Well, yeah, when you whack a guy in the dome with your stick, that's going to kind of be memorable. McSorley was a throwback, and certainly a major part of the success of Wayne Gretzky in the 80's and 90's.

Jonathan Quick was ridiculous tonight. 3-0 Kings.

:tro:

Sometimes the playoffs are better than the Superbowl. :wf

I was really hoping for a few more games, the vast wasteland of sport that is post NHL playoffs is upon us. Counting on the Euro tournament to carry me through June. Devils spent it all against the Rangers, this is the classic letdown after clearing the "big" hurdle.

I agree somewhat, but the Kings definitely deserve alot of credit here. They are playing lights out good right now.

The seperation between 8 seeds and 1 seeds in the West, or even the East is very little. As a Hawks fan who was shut down by Quick all year I can attest to them not being a team that just got hot at the right time. LA sports fans are an oxymoron to me, but this team is the real deal. No offense Matty, but I wish they had done this to the Rangers as that would really have proved a point. Although, who knows if that is what would have happened:confused:

I really believe that they are a very good team. The biggest difference for them is that pucks have found the back of the net in the post season. They really struggled to score in the regular season (Hence the 8 seed).

They didn't need to beat the Rangers to validate their success in the Playoffs. They beat 2 very good teams (handily) in Vancouver and St. Louis (I was on the fence about the Yotes). In my opinion they are a better version of the Rangers. A very solid defensive team with a stud goaltender that struggles to score goals most of the time. I do think that they have more team speed and also better skill guys then the Rangers. Also for some of these guys, it isn't their first rodeo into the finals, so they know what to expect. Obviously they have the fresher legs too.

As painful as it for me to say, I don't think that the Rangers would have fared much better than the Devils have so far.

Very little separates the Devils, Rangers, Flyers, Penguins and Bruins when it comes down to it. The teams in the West seem to be farther apart typically (though this year is an anomaly). The Kings run this year is remarkable and no matter who they beat they deserve all the credit in the world. Switching to Sutter was the difference maker IMO. He was here for an interview with the Avs last summer and while I am a Ranger fan and have no love for Sutter I would've liked to see some winning here.

The Kings are built for postseason, tight hockey, rather than the more open affairs of the regular season.

You would be surprised how few illegal sticks there are. Coaches usually have the equipment managers keep an eye on the blades to avoid just such a stupid penalty. They really do stick out like a sore thumb..I'll bet one of the players told Demers early in the game and they sat on it until later. Plus now the composite sticks are almost impossible to alter without ruining them.
One last thought, it really does warm my heart to see that the Kings are winning with a bunch of guys the Flyers felt they couldn't win with. Of course having a goaltender playing like he's the best on the planet helps quite a bit.

But didn't they used to alter the sticks to get more on their shots? Now that these sticks are all composite and have a tremendous amount of flex, (helping the speed of the shot) wouldn't you think that there really aren't too many illegal ones left?

A lot of guys used to alter the wood sticks and it was open season on the goalies, hence the rule change and enforcement. The measuring device is at the official scorer's table for every game. It is ridiculous how hard these guys (or anybody at different levels) can shoot with these composite sticks, and like I said it is virtually impossible to alter the blades now.

Wait til they start injecting sticks with Lasix. :wf

So the fact that an illegal stick penalty hasn't been called since 1993 isn't suspicious to anybody? Because I'm pretty sure wooden sticks are still being used even today and not a single NFL referee has made that call since 1993.

I think we are talking about an extremely extremely low percentage still using wooden sticks (if there are any).

Well, maybe not today, but between 1993 and 2012, hundreds of NHL players used wooden sticks over thousands of games.

Where did you see that an illegal stick hasn't been called since 1993?
Don't forget that if the team that questioned the stick and was wrong, they were assessed a 2 minuted delay of game penalty.
The only time teams challenged were when they were down a goal or two late in the game and wanted a late PP trying to get back in the game.

There was an article from last week on McSorley that stated there hasn't been an illegal stick penalty called in the NHL since 1993. I can't remember it being called anytime before or after to be honest.

Like I said, shenaningans were afoot in that series. The Kings of 1993 have held ever since that the Canadiens were allowed access by an enterprising security guard into the Kings locker room to investigate stick curvatures. Ergo, Demers called for the stick measurement knowing full well that there was an illegal stick (or probably seven) on the other team.

Though that article clearly was incorrect, as there appear to have been a couple more recent illegal stick penalties:

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2...k-measurement/