Blake Isaacs

Blake’s Takes: Dallas Takes 1-0 Lead in Stanley Cup Final

Saturday marked the first day of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Dallas Stars. Tampa was without their captain Steven Stamkos, and it looks like they could use him. I’ll share my thoughts on Dallas’ big win in Game 1.

Outside of the bubble, the other 29 teams were busy making moves and on the personnel and marketing side. I’ll spit out some hot takes on everything that happened around the league, including a horrific logo change.

Happy Monday!

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Blake’s Takes: Cup Finals Almost Set

After everything the NHL has been through since March, we’re a maximum of six games away from the Stanley Cup Finals. Both series are going into Game 5 with one team up 3-1. I’ll highlight each series as well as a few other notable storylines around the NHL.

P.S. I need the Stanley Cup Finals to start ASAP to take my mind off another soul-crushing Detroit Lions loss.

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Blake’s Takes: Game Sevens Galore

2020 finally showed us mercy and gave us three game sevens in one round of playoff hockey. We deserved it. In all seriousness, last week was an awesome week for the NHL, as three out of four playoff series went to a game seven. I’ll share my thoughts on each of those series as well as a few notable stories that impacted the hockey world.

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Blake’s Takes: Justice for Jacob Blake

The sports world was rocked last week after the shooting of Jacob Blake at the hands of a police officer in Kenosha, WI. Blake was shot while heading to his car after breaking up a fight. His three children were in the back seat. After the shooting, the Milwaukee Bucks of the NBA decided to forfeit their playoff game against the Orlando Magic. The Bucks were the catalyst for the many protests in sports that followed. The Bucks, as well as the other teams that protested, felt that it was no longer acceptable to allow themselves, as athletes, to be a distraction to what’s going on. Enough is enough.

For this edition of Blake’s Takes, all five of my takes will focus on how the shooting of Blake impacted the NHL. Sports can no longer serve as a distraction while more pressing issues like social justice and racial inequality exist in the world, especially in North America.

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Blake’s Takes: Fleury Stabbed in the Back

We’ve made it to the second round of the playoffs. That has created drama on and off the ice. In the past week, coaches have been fired and agents have posted controversial tweets, among other things. Keep reading to learn about the entertaining week that was in the NHL.

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Blake’s Takes: Rask Opts Out, Rangers Win the Lottery

The headlines were plentiful around the NHL last week. So plentiful, in fact, that I had to change the title of my column three times because major things kept happening. We had a number one goalie opt-out of the playoffs mid-series, the draft lottery winner was revealed, and we saw a game go into five overtimes. Keep reading to catch up on all the news around the NHL.

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Blake’s Takes: The Playoffs Are Set

Sunday night marked the end of the Qualifying round and the beginning of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The most important takeaway of that sentence is that the NHL has succeeded in building a bubble to protect players and staff from COVID-19. Because of that, the odds that a Stanley Cup champion will be crowned in 2020 look higher than ever.

The Qualifying Round was exciting and upsets were plentiful. In this week’s column, I’ll revisit some of the most notable matchups of the Qualifying Round and a few other interesting tidbits from the last week.

Keep staying safe everyone.

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Blake’s Takes: Welcome Seattle

After a week off, I’m back to share some takes with you all. If you want to see some pictures of my (socially-distanced) road trip vacation, here you go.

Otherwise, the last two weeks could not have been a busier week in the NHL. Real, live, hockey games took place and the NHL is back! Also, Seattle finally announced the name of their new franchise, the Seattle Kraken.

Keep reading to find out my thoughts on what’s going on in the world of hockey.

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Blake’s Takes: Two Weeks ‘Til Hockey

Hockey is right around the corner! The NHL will officially be back on August 1st. With that being said, the league has a lot of work to do before that. Just this week they announced most of their award finalists and have continued to test players for COVID-19. There was also some interesting news surrounding the league including a stupid lawsuit and an international signing.

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Blake’s Takes: We Have a New CBA

The NHL continues to dominate sports in a world infested with COVID-19. The NHL and NHLPA agreed to extend the CBA last week. The new CBA confirmed quite a few details regarding the future of the NHL. That includes firm dates for the league’s Phase 3 and Phase 4 Return to Play Plan, an approved international calendar, and many other awesome things. I’ll break it all down with my takes for this week.

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