C-TownWing

I'm sure it does too. If I'm translating NumbaSixty-Six correctly, he agrees. It sucks, but both teams have to do it--we just had a 3OT game, Detroit-to-Anaheim-travel, another game sequence happen, basically 9 periods in three days plus cross-country travel.

I'm sorry for staying up well after the game Tuesday to ***** about Intent to Blow. I've been paying that one back all week at work! Still lots of series left, and all we did last night was tie it. Still, it showed me that we're the better team when we play our game, and that's encouraging.

I couldn't think of anything but Carcillo-Talbot when it was happening, and was POed at Kopy for handing them momentum, and right after they scored too. Turned out to be sound strategy that didn't burn us, so I won't complain!

Yeah, I'm going to vote for option C here. Chicago has geography, divisional alignment and history. It's been dead for a while, but definitely coming back in a hurry. The WC was a nice spark, and a WCF showdown would obviously fan the flames in a big way. The Wings-Avs games were killer. It's possible that the NHL has never seen a higher level of hockey. But rivalries last more than 7 years. As for the Ducks...given the way they play, I find it hard to believe that they don't have this kind of relationship with 28 other teams as well. As current players/coaches move on, whatever it is will eventually die off too.

Flyers fans think Bettman's out to get them because they hit and fight with North Americans, as has been their style for 35 years. Wings fans think Bettman's out to get them because they do the exact opposite with Euros, as has been our style for 15 years. I'm not saying "don't criticize Bettman," I'm just saying that if you do, at least get your stories straight.

Screw the entire series...we'll worry about that after we win game 4! It sounds kind of stupid with the series (hypothetically) at 2-2, but I really think we pull it off if we win tomorrow. Thanks for the optimism. Usually not my thing, but I have to admit that when others have it, it rubs off on me.

It's the blue ice that's REALLY tough. And you shouldn't even bother trying if the goalie has black anywhere on his uniform or pads

So when the whistle doesn't blow until after the puck's in...thing is, the players don't stop on "intent to blow the whistle," they stop on the whistle. I agree that it's impossible to review things after a whistle. However, I also agree that this "intent" garbage is not something you can measure and therefore has no place. Suppose the clock expires with the puck on someone's stick. Does it matter that he meant to shoot before triple 0s? Of course not, that's ridiculous. Did the whistle blow or not? In this case, it did not, and that should be all that matters.

I like when they lose.

Wow, just...wow. I guess the good news is that it didn't end up hurting the Canes that year.

Good point...I think the trend of us coming on at the end of games is a positive, because I can't help but think we'll be stronger at the end of the series too. Wisniewski's probably out, we hopefully get Rafalski/Draper back. The longer this series goes, the more I like our chances. All starts with game 4 though. We haven't had a must win like this since...well, the last time we played these a-holes in the playoffs.

Teams trailing 2-1 in a series coming into this year are 110-266 (.293). Worse than I thought it'd be.

Lebda's been worse in this game, by far. Just saying.

Faceoffs are ok...Ducks won something like 9 of the first 10, which means we've been killing it lately. MUCH better period...keep it going in the 3rd and we'll be ok. But please get two, I can't do OT again. One thing I haven't seen mentioned--Anaheim's top line isn't owning us down low like in games 1 and 2. Much better job on those guys.

As much as the hit numbers make some people drool, I think it's part of the problem. We're too intent on matching their physicality and not enough on playing our game. 40 to go...it has to start now.

Well, luckily, my 10:45 prediction looks off right now. I'm revising to about 10:37.

Yeah, definitely don't do that. Learned that one the hard way for one of the Nashville games last year. Game 4 I think. And it wasn't even late and I wasn't that tired. When I'm driving tired, I turn the air on full blast (warm=sleep), turn up the radio and find something I can sing along to at the top of my lungs. Not sure how to adapt that last part to watching a hockey game though. Maybe do my own play-by-play?

I'm mad at myself because I didn't get my planned nap in. Oh well, work can suffer, they don't deserve me at 100% anyway. But I hate sitting around for a few hours freaking out about it. On a related note, I'm guessing Hawks-Nucks doesn't end until about 10:45. We'll see though.

As crazy as it is, I completely agree with you. Hoping we don't see him tonight. Seriously, who the F is that guy and how the hell did he get this degree of celebrity, where the cameras automatically seek him out after goals? Like you said, he could be a perfectly cool guy otherwise, but F him. Close second goes to Niedermayer's beard. Mostly Scott's, but either one really.

Derek Meech

Thing is, the Ducks aren't the ones who NEED to respond like champions at the moment, they have the momentum of a huge 3OT win and stealing home ice from us going for them. Of course, if being a Cup champ was the end-all in these situations, we probably wouldn't have had five seasons in a row where the defending champs didn't see the second round. Agree with the larger point though--we have to be better if we're going to win this series. IMO we're semi-lucky to not be down 0-2 right now.

I know that was at least in part directed at me, but pretty damn funny nonetheless. Nice work

Sort of what I was trying to say earlier, but I didn't articulate it this well. If you're a competitor and you get a goal scored on you, your first instinct is to want to get the F back out there and get it back. The hats were keeping Crosby from doing that and he was POed about it. So he whined to the ref (I've acknowledged that he's a whiner). BFD. In case you haven't noticed, complaining about crap to the ref is a pretty common thing, it's not the exclusive domain of Sidney Crosby. And he probably had no intention of sharing that with the general public, except he was later asked specifically what he said. I'm not sticking up for the guy. Like I've said, I don't even particularly like him. IMO and like I said, great player who was given too much before he was ready for it. But the level of hate for him on here is ridiculous. It easily exceeds that of Claude Lemieux, Chris Pronger, Jordin Tootoo...you know, people who have actually pulled crap against our team. In fact, I'm going to speculate that a lot of the reason people like Ovechkin isn't because they actually like what he's about, but more because he's Crosby's arch-nemesis or whatever. Oh well, my opinion's out there, I'm off this one. See you guys after Crosby's next postgame interview, when he'll surely say something that pisses you guys off. Or, if he gives textbook answers to everything, we can bash him for being too PC and not expressing himself. Up to you.

Truth. I was all kind of "blah, blah, blah we're screwed" after game 2, but starting last night, I started feeling a lot better about things. Think about game 5 of the SCF. The freaking Cup was out of the box, ready for the party in front of home fans. Losing then was WAY more demoralizing than this one, and we still responded like champions do. I expect no less than that tonight. Agree about the first 10 minutes--universal fact of road playoff games. Survive that initial burst, then win the game. Big things from Pavs and Hoss tonight, I have faith.

Most important game of the season...lose this and we're in an absolute must-win. Hossa, Datsyuk and anyone else who's been dogged the last two days shows up huge tonight. And let's get it done in regulation, please.