I actually care this year...

[wupmasta2000]

Someone the other day asked me if I cared about the playoffs given that the Kings were out. Normally, I really don't care. Watching Dallas and New Jersey that one season was REALLY BAD (in fact, it was so boring that I think I was traumatized). However, this year (thus far) I had a reason to care about just about every series:

Montreal/Boston: Screw the Habs and Price. I don't think the Habs deserve yet another stud in goal. That's why I'm going for Boston.

Ottawa/Pitts: I've always been a Heatly fan, but I'm anxious to see what Malkin and Crosby can do deep in the playoffs.

Philly/Wash: My old roomate was a Philly fan, so I couldn't hate them any more. Ovechkin is reason enough to be excited.

New York/New Jersey: Always will be an Avery fan and it's fun to hear the announcers talk about how "great" and "valuable" Avery is, now that he's in New York and how he was nothing but a Pest and a Racist while in L.A.

Dallas/Anaheim: It's obvious and I don't want to jinx anything by commenting.

San Jose/Calgary: It would be "interesting" if the Sharks won the Cup...particularly for Kings fans.

Colorado/Minn: How cool is it to see the geezer Avalanche reunited? I always hated the Aves but I find myself supporting them now that they are all on Medicare

Detroit/Nashville: I like TooToo and I feel for the Preds, but I do want Detriot to win. It would be great to see another Detroit/Colorado series (especially with a bunch of the old cast back from Colorado and McCatry back in Detroit).

All around, very entertaining playoffs this season.

[Goallum]

Originally Posted by wupmasta2000

Colorado/Minn: How cool is it to see the geezer Avalanche reunited? I always hated the Aves but I find myself supporting them now that they are all on Medicare

Watching Floppa being a bitch in the playoffs is great entertainment. Not as much as watching Bertuzzi being stupid, but still...

BTW, with all the hate Hayward gets, he literally made me LOL yesterday during the post-game show, when Bill McDonald asked him why the Ducks are playing the way they are, especially with the offensive zone penalties, and Hayward just looked at him and said "Well, it's stupidity, Bill."

[wupmasta2000]

Originally Posted by Goallum

BTW, with all the hate Hayward gets, he literally made me LOL yesterday during the post-game show, when Bill McDonald asked him why the Ducks are playing the way they are, especially with the offensive zone penalties, and Hayward just looked at him and said "Well, it's stupidity, Bill."

It's interesting that you say that b/c the other day something happened to me the other day while watching the quack/dallas game, that I found to be utterly amazing:

I didn't hate Brian Hayward.

He said something that I either found funny or something that wasn't biased (in other words, it was something that he had a full blown opportunity to throw his homer spin into it but he didn't, he actually threw in some objective analysis). It was pretty weird.

As far as watching Forsberg goes, I've always been a fan of his, but it's kind of nerve racking watching him. I look at him like a huge piece of glass skating around and like it's only a matter of time before he's taken out. He scored a nice goal thus far in the series though and he's taken a few licks and hasn't gone down permanently...yet.

[VegasHockey]

You're no fun. The Dallas/NJ series was a great watch, especially game 6.

[HOCKEYAHOLIC]

funny thing..... I don't care as long as the team playing the duck wins.

[Brodeur]

Originally Posted by wupmasta2000

Watching Dallas and New Jersey that one season was REALLY BAD (in fact, it was so boring that I think I was traumatized)

My homerism aside, I thought that was an underrated series (better than COL/NJ, NJ/ANA). I think a lot of people conveniently forget that the Devils were really good offensively those years (2nd in FG in 99-00, 1st in 00-01). The 2000 Cup team was pretty damned stacked. But obviously, if you had no emotional attachment to either team, you'll have a hard time watching.

For my own amusement, here's an archive page: http://www.hockeynut.com/9900/playoffs2000/index.html

Game 1: Devils chase Belfour and beat the Stars 7-3. Arnott's opening goal was a thing of beauty and epitomized the chemistry he had with Elias and Sykora at the time. Sykora's goal that made it 3-1 was another awesome setup that was the opposite of boring. Brodeur made a wicked glove save on Brett Hull--equally could be described as Hull shooting it into Marty's glove.

Game 2: This was the one game that I did not get to see (damn you Physics lab). I got home just in time to see Hull tip the game winner.

Game 3: I remember this as being the "boring" game as both teams seemed to play tentatively. It was noted by the players that this game was in Dallas during the summer and at their old arena, so the ice was extremely bad.

Game 4: Another tenative game for the first half before Nieuwendyk got one past Brodeur. Then the Devils come out and score three goals in less than four minutes to open the third. John Madden's game winning shorthanded goal was even more awesome in that he missed the net on virtually the same situation not less than a minute before.

Game 5/6: Both games are a blur now for me. Although I'm sure I lost all of my fingernails. Triple then double overtime, with the Cup on the line? Not really my definition of boring, although back then you could get away with murder in OT and not have a penalty called.

And this series was right after the Devils came back from being down 3 games to one against Philly in the ECF. But definitely a different style of hockey than you'd see today.

I can handle people saying the current Devils are boring to watch now, but the team from 99-01 was simply beautiful. You had Scott Niedermayer, a young Scott Gomez, and a tail end of his prime Alex Mogilny on the 2nd PP unit!