Montreal Canadiens wrote:Canadians rule at curling. How about that? We're also pretty darn good at what I consider, one of the world's most popular, and biggest sports - UFC.
UFC? There might be one or 2 decent fighters outside of GSP, but it's not like they're going to be challenging the Brazilian any time soon.
And a big LOL to anyteam in the LATE 80's or 90's that could beat an NHL team now. I might not have been very old in the Oilers or Penguins dynasty's but I've seen the highlights, those goals are laughable. Goalies were lucky to be on their own two feet never mind make a cross crease save or a sprawling save.
Grant Fuhr, Patrick Roy, Mike Vernon, Andy Moog, Curtis Joseph, Felix Potvin....hardly guys who were "lucky to be on their own two feet". That's the problem though, you only see hilites. The same way you see the goals as laughable, is the same way I see today's goals. Nobody hindering the other players, players holding up from hitting other players because they don't know if they pussy is going to turn into the boards at the last second to draw a penalty.
Crosby & Malkin, Toews & Kane, or Datsyuk & Zetterberg would destroy anybody from any previous era. They are way too fast now a days, way too skilled, way too smart. Could you imagine Scott Stevens laying out any one of those 6? Just wouldn't happen, he'd get undressed. He'd step up to make the hit and they'd be 4 steps past him into the offensive zone. The game now in this year is light years above what it used to be. I will agree the hits are fewer & far between but because of the more rules we're also getting to see guys playing into their late 30's early 40's because we're smarter with concussions and injuries.
I'd put them up against Bure and Mogilny, Sakic and Forsberg, Gretzky and Kurri, Lemieux and Jagr, Yzerman and Federov, LaFontaine and Mogilny, Kariya and Selanne, or even Oates and Hull. Imagine how much better those players would be with the technology/health advances they have today. Yeah, great we have players dragging out their careers, yeah, some keep their skill level, but not many.
As for Scott Stevens.
Langkow, Willis, Francis, Kozlov, and especially Kariya, all had bad run in's with Stevens. Again, here's how we see things differently, you think they'd just "skate around him", I think they'd be skating with such and air of them not being able to be hit, that it'd set them up perfectly to get drilled. Guys like Stevens, Marchment, and Kasparaitis would put guys in the hospital now-a-days. I've watched Cindy get belted by guys that were worse and slower than Stevens
Also, Price / Lundqvist didn't make the difference at all. Price was average IMO. He didn't stand on his head Luongo esque of 2010, but he didn't lose any games for them either. He made a couple good stops vs the states, 1 vs Finland (off Salo I believe) but for the most part was barely tested. Could count Sweden's scoring chances on one hand. As Dan said, the defense just absolutely dominated, everything was kept to the outside, very minimal time spent in their own zone. Babcock could have played goalie and they would have won gold still.
I never said Price was anything special, just solid.
As for Lundqvist, I'm pretty sure he would want the first 2 goals back, as one was a deflection and the other was stoppable.
Interesting how Russia ends up with the most medals?
Well, let's be honest, there was no way the Putin would allow them to lose. They probably had the best doping agents around 8-0.
Russia almost had as many medals this year, as the last 2 Olympics combined.
If it was 65 in Sochi for these games, can't wait to see the weather in Korea in 4 years.
