I never thought it would happen, but it did. I got attached to the Dallas Stars.
The moment that Trevor "Seriously, I only score big goals. I don't score any other goals but big ones." Linden made it 2-1, I started feeling depressed. And when I saw American Hero Mike Modano with tears rolling down his pop-star shagging face, I got REALLY depressed.
All apologies for my lack of posting over this crucial Stars (near) comeback, but believe me, I was watching at the edge of my seat (which, by the way, is apparently far away from a computer).
For now, I'll leave you with a hodgepodge of thoughts. As far as future Stars posting, I'd like to do so, especially since Rudy Kelly is the Roberto Luongo to my Marty Turco when it comes to Kings posts.
(OK, maybe Luongo to Roman Cechmanek.)
Anyway, here's the hodgepodge as promised:
- I'm not the first person to mention this, as 1310 The Ticket covered this base. But in case you didn't get access to the My 27 telecast of the Stars game, a considerable moment of announcer-based jinxing occurred. The channel featured a graphical overlay detailing Turco's crazy shutout streak, ignorantly looking past the fact that the Canucks were outshooting the Stars 12-1 at that point in the 2nd period . If that wasn't enough, Razor Reaugh just about put "the whammy" on Turco by saying that nothing short of an accident would allow a goal to squeak past Turco. In that same minute, Henrik Sedin "accidentally" scored a nice one-timer PP goal on Turco. Whoops.
- By my completely unscientific count, Luongo easily had 2 "You've-gotta-be-kidding me" saves per game in this series. His save on Stu Barnes in the 3rd period was outright astounding.
- Here's my "No Shit" observation: Turco wasn't at fault. In fact, Razor Reaugh and company were wise to point out an interesting fact about Turco's collegiate career: he was 9-2 in elimination games at the University of Michigan. Time to blame Tippett.
- Boucher was a disappointment in this series.
- Norstrom came as advertised: he was a very solid and (counter to my regular season observations) noticable defensive player. He drew a key penalty by taking the puck deep into the Canucks zone and did a great job throughout the series.
- So much for the resurrection of Markus Naslund. Two seasons ago, he was my first-round pick in a fantasy hockey draft. Now he'd be lucky to be my third LW. Naslund might be the last person in hockey to think that Todd Bertuzzi has anything to offer the world.
- Someone needs to introduce the Canucks to the front of the net. Or they should at least find a couple of North American scoring threats.
- Luongo or not, the New York Rangers are probably the only team in the second round that I'd rather face than the Canucks.
- People with time on your hands, please research this for me. Turco shut out the Canucks three times in this series. Has any team lost a playoff match where the goalie got 2 shutouts, let alone 3? Crazy.
Now, if you don't mind me I'm just going to cry take care of my itchy eyes.