoilless rifle and practice with that.

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  15. 10 minutes ago, redswingline said:

    I spend a lot of time looking at our opponents and data (among other matchups) because I like to throw a few bucks here and there at games.

    When the line started it was at -8. That was free money but man that # jumped quick. 

    You didn't say it outright, but you described it. They run the wide zone. It's all about  OL movement and cutbacks by the RB's. They absolutely don't have a basher anymore, so that means their offense stalls often. Lots of stops at the LOS for an opposing defense. They cannot throw over the top because they don't have a WR that can run by people. I think their starter is hurt and that means even less throwing ability.  As far as aranda  - they are tied into a massive contract and kicking the shit out of them isn't going to change his employment status - but it will still be fun to do it.

    I missed -8 and laid off -15 for a number of reasons. Everything points to a +20 pt win and them scoring 10 or less.

    Really, your uncertainty here is only how much you believe in Texas' ability to execute fundamentals. The Texas team that lined up against Bama and executed can name its score against Baylor. A Texas team that defensively guesses at gaps, comes off assignments to chase RBs, offensively throws off back feet and clangs easy passes off receivers con manos de piedra will find themselves on SportsCenter as giddy students carry away the goalposts.

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  16. 1 hour ago, closetojumping said:

    So you don't like Franklin or Hall on the DL? I think they're still decent, but they don't have a lot of help. 

    Some of my friends that cover the sport have been saying since Rhule left that Aranda was instilling a soft culture versus what Rhule had going on there. Aranda won the conference in Year 2 with mostly Rhule's guys, but since then, this looks like a program that is actively seeking its historic norms of being a below average shitheel.

    Sarkisian has to know that this is the Baylor Super Bowl, and so should his team. They're going to come out amped up and aggressive. I'm hoping, instead of a boneheaded 3 and out, Texas runs the ball early with authority and takes the adrenaline on the Baylor end out of the equation.

     

    They'll be in the right place doing the right things. They're just not big enough to make a difference. The Texas OL could just simply blow them out of the hole every play.

    This isn't the Baylor teams some of us remember from the 2000s where they ran around like practice wasn't even a thing. They believe in their coaching. They'll head to the right spot and do the right thing. They're just slow and weak at every position. They lose every position battle.

    Baylor's only chance is Texas mistakes. If Texas tries an intricate game plan full of reverse passes and such, the odds of mistake go up. If Texas challenges Baylor to a game of physical football, there's not much Baylor can do about it.

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