There is an interesting grammatical question here about which term "Final" or "Finals" is the correct label for the last round of the playoffs. This question was raised today on the Rich Eisen Show on the Peacock Network.
The NBA calls their final championship series the NBA Finals. The NHL calls their championship round the Stanley Cup Final.
Reporter Rhiannon Walker of the Chicago Tribune asked this question back in 2015. Her article "NHL Stanley Cup Final. NBA Finals. Which is Correct?" tries to answer the question. She gathered a few explanations:
Frank Brown, the NHL's group vice president of content integration, and a former sports journalist for the NY Daily News and Associated Press said via email:The Stanley Cup Final is the ultimate series that will crown our champion, It is a singular event, comprised of a series of individual games. While up to seven games may be played, each game is an individual piece; together, the individual games comprise the Final just as multiple slices comprise a pie.It could also be said that it just sounds better to say "Stanley Cup Final" instead of "Stanley Cup Finals." The singular word cup works better with the singular final.
The individual games are part of the Final but each is not a Final of itself —- which is what each game would have to be for the plural ('finals') to be used in reference to a multiple number of those games.
If we focus on the multiplicity, we should go with plural; if we focus on the unity, we should go with singular... Both forms are grammatically correct. 'Final' is a noun that has both a singular and plural form, so of course it is quite OK to use it either way.
Interestingly, despite the NHL being one of the four major North American sports, most people still get the name of their championship series wrong. It is the Stanley Cup Final, not Finals. As most diehard fans will tell you, there is only one Stanley Cup Final, so it is singular.Yes, the final is like a pie. It is made up of many pieces, but there is only one pie, one cup. And the NY Rangers yet again will not get a sip, taste, or bite of it this year.
Awesome game 7 win by the Rangers. The younger, faster team with the better goalie won. Who was worried? Onward to the next round.
Here is a roundup of some game 7 celebratory recaps:
Larry Brooks / NY Post:Igor Shesterkin returned, too. He returned to the form that earned the 26-year-old finalist designations for both the Hart and Vezina trophies, putting those nightmares from Games 3 and 4 to bed for good. Shesterkin returned and so did the Rangers return to the template they rode to a 110-point season, that, by the way, has been fully validated.Peter Botte / NY Post:
The 29-year-old Zibanejad has been with the Rangers since a trade from Ottawa in 2016, and he signed a eight-year contract extension worth $68 million in 2021. The Swedish center said the atmosphere at the Garden was unlike any he’s heard, especially the emotional eruption after he assisted on Panarin’s OT winner.BlueCollarBlueShirts:
I’m still shaking as I write these words! On Sunday night at M$G, the New York Rangers overcame everything, and defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins by a final score of 4-3...
Sidney Crosby believes the NHL’s “terrible” helmet rule cost the Penguins in their 4-3 overtime loss to the Rangers in Game 7 on Sunday...
By saying that the rule was the difference, Crosby just enhances his reputation as a whiner. That’s not what you expect from a future Hall of Famer and a team captain...Blueshirt Banter:
Artemi Panarin, who had been so quiet this series that some speculated an injury, made the shot heard ‘round the Garden. And just like that, the memory of the game one is gone.
The sportsbooks are not giving the New York Rangers very favorable odds of winning the Stanley Cup as they go into the playoffs. One statistical analysis gives them a 0.7% chance of winning the cup. That seems to be pretty much the consensus. Well, the NY Rangers will just have to prove everyone wrong.
Multiple news sources are today reporting that the NHL and NHL Players Association have by and large cleared up their financial issues and are now planning for a January 13th start to the season. This will be a short season that only has a 52 or 56 game schedule.
Ref:
ESPN: Sources: NHL, union clear hurdle, eye Jan. 13 for start of 2020-21 season
The NHL says, come hell, high water, or corona virus the season will still start on January 1st.
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| MSG Hopes |
(#6) Carolina Hurricanes vs. (#11) New York Rangers
Saturday, noon, Aug. 1: Rangers vs. Hurricanes (home team)
Monday, noon, Aug. 3: Rangers vs. Hurricanes (home team)
Tuesday, 8pm, Aug. 4: Hurricanes vs. Rangers (home team)
Thursday, Aug. 6: Hurricanes vs. Rangers (if necessary)
Saturday, Aug. 8: Rangers vs. Hurricanes (if necessary)
24 Teams Will Resume Play
Top 12 in each Conference (includes Rangers, 11th place, 0.564%, and Islanders, 7th place, 0.588% )
Every week brings new rumors and rumblings about when and if the NHL will restart their season. Time is not on the side of the NHL. Time marches on and various new restart scenarios bubble up every day. Trying to figure out what is really going to happen is like practicing haruspicy, inspecting the entrails of a sacrificed animal in order to devine the future. New ideas are offered up every day for sacrifice.
Here are some recent restart offerings to the hockey gods that caught our eye:
NY Post/Brooks:
NHL restart plans intensify with player health concerns at forefront —
Reopening the league will be a massive task. Every “i” must be dotted, every “t” must be crossed. For if the NHL reopens, this will be one time when hockey will be a life and death proposition.Fansided:
According to former NHL forward and All-Star Game MVP John Scott, teams will start having training sessions starting on June 1.The Athletic:
...the NHL is currently in the process of vetting 12 NHL cities for the purpose of using four of them as centralized sites. (for a season resumption)NBC Sports:
The sense from the NHL and NHLPA is that there are plenty of possibilities still there to finish the regular season, complete a two-month Stanley Cup playoff and begin an 82-game regular season for 2020-21 sometime starting in November.
Large sporting and entertainment events probably will not make the cut (for opening up) for a long time; the economic benefit of the live audience doesn’t measure up to the risk of spreading the infection. Other activities fall into a gray area, such as church services or a high school soccer game with a few dozen people on the sidelines.
The NHL is saying May looks like the earliest possible restart date. The AHL also released an official statement saying their suspension of "play will not be lifted before May." Major League Baseball wants to start their season in May. So we wait and hope that something will happen in May.
One rumor floated via TSN analyst Darren Dreger is that the NHL is looking at a 24 team playoff format. This means the Rangers are in the playoffs! Sounds good to us.
The proposal allegedly on the table would be a format that has the top 12 teams in each conference qualify for the playoffs. The top four teams in each league would get a bye to the second round. East bye teams would be Boston, Tampa, Washington, and Philly. West would be St Louis, Colorado, Vegas, and Edmonton. Then you'd have a 5 vs 12, 6 vs 11, 7 vs 10, and 8 vs 9 in each conference. How real is this idea? According to Dreger it is a "strong" option.
So far this month the Rangers have gone 3-4. Since November 27th the Rangers have gone 5-5. Their last ten games have been a perfect .500 dance of win one, lose one, win one, lose one. This level of play has kept them out of the cellar, but dangling off the back of a wild card position. Exciting stuff. Not exactly.
The King, Henrik Lundqvist, with a 3.13 GAA is ranked 53rd out of 74 NHL goalies. Georgiev has a 2.69 GAA and is ranked 23rd. Exciting stuff? Not exactly. Lundqvist looks like he's falling off the old man cliff. Georgiev should get the bulk of the starts the rest of the way, with Lundqvist as back-up.
It's sad to see a great goaltender like Lundqvist slide into his decline. We would love if he caught fire the rest of the season. But bluecollarblueshirts.com neatly summarizes the "Lundqvist Problem":
Until the Rangers choose to face the music and accept the inevitable, which is Lundqvist is not the answer; he’s the problem, the Rangers will continue to roll around on their hamster wheel. This team is going nowhere with Lundqvist...So far apathy is still the dominant emotion for Rangers fans here at RP. Waiting and watching for signs of life. What else can you do?
Lundqvist’s contract is an albatross. His GAA and save percentage stats put him 45th place or higher out of every goalie in the league. He’s the most overpaid player in hockey today. Even worse, the Rangers have two goalies who are ready, but they can’t get away from the foot of Lundqvist:
As this season progresses, and as Georgiev continues to out-play Lundqvist, while Shestyorkin remains the best goalie in the AHL, this Lundqvist topic won’t go away.
Embarrassing doesn’t do it justice. Not even close.
This was historically inept, one of the worst games the Rangers have played in at least a decade. Officially, it was a 9-3 loss to the Lightning here on Thursday night, proving that these young Blueshirts are still plumbing the depth of how bad their bad can be...
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