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T-minus five games remaining...
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Sorry tankers, but with that San Jose win last night Vancouver drops 3% as they jump above Toronto and tie Winnipeg with 69 points (though they have three more wins). Edmonton remains idle until tomorrow when hopefully they stomp Calgary in OT (can't let the Flames get that much closer either).
For #teamtank, the stage is set for an interesting finish with those Oilers games effectively now Toilet Bowl championships with the potential #1 pick as the prize.
Assuming, of course, the Canucks don't suddenly run the tables on the California teams.
Do you care about a Ducks overview?
Do you care that they may be the first team in over 30 years to have the #1 PP and PK?
Do you care that they're the only organization who think it's a completely logical decision to sign Brian McGrattan because [insert dying car noise here]?
Do you care no one goes to their games?
Maybe you care that even if they just dropped an eight ball on an bad Calgary team they couldn't beat Toronto or Montreal a few days before that.
Maybe you'll find it interesting that going back to March 11th the Ducks have only played two playoff-bound teams (I'm ignoring Boston since they're no lock) and have lost both of them: 5-2 to the Blues and 2-1 to the Rangers.
Maybe you find it humorous that it would be easy to shower some praise on the Ducks mid-season turnaround, their coaching staff or their under the radar talent (Silfverberg, Rakell, Vatanen, Gibson) if they weren't so top heavy with players the Pope would slew foot before shitting on.
That's Anaheim. And now you know.
Projected Human Guinea Pig Formations
Daniel Sedin - Henrik Sedin - Jannik Hansen
Sven Baertschi (maybe) - Markus Granlund - Linden Vey
Chris Higgins- Bo Horvat - Emerson Etem
Jared McCann - Brendan Gaunce - Alexandre Burrows
Ben Hutton - Chris Tanev
Dan Hamhuis - Yannick Weber
Matt Bartkowski - Alex Biega
Jacob Markstrom
Brandon Pirri - Ryan Getzlaf - Chris Stewart
Jamie McGinn - Rickard Rakell - Corey Perry
Andrew Cogliano - Ryan "high stick this man" Kesler - Jakob Silfverberg
Ryan Garbutt - Nate Thompson - Shawn Horcoff
Hampus Lindholm - Josh Manson
Cam Fowler - Shea Theodore
Clayton Stoner - Sami Vatanen
John Gibson
Another Number That Should Make You Want To Club Baby Seals
The Ducks have lost only once in regulation in their last 15 games against the Canucks. That's tremendously bad.
Fearless Prediction
I'll be amazed if Vancouver can pull off a second win in 48 hours.
What I do know is Kesler will do something stupid, smirk about it and not get whistled, Horcoff won't even wait until the second period for his recreational fix and the Ducks - no matter what they've done since Christmas - will not make it past the Central Division teams again this spring.
So we need to wait a bit before the reward of watching them cry and mutter incoherently in front of a sea of eager microphones for soundbites that will live for eternity.
GCG.