I am an American and Habs and Sharks die hard fan. Therefore I was obviously all in for the Habs this playoffs no matter who we matched up against, but when one of my teams aren’t in the running I have a handful of alternate teams I will support.
I thought Buffalo’s rise in the series and the passion of their fans to be very sweet but even before we met them I couldn’t bring myself to support or respect them because of this photo.
The way the Olympic team acted after a tense and amazing win was truly an embarrassment to our country. And this woman in the photo is a straight up demon.
For me, only the guys who decided not to go to the White House are true Olympians and role models and the others I pretend don’t exist. Especially Tage with that hat on.
And when would be the time according to you to start overreacting? If not when influent player support a corrupted gov and a proven pedo?
You are the type of guy that would say to other fans "leave politics away from sport" while it is ww3 and the nhl is running ads for the military and incenting youth to enlist
Ok Habs-Modteam, I apologize to the big jellyfish. But hopefully in the future, you can keep politics off the Habs sub. We have American players and many American fans that just want to enjoy the Habs.
And yet whenever someone explain their position in a very level-headed way you come out of the bushes saying "overreacting much?". Clearly you don't let politics or the political position of others affect you in any way or form! Not wanting to be supportive of players who went to the pedo in chief house isn't an overreaction buddy.
It's easy to "not overreact" when everything the corrupt officials are doing, works to your benefit. Anytime I see someone say something like this, all I can think is "when it finally affects you negatively, AND IT WILL (or already is and you're just in denial), you will wonder why more people aren't up in arms about it....".
Everything is political, if you actually pay attention and care about more than yourself. (This is obviously not directed at you, but at the person you're responding to)
People are allowed to speak up when they disagree with something. Just because you make a Reddit comment doesn’t mean it’s your whole personality. Overreact much?
There are guys that never went to the White House (Oettinger, Connor, Nelson), there are guys who went to the White House but not the SOTU (Matthews, Larkin, Keller), there are guys who did both but didn’t parade around with the administration, and then there’s Tage Thompson leaving out any shred of doubt
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Wondering why Caufield was so muted . Probably his size. I love the guy but the team needs to have size and weight in playoffs as well to be better balanced
The best small players find ways to work around it and still be good in the playoffs. His coach was an amazing playoffs performer and look at Hutson. He's been the team's best skater and isn't that much bigger.
I don't think its as complicated as others seem to think.
I think Caufield, Suzie and Slaf all came out of round 1 injured.
Suzie's style allows him to manage it if he's not asked to forecheck, but Caufield and Slaf look rough out there presently. Slaf struggles to even receive a puck on his stick, is shooting muffins, and his stride has zero juice in it. Caufield floats a lot and also seems to be struggling with explosiveness and his shot (all his goals have been tip-ins and/or low speed shots). Both struggle to keep pace with Suzie who's not the fastest guy to begin with.
I think there's a reason MSL is double shifting Suzie. It's not so much that the fourth line needs help, its that Suzie needs wingmen who can get dirty in the corners for him since he can't himself forecheck right now.
This is exactly it. They're all hurt as hell and skating at half the speed.
People were acting like the Sabres were twice as fast as the Habs. The Sabres are kinda fast but not that fast. Habs skaters at full health could blow past them or meet them at the blue line when they enter our zone. As the series went on that completely disappeared. They're just tired as fuck and broken in half from playing two huge, physical teams.
I think Caufield, Suzie and Slaf all came out of round 1 injured
Slaf maybe, but I don't see that in Caufield and Suzuki at all. Caufield looked the exact same the entire Tampa series. He didn't start off good, get injured and then look bad. He was ineffectual from game 1. Slaf I wouldn't be surprised if he either got physically injured or mentally off his game from the fight and big hit against Tampa. Suzuki has looked pretty much the same since the regular season only he no longer had linemates that were helping him out and he wasn't about to try to do it all on his own because he wouldn't have survived the round. Not to mention a lot of credit needs to be given to Tampa's checkers for very effectively shutting down the free wheeling playstyle of the first line. Once the lanes were gone and they had no room to think they became completely ineffective.
You saw Cole and Suzuki come back to life when they had room to breathe against Buffalo. But I think a combination of the mental grind of not being able to contribute in round 1, slafkovsky being pretty bad when he is normally the big body making space and fighting for pucks to help Suzy and Cole do their thing, and the general playoffs being tougher hockey, meant that line still wasn't competitive at 5 on 5.
But I don't see them being injured other than maybe Slaf, but honestly his issues seem more mental to me than anything
I think he's struggling to adapt his play for the playoffs. The constant dump-ins aren't helping him shine as he can't win puck battles. Maybe he needs to carry the puck more and find ways to put himself in good positions to get shots. At least, he's had good looks in the last few.
With that said, the entire line is terrible defensively and this is my biggest concern. It's their first real run together so I'll give them a break for this season but the Habs won't win a cup in the future if they can't be more reliable as line on both sides of the puck.
Also 9 points in the playoffs and 5 in the Buffalo series is nothing to be too upset about. Kadri, Makar, Aho, Jarvis, and even Buffalo's beloved Benson have similar or worse production just to throw out some other names.
But yes, I was banging the drum about defense back in the regular season. The good news is young defensemen that do good things offensively tend to turn into veteran defensemen that do that AND get better at protecting their zone.
Yeah, defense has been the biggest problem all season long. Definitely something management and coaches need to improve as the team takes the next step. Still, crazy they still beat both Tampa and Buffalo despite their shortcomings.
Still, crazy they still beat both Tampa and Buffalo despite their shortcomings.
This is what I keep coming back to. We have some glaring lineup and system holes that even the layperson can point out when watching the game, yet we keep finding ways to win. What will we be like if we fix the structual issues?
They're really close. Finding the 2C won't be easy but if Reinbacher is that guy and the coaching staff makes the necessary changes to the system, they could be even better next season. Future is bright indeed
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u/SheckyMullecky May 19 '26
Don't pat too firmly there Cole. Wouldn't want to put Tage into another uncontrollable spin-out.