Stars-Ducks: Anyone Seen Gordon Bombay?

"The Stars choke every year in the first round..."

"... the Special Teams advantage isn't going to be enough for the Stars to win four games."

In the case of game one, these arguments don't seem to add up.

What about this one, "Stars 4, Ducks SEEING Stars 0?"  Yeah that seems to make a little more sense.

Game one was supposed to pit the stellar defense of the Anaheim Ducks: Pronger, Beauchemin, Niedermayer, O'Donnell, and Schneider up against the stellar special teams, belonging to the Dallas Stars.

Well, that was half right.  The only problem is: Anaheim's defense forgot that they were in the Playoffs, and had gone to their respective tee times at the Master's.

Game one was nothing more than a "Duck roast."  The Stars came out in the first period, scored two goals, and followed that up by two more in the second period.

Where the argument comes in only half right was with the Stars' special teams.  All four goals we netted with the man-advantage, as they went 4-7 on the powerplay.

The Ducks played a very undisciplined style of hockey, which is normally not typical.  Yes, they are a big and physical team, but they usually play smarter.

The Stars found out how to push the right buttons, and was able to get Anaheim to take stupid penalties several times.

The one "stupid" penalty that could have been avoided, was the broken stick penalty taken by Kent Huskins at the end of the second period.  Why anyone would actually try and get away with that, is beyond me. 

This can't even have been contributed to Huskins being a young player.  This is a rule that is pretty static no matter what level of hockey you're in.  But it can be said that this complete mental lapse summed up Anaheim's entire game.

The Stars cannot be discredited though.  They played smart, fast, and boy did they play physical.  Even though, it is most likely true that the Stars were outhit by the Ducks, the Stars stepped their physical game up to a level I haven't seen in quite some time.

For the Stars, game two needs to be a continuation of game one.  They need to go out there, bang the Ducks around, absorb as much of the Ducks physical game as they can, have Ott, Boucher, and Morrow continue pushing Anaheim's buttons, and continue to dominate on the power play.

For Anaheim, this is what is to be expected.  Expect to see Gordon Bombay and his duck whistle, a Flying-V, and a "knuckle-puck" to help them get back into the game!

C'mon everyone let's chant together... "quack... quacK... quaCK... quACK... qUACK... QUACK... QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK!