BlueMonk

I picked the Flames to win this series. Nothing I've seen so far has changed my mind. The Flames are tough and resilient. The Sharks are fragile. And Ron Wilson is a terrible playoff coach.

I had to fix the spelling in the title of the thread. Sorry, I just had to. It was killing me. Retentive about spelling, BlueMonk

The stats should be encouraging to Anaheim, if anything. Teams that win the first two road games in a series go on to win the series 49 out of 65 times for a winning percentage of 75.4%. That means that, historically speaking, teams in the Ducks' situation come back to win 1 out of 4 times. That's pretty good considering how incredibly bad the predicament seems.

Awesome. Yeah, I'd love that.

One big difference between Detroit bouncing back from down 2-0 to the Canucks in 2002 and this situation with the Ducks and Stars: Vancouver's goaltender was Dan Cloutier, Dallas's is Marty Turco. I don't think that part of the equation can be overstated. The Wings were fortunate in 2002 to face only one goaltender who wasn't below average for a playoff caliber team: Patrick Roy. The other rounds they faced Cloutier, Brent Johnson (lol) and Arturs Irbe. Roy was one of the greats, but that was the only one of the four you could call tough and pass the laugh test. All that being said, I still give the Ducks a roughly 50/50 chance to win the series. Now if the Stars win game 3, then yeah, it's over.

Yeah, this is what gets me about this rule. Goaltenders are rendered defenseless all the time by a pile of crashing humanity and they rarely call back those goals. But then they split hairs over whether the skate of a forward who's basically just standing still, not initiating any contact, was in or out. Anyway, Homer really has had a bullseye on his back this year. The league made an example of him and he's been judged by a double standard all season. I couldn't care f**k all if he gets a break at this point. In fact, after all the playoff series the Wings could have won the past 5 years if not for "lucky breaks," I'll take all the gifts they can get. That's how playoff hockey is won and lost every year anyway.

Dallas played a tremendous game. Game one was just the Ducks not showing up. But this was about Dallas taking their best punch and not flinching. The Ducks really seized control of the game in the second half of the second period, but the Stars regrouped and took it back. I picked Anaheim to win this series, but only because Zubov was out. So far, the Stars haven't missed him. Dallas is the toughest matchup for Anaheim, for whatever reason. I still can't really put my finger on it. But whatever happens now, it's potentially good for the Wings if they advance. If the Ducks are eliminated, then the one team I was really concerned about is out of the picture. If the Ducks come back and win the series, then at least this will have been a long, draining series for them.

The Ducks have assumed control. They're flying all over the ice just pummeling the Stars, finishing every check.

The Ducks are physically punishing the Stars the last 5 minutes or so.

Totally agree, Austin. I remember that incident with the Pistons. The Kings were doing that with all visiting teams but the Maloofs (owners of the Kings) weren't behind it and thought it was tasteless, so they had it removed and disciplined the guy running the jumbotron for it. The Maloofs apologized for it, too.

The ___ Sucks chants are typically done by the fan bases of loser teams. There are exceptions, but it usually reflects a general bitterness and lack of anything to cheer about their own team. They amuse themselves with it, kind of like Beavis and Butthead. "You said hard. Heh heh heh."

The VS crew working the Ducks-Stars game is brutal. They called Anaheim's goaltender Francois Giguere and just referred to Scott Niedermayer as the Ducks' captain.

Disrespect has been a good source of fuel for this team lately. This could be good.

I like Hordi as a fighter, but at this point in his career, he can't even crack my top 10.

Yes. The front page stories announcing this fact should be flooding that nation's sports pages any day now. Just like when they all wrote about how the Joe wasn't selling out last year and started holding polls to see who the next "hockeytown, USA" should be. Right?

I think it's a bad move on Trotz's part, as I said on the GDT. It only gives his team an excuse. Instead of calling them out for needing to be better, he lets them off the hook. Hopefully, it works to the Wings' advantage over the rest of the series. Homer's goal... seriously, there were players all over Hasek in the blue ice tonight. I'm sure some of them involved pushing and shoving with Red Wings defenders, but come on. It goes both ways.

Trotz can feel his team was jobbed, but he's not doing his team any favors by going on about it in the press conference. It's just giving them an excuse rather than demanding they play better hockey. Trotz is a good coach, but I don't think this is a wise strategy on his part.

This had to be a deflating loss for Nashville. They looked really frustrated late in the game. The Wings looked flat early but cranked it up in the 2nd period. Great game by the top line and Hasek had a very good overall game. 2-0 series lead is very good news.

SUCK IT, PREDATORS.

Stupid penalty.

Oh, yeah!

Bingo. I seriously can't believe how much people let this stuff bother them. They're trying to make the series sound more compelling by emphasizing the underdog.

Predators fans can officially quit complaining about the no-goal. That was a gimme for them.

Predators 11, Red Wings 2 Red Wings coach Mike Babcock's radical strategy of dressing only 8 skaters for the game drew major criticism. "We need to rest our key players. We can't go far in the playoffs if our best players aren't healthy." Reports that Babcock responded to comments from the press corps that the playoffs had already begun by looking disbelievingly at an NHL calender, turning white and storming out of the dressing room without further comment could not be confirmed. Discussing his team's success, Nashville coach Barry Trotz said the key to the series will ultimately come down to injuries. Pressed to explain in more detail, Trotz offered, "We need to injure their best players so they can't play. We think that will give us a big edge."

Yeah it is. Keep in mind, Pronger is now the captain of that team. I confess to being a bit shocked that Pronger was a key player on a Stanley Cup winning team. He always struck me as a loser. A really super talented loser, but a loser nonetheless. His play with the Blues garnered a lot of individual acclaim - and deservedly so - but his boneheaded play, particulary taking stupid, selfish penalties at critical moments, hurt the team. Worse yet, the rest of the team would follow his lead. I think he turned the corner a bit after the lockout when he got the Oilers to the Finals and seemed to smarten up a bit, but he didn't win a Cup until he played for a Ducks team led by proven winner Scott Niedermayer. Well, now Pronger's the captain, and who knows how the dressing room has changed. I still think Nierdermayer's will he/won't he retirement fiasco was a distraction for the Ducks, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are some hard feelings there. Look at Doug Weight. He's there strictly for economic/salary cap reasons. And he's not playing, which he's pretty clearly not happy about. I dunno, I just wonder how it's affecting team chemistry. Add Bertuzzi and his proclivity for playing stupid, and you've got some question marks. You can add questionable players to a strong team with strong leadership and it can work. But when you have loose canons leading the team, that's a little different. It's premature to start dumping dirt on the Ducks. I still think they'll win this series. But they looked friggin' awful last night. No heart at all. They can't win games like that.