Takes and trash talk from both ALL sides of the NHL's most obscure PATHETIC* rivalry

* Thanks, Kevin Lowe!

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Ducks Gameday—Stage Six: Survival

Round One, Game Six: (4) Anaheim Ducks at (5) Dallas Stars
(DAL leads series 3-2, JavaGeek ‘odds’: DAL 77%)


The Grim Reaper of Elimination! Run, Duckie, Run!

I have a theory about overcoming 3-1 series deficits. Generally speaking, in order for a team to come back it needs to:
  • win a game it deserves to win,
  • win a game it deserves to tie, and
  • win a game it deserves to lose.
Friday night the Ducks won a game they deserved to win, so now it's time to get lucky.

There's good signs and bad signs for tonight. The good: in Anaheim's franchise history, it has never lost a Game Six (5-0, outscoring opponents 18-11). The bad: game results so far in this series mirror the tables-turned version of the 2003 DAL-ANA series (except this time, there's a lot less overtime), which would mean the series ends tonight.

So pour yourself a drink, load a bowl if you're 4/20 motivated, and hang on. Let's see if the Ducks can again escape the jaws of elimination.

Prediction: This pattern to this series has been simple: when the Ducks have led, they've won; when the Ducks have trailed, they've lost. Ducks 3, Stars 2. Goals by Weight and Pahlsson x2.

Go Ducks.

13 comments:

RudyKelly said...

What if, like, the Stanley Cup is trying to win them?

Whoa.

Julian said...

Pahlsson x2?

Wow, we really are putting all the chips on the table.

Go Ducks!

Kirsten said...

May your game 6 go better for you than ours did.

Earl Sleek said...

Yeah, sorry about that Wild game, Kirsten. Selfishly, I'll say that it's a bit of a relief that it wasn't the Ducks eliminating the Wild again. Three eliminations and it starts getting awkward.

What if, like, the Stanley Cup is trying to win them?

The goalie trapezoid is like a metaphor for life, man.

Kirsten said...

Haha, it's true. Three eliminations would get really awkward, and you guys would probably have to fear some serious karmic retaliation for that.

This series loss won't really hit me until I head home to Minnesota in a couple of weeks I don't think.

Kirsten said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
brokeyard said...

Hey, the Bruins tied it up, right? And that is the 8th team being down 3 - 1 against the #1 team and coming back.

So we can definitely force a game 7. We know we can beat Dallas in Dallas because we've done so already. Now we just have to follow through, and keep killing penalties.

Anonymous said...

Pronger ends the season in the penalty box, what a perfect place for him to finish!!

brokeyard said...

Talk about biased referees... sheesh.

Gravypan said...

I guess if you want to blame to complain about the officiating, go ahead.

But it's certainly not the reason why Anaheim lost tonight. Dallas just came out in the third with a different gear and the Ducks had absolutely no answer.

Anonymous said...

Suck it, Anaheim

- Dallas

In all seriousness, I was deathly afraid of you the whole night. Good game.

Earl Sleek said...

Talk about biased referees... sheesh.

Gravypan is right; I didn't have any real issue with the refs last night. At least they called the game pretty predictably.

I mean, I can't really think of any calls that they should have made, other than maybe Richards throwing the puck over the glass, but that was pretty tough to call.

The Carter call may have been chintzy, but pretty much the Ducks didn't earn any 3rd period calls of their own. I don't really think it was the case where the refs were swallowing their whistles.

Nope, the Stars earned this game and this series. I'll do a recap of sorts tomorrow, then do my typical "disappear for a week" post-playoff act.

brokeyard said...

I didn't say it decided the game, but it didn't help.

And our guys seem to let opposing momentum completely consume them for some reason.