Sorry, apdude, but the Sharks have not been around long enough for me to sympathize with them either. I still tend to think of the Sharks as a relatively new team and yet they're almost 20. ****, I feel old.
We may not be long suffering, but when the "Mighty Ducks" have already won one and we haven't it hurts.
Hey, the Ducks are the greatest franchise of the modern expansion era. Although let me clarify. I'm only comparing them to all other new teams that have joined the league since the 90's and onwards and not pre-established teams from before the 90's.
And I don't consider Mighty Ducks an insult. It's a term of affection of which I will always hold out hope that it gets brought back one day. Nice to see the Mighty Duck logo slowly creeping it's way back via the third jerseys.
As for me, I'm rooting for Vancouver or Boston to win. Although a SJ vs BOS final would definitely have he most intrigue. Frankly, though, it's Vancouver's cup to lose. I've been saying this since the start of the playoffs but they have got one of the best assembled teams I've seen in some time. It's very hard to find a weakness with them although Chicago did seem to find it for awhile there. That was odd. But, Vancouver just seems to deep to lose to any team over a span of seven games. But I think the real Stanley Cup final will be between VAN and SJ.
When Van lost its 3-0 lead and then went in to overtime on game 7 but won it, I felt that showed they would now have the mental toughness to beat any other team. A lot of teams in this league might have lost it going into overtime like that. Look what happened last year when Philly started scoring in Game 7 vs Boston after the Bruins acquired a 3-0 lead that game. I'm sure it was stunned disbelief that they suddenly began to realize they could lose. It would have been very easy for the players of Vancouver to be heading into overtime stunned that after how well they played the first three periods, they just couldn't finish the Blackhawks off. Despite all the pressure they faced, they went out and won it. That has got to be a huge boost to the confidence of every player on that team that no matter the pressure they face, they can beat it.
But now, SJ has gone through almost the same thing against their own hated rival. It's going to be a very interesting match-up. What worries me is that I think SJ might be a bit more motivated than the Canucks. The Canucks have said that they wanted to make it past the second round. They've wanted to for a while. Now that they have beaten the rival Blackhawks and finally gotten past the second round, will they be a bit less motivated? SJ has met that goal of getting past the second round already. Their goal is to make it past the third round. Now that they are here again for a third time, they are going to be very tough to remove.
A highly motivated team is the toughest thing to face. Everyone one it is playing at a higher capacity. When I watched Game 1 of the Preds/Ducks series, I knew the Ducks were going to have trouble. Nashville came into the playoffs with the singular goal of getting past round 1 and they played that way. Take their powerplay. It was one of the weakest of the play-off teams going in but during that opening round, it was incredibly successful. But that success dropped off in the second round because they didn't have the same focus anymore. They had met their goal of getting past round 1.
Even in football. Look what happened with the Jets and Patriots. The Jets were highly motivated to beat the Patriots. They did that and then they didn't seem to have the same motivation to beat the Steelers in the next round.
That's what worries me about the Canucks this round. They might not be as motivated as they were in the first two rounds.