All Rounds Done

Some thoughts about the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs, now that they have come to an end:

Finalist Feelings

For me and my fellow Lightning fans, there is a feeling of emptiness over opportunity lost. We have great memories of the first three rounds and even some fond memories from the finals, but right now they are overshadowed by our team's losses in Games Five and Six. It took 11 years for the Bolts to get back to the finals after winning the Cup in 2004, and although we know the future looks extremely bright, we are also aware that that does not automatically mean it will be bright... But perhaps we are being too self-indulgent, for the way we feel right now is nothing compared to the way our players feel... Fortunately, at least for myself, the positive memories of this post-season are already starting to percolate back to the surface.

Conversely, Chicago fans are elated and should be. My team was good enough to beat theirs, but theirs was the better team by a small margin, so the end result was appropriate... By winning three of the last six Cups and coming oh so close to reaching last year's finals, this group of Blackhawks will go down in history and stands as the truest dynasty of the entire post-Oilers (not merely post-cap) era... Plus, the main players who comprise its core are still in their prime. Although the team has cap issues to address during the off-season, its GM has proven capable in that area before, and therefore a fourth Cup remains attainable.

Quality

The finals did not go seven and the decisive tilt did not go to overtime, so I won't succumb to hyperbole by calling them the greatest finals of all time. I will, however, attest that they were one of the best of the last quarter-century, and that they should be talked about for years to come.

Both teams moved the puck with precision and found open ice to skate, despite solid hits being dished out... Going into the decisive Game Six, the shots were dead even and the teams were only one apart in scoring chances... Also going into that game, for the first time ever, the first five had all been decided by one goal... Defensemen Duncan Keith and Victor Hedman were virtuosos in all three zones... Both starting goalies had moments of brilliance and moments of vulnerability throughout the first five games, and both played outstanding in the decider -- although a 20-year-old backup, Tampa Bay's Andrei Vasilevskiy, started Game Four and played so well he could have passed for a #1 with championship experience... Ben Bishop played with a torn groin; Tyler Johnson with a broken wrist; Johnny Oduya with a torn elbow; Kris Versteeg with unspecified problems related to his previously repaired right knee; and others (most notably Nikita Kucherov and Marcus Kruger) with a variety of undisclosed bang-ups... Also, the series was evenly officiated and not overly officiated.

The Difference

At the proverbial end of the day, it came down to a couple of things. Actually, it came down to five:

1) The 'Hawks were much better on faceoffs, outdueling the Bolts 217-143.

2) Tampa Bay's lower-rung defensemen committed fatal errors, especially this one by Andrej Sustr on what proved to be the Cup-winning goal, whereas Chicago's lower-rungers weren't given a chance to commit such errors because Joel Quenneville rarely put them on the ice.

3) When the finish line was in sight, Patrick Kane rose to the occasion and Steven Stamkos did not -- as evidenced by the former notching a goal and assist in Game Six while the latter came up empty on two golden opportunities. Stamkos finished the series with 21 scoring chances, of which he converted a grand total of zero.

4) When the finish line was in sight, Corey Crawford played like the two-time champion he is; while Ben Bishop, despite playing very well overall, in Game Five committed one of the worst blunders I've ever witnessed. I am one of the legion who entered the post-season thinking of Crawford as an average talent who was blessed to be backstopping a star-studded roster; but after the way he shut the door in Games Four through Six, I have to acknowledge that he's one of the top netminders in the league.

5) Ultimately, Chicago's abundance of championship experience proved to make a difference.

Tearjerker #1

I despise it when TV coverage of the Olympics gets so larded with human interest schmaltz that the actual sports get neglected. Nonetheless, human interest stories do have an important place in the sports world and there were several in play during the Stanley Cup Finals. Chief among them was the case of Kimmo Timonen.

Timonen was born 40 years ago in Kuopio, Finland, and was drafted by the Los Angeles Kings at the age of 18. For five years he continued to play in Finland rather than venture over to this side of the Atlantic, but after the Kings traded his rights to the first-year Nashville Predators in 1998, he decided to make the jump.

He then embarked on an admirable career as one of the NHL's best blueliners, and when the 2006-07 season rolled around and he was 31 years old, Timonen became the Predators' captain and registered career highs in both points and assists. However, the team never advanced beyond the first round of the playoffs while he was there.

Following that 2006-07 campaign, he was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers, with whom he eventually signed a contract making him the highest-paid Finn in the league. Timonen experienced more playoff success in Philly than in Nashville, yet the ultimate prize eluded him. The Flyers reached the 2010 Cup finals only to be eliminated in six games by, interestingly enough, the Blackhawks. Meanwhile, between 1998 and 2006, Timonen played for Team Finland in five different international tournaments in which they finished second, never managing to come in first (one Olympics silver, one World Cup runners-up, and three World Championships silvers).

Last August, while preparing for this season that just ended, he was diagnosed with blood clots in both lungs and in his right leg. The potentially fatal condition caused him to miss the first 62 games of the 82-game regular season. On February 27th -- one day before he was scheduled to return to the ice and 19 days before his 40th birthday -- he was traded to the defensively shallow Blackhawks for a pair of draft picks. That departure from Philly came right on the heels of him having won three consecutive (and five total) Barry Ashbee Trophies, which are awarded annually to the Flyers' top defenseman. With 270 points in 519 games with that franchise, he ranks as the third-most productive defenseman in its history.

Aware of Father Time and the dangers of his diagnosis, Timonen decided it was time to retire; but because he is competitive and understands the harsh realities of sports legacies, he elected to keep playing until the season was over. Speaking to Frank Seravallie of the Philadelphia Daily News on the day he was traded, he remarked that "the only thing I am missing is the Stanley Cup. It became my only goal to return to hockey. If I had won a Stanley Cup before, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation."

Monday night, after 17 years in the league, Kimmo Timonen lifted the silver chalice over his head as an NHL champion. His name will soon be etched onto one of the Cup's pedestal rings and remain there for eternity. At some future date that will probably not come until after he has been laid to rest in the shadow of the Arctic Circle, that ring will be removed from the Cup's pedestal and retired in the Hockey Hall of Fame. If that doesn't make you smile, nothing will.

Tearjerker #2

The case of Brenden Morrow presents a decidedly different kind of tearjerker.

The Dallas Stars capped the 1998-99 season -- the one before Morrow joined them as a rookie -- by winning the Stanley Cup. In his rookie season of 1999-2000, the Stars returned to the finals but fell to New Jersey. On Monday, asked about that long-ago near-miss, Morrow said: "I don't remember 15 years ago. I was just young and dumb and thought it was going to happen every time."

I probably don't need to tell you that he never made it back to the finals during the intervening decade and a half. He became a reliable and productive forward who attained career peaks during the seasons of 2007-08 (32 goals, 42 assists) and 2010-11 (33 goals).

Morrow's career in Dallas was long. He remained there until March 2013, when he was traded to Pittsburgh. After his contract expired at the end of that season, he moved on to sign a one-year deal with St. Louis for 2013-14, after which he signed a one-year contract with Tampa Bay for 2014-15. Ostensibly, neither Pittsburgh nor St. Louis was interested in bringing him back.

As we all know, this 2014-15 season saw Tampa Bay reach the Stanley Cup Finals and bring Morrow full circle from his rookie year. But sadly, because the Bolts fell just short in the finals, his 2014-15 ended just like his 1999-2000. 

Abetted by injuries during the 2011-12 campaign, Father Time has taken an inevitable toll on the game of this 36-year-old from Saskatchewan, for he is a far cry from the player he once was. Just four years removed from that career-best 33-goal season in Dallas, this year he scored a mere three goals while toiling away on Tampa Bay's fourth line. The fight and effort are still there, but the legs simply don't move as fast and his stickwork has eroded. Morrow's contributions to the Bolts were as someone who mostly levels hits and scraps for pucks in limited playing time.

During these playoffs he made a number of good hits for the Lightning, but also committed glaring errors. There were turnovers and there was a very bad penalty, though I don't recall exactly what it was or in which game it occurred. That's an ominous sign when you are playing few minutes, are long in the tooth, and your contract expires at season's end.

That "I was young and dumb" remark was uttered by Morrow in the Lightning locker room while the Blackhawks celebrated with the Cup elsewhere in the building. He then added another sentence: "Now, I'm not sure if this is it, or if I'll get another opportunity." It was not one hundred percent clear if he was talking about another opportunity to play for the Cup, or another opportunity to play professional hockey at all. Most likely, he was thinking of both.

And with that...

...I will sign off for now and move on to pen my salute to the 2014-15 Lightning, which I will probably publish sometime next week.

But first, thanks to the Korea Times, I am able to refer you over to the greatest headline since "Dewey Defeats Truman."

Until next time, farewell...

Two Rounds In

Some thoughts about the Stanley Cup Playoffs, now that the first two rounds are in the books:

MVP Talk

We've seen enough to start speculating about which players are making a case to win the Conn Smythe Trophy, and since it goes without saying that the Cup-winner's goaltender often has the inside lane, here are my thoughts about which non-goalie from each team is most deserving so far.

Anaheim:  Corey Perry. He leads all players in playoff points with 15 (seven goals, eight assists) despite his team having taken the fewest games to get this far. After appearing to play injured for much of Game Five against Calgary, he scored the OT goal that clinched the series and propelled the Ducks to the conference finals for the first time since they won the Cup eight years ago.

Chicago:  Patrick Kane. It might seem too easy to pick a team's highest profile and most glamorous offensive star, especially when the roster includes quite possibly the NHL's best defenseman of the last five years, but Patrick Kane is absolutely the correct pick. He has notched 13 points and sparkplugged the 'Hawks to an average of 3.2 goals per game, despite the fact that Game One of the opening round was the first game he had played since breaking his collarbone two months before.

New York:  Dan Girardi. If you've watched a Rangers game this post-season, you have probably noticed how often Girardi's name gets mentioned, for it seems like this scrappy defenseman does something effective every second he's on the ice. He has racked up 48 blocked shots and 29 hits while going +5 -- a crucial number when you consider that all 12 games have been decided by a single goal and that his team is averaging only 2.0 goals per game. Plus, he has chipped in offensively with four assists and been to the penalty box only once. 

Tampa Bay:  Tyler Johnson. He lit the league on fire with six goals in the first round against Detroit, including the one which sparked a late comeback in Game Four, plus the OT winner in that same game... Oh, and he also assisted on the tying goal which forced that game to OT... In the second round, he set the stage for the Lightning's Game One win by redirecting Matt Carle's shot past Carey Price for the opening goal; then, in Game Three, set an NHL record by scoring the winning goal with just 1.1 seconds remaining.

The Goalies

Of the four netminders still standing, only Corey Crawford has won a Cup yet it feels like he's the least reliable of the bunch. The Eastern Conference seems to have a distinct advantage at this position, with Henrik Lundqvist being Henrik Lundqvist and Ben Bishop having skyrocketed his save percentage to .931 after it being only .904 at the start of Game Seven versus Detroit -- which is to say, I am sticking with my pre-playoff prediction that this year's champion will come from the East.

Something about Lundqvist: While it would be easy to say "the king is the king" or "he is the calmest goaltender I've ever seen" and leave it at that, I cannot resist the temptation to point out some of his sickeningly good numbers. In elimination games at Madison Square Garden, he is 10-0 with a .969 save percentage and 0.87 goals-against average... and he has now won six consecutive Game Sevens -- a feat that no other goalie in history has managed to accomplish... and, eerily, Wednesday night marked the third consecutive May 13th on which he made 35 saves, with each of those 35-save performances coming in a Game Seven victory.

Something about Bishop: He might not look like Ron Hextall out there, but his stick-handling is every bit as good as the old Flyer who made stick-handling by goalies acceptable. Bishop often triggers offensive rushes by completing tape-to-tape passes to his forwards as they turn to head up the ice; and by handling the puck so well, he keeps opposing teams from forechecking and thereby makes it harder for them to establish themselves in the Lightning zone. 

The Defensemen

Defensively, Chicago's Duncan Keith is, like I said above, "quite possibly the NHL's best defenseman of the last five years." Offensively, he has put up ten points during these playoffs, which is more than all but seven forwards have put up. When it comes to plus/minus he leads every player in the playoffs with a mark of +10, the next closest being Perry and Kane at +8.

Although Tampa Bay's Victor Hedman does not get as much press as Keith, PK Subban, Erik Karlsson, et al, he has been almost perfect this post-season. The second overall pick in 2009, this 24-year-old Swede has owned the blueline, made no mistakes that I can remember, and also contributed mightily on offense. Hedman assisted on Johnson's overtime winner in Game Four against Detroit and on Johnson's buzzer-beating winner in Game Three against Montreal; in both cases, he carried the puck down the ice and passed it directly to Johnson's stick blade, in stride.

Coaching Contrast

I do not have a problem with Type A coaching personalities. When it comes to sports, I am Type A myself. However, reflecting on the Tampa Bay-Montreal series, I can say with absolute certainty that I would rather my team be coached by someone like Jon Cooper than someone like Michel Therrien.

I'm sure that Cooper's pulse rises during games just like mine and every other fan's does, yet he keeps his keel even and does not lose composure. He keeps his focus. And by osmosis, his players do the same.

Therrien, on the other hand, fulminates and throws tantrums and makes excuses. He loses his focus and forgets what he needs to do. And by osmosis, his players do the same.

Storylines

Marketing people should be drooling over the many prisms through which they can present the Eastern Conference Final.

For starters, each team has several players that spent part of their careers with the other. The Rangers have Martin St. Louis and Dan Boyle, both of whom won the Stanley Cup when they played for the Lightning in 2004 and are now in the twilight of their careers. The Rangers also feature Dominic Moore, a centerman who played a starring role for the Lightning when they made it to the ECF in 2011 and pushed the eventual Cup champions to a seventh game before being eliminated by a single goal... Meanwhile, Tampa Bay has former Rangers Ryan Callahan, Anton Stralman, and Brian Boyle... There is the interesting matter of St. Louis being Tampa Bay's captain and Callahan being New York's captain when they were traded for each other hours before the trade deadline in 2014... And there is the "don't keep me off the ice" matter of Callahan returning to this series after an emergency appendectomy forced him to miss the decisive Game Six against Montreal... Plus, most movingly, there is the tragic human interest story of Moore having sat out a season to care for his wife Katie, who passed away from liver cancer in January 2013.

But all that is mostly soap opera. On the ice itself, this series features two teams that are based on speed and skill rather than clutching and grabbing; and both made it this far because their speed and skill are spiked with grit, complemented with physicality, and blessed with composure. This has the makings of a good series.


A Bad Rap
Let me first say that I am not an Alexander Ovechkin fan. He dishes out way more than his share of cheap shots and never rarely gets sent to the penalty box for them. When the Lightning played the Caps in the 2011 conference semi-finals, my dislike of him was so strong that I yelled countless F bombs and started calling him a "Soviet."

Nevertheless, I am starting to feel some sympathy for Ovechkin because of the way the media misrepresents his game and his reliability. Although he's been saddled for years with a reputation as a player who fails to deliver in the post-season, the numbers simply do not bear that out. Like I noted in my April 30th post, he began this season having accounted for 66 points in 65 career playoff games.

During this year's playoffs, he chalked up another nine points by virtue of five goals and four assists. Included in that tally was a goal that might stand up as the best of the entire post-season, and a clutch last-second steal and assist to Joel Ward that won Game One against the Rangers. Almost everybody, including his biggest critics, opined that Ovechkin was having the strongest and most impactful playoff campaign of his ten-year career.

Then, when answering questions from reporters following the Caps' Game Six loss on Sunday, he said of Game Seven that "we're going to come back and win the series" -- and after the Caps did not win Game Seven, sports reporters from coast to coast began waxing about how Ovechkin failed to deliver on what they called "his guarantee," and how that failure further cements his legacy as a playoff underachiever.

Almost immediately, those reporters chose to ignore that he played extremely well in Game Seven and was the only Washington player to put the puck in the net against the seemingly invincible Henrik Lundqvist (re-read the above "The Goalies" section if you've already forgotten how rare it is for anyone to score on Lundqvist in elimination games). Almost immediately, reporters and opinion-shapers chose to ignore that outside of Ward and Nicklas Backstrom, Ovechkin does not have much offensive help on his team's roster.

Looking back at his career numbers, with this season included, Ovechkin averages .475 goals per playoff game. That puts him ahead of Phil Esposito and Mark Messier, who averaged .469 and .461 and played in eras when goals were more easy to come by. It puts him way ahead of such luminaries as Pat LaFontaine (.377), Luc Robitaille (.365), Jaromir Jagr (.360), and Steve Yzerman (.357). And among his superstar contemporaries, it puts him in front of Conn Smythe winners Patrick Kane and Henrik Zetterberg (.427 and .424).

So what's the rub? Yeah, Ovechkin's defensive game leaves a lot to be desired, but that is true for many, if not most, prolific scorers. And unlike most prolific scorers, Ovechkin does not shy away from the bone-crunching part of the game. He is a relentless forechecker who deals out more bumps and bruises than he receives, and I don't believe I've ever heard that said about Gretzky, Lemieux, Fedorov, or Lafleur.

The fact of the matter is that Alexander Ovechkin is an outstanding player who has spent his entire career on teams that are far from outstanding, without the kind of supporting cast that is necessary to win a championship. You can accurately call him a number of things that are not flattering -- for example, you can call him a dirty player whose stick handle "accidentally" hits an awful lot of opponents in the face, or a non-champion who has neither a Cup ring nor an Olympic gold to his name -- but if you call him a choker, you have no idea what you're talking about.

It's That Time Again

The 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs begin tonight. Obviously, all 16 teams who qualified have a theoretical chance to win it all; but this year the race to the finish line is more open than usual, and all 16 teams have a truly legitimate chance.

Here are some thoughts on what is to come over the next two months, starting with my take on the top three seeds from each conference. It is well-known that I'm a Lightning fan, but for right now I am putting that partisanship on the shelf so I can make these thoughts objective. Here goes:

EASTERN CONFERENCE

New York Rangers

Fans in Manhattan have to be feeling excited, because the last time the Blueshirts won the President's Cup they also won the Stanley Cup. They finished with a franchise record 112 points that year, and this year they eclipsed that mark with a new record of 113. Then, as now, their roster featured a number of players in their thirties who had won championships earlier in their careers and were hungry to win another before Father Time caught up with them.

The Rangers have only grown stronger since reaching the finals last year. Henrik Lundqvist is arguably the best goaltender in the world, and incredibly, after he went out with an injury on February 3rd, the Rangers went 17-4-3 with back-up Cam Talbot playing in his stead. This team is for real and has what is needed to break the West's three-year run of Cup titles.

Montreal Canadiens

The Habs probably have the biggest chip on their shoulder of any team this post-season, for they genuinely (and not without reason) believe they would have represented the East in last year's SCF had Carey Price not gotten injured in Game One of the conference finals. Many players in their locker room still believe the hit that injured Price was "accidental on purpose," as Brandon Prust put it at the time.

Montreal's forwards buzz the net relentlessly. Their defensive corps is stout and P.K. Subban is arguably the best defenseman in the league. Price finished with a .933 save percentage and nine shutouts and is expected to win the Vezina. It has been 22 years since hockey's winningest franchise hoisted the Cup, and this year's squad has the goods to put it back on top...

Tampa Bay Lightning

...unless, perhaps, they encounter the Tampa Bay Lightning in the playoffs. Tampa Bay swept Montreal this season and in the process outscored them 21-8. They averaged 3.47 goals per game against Price while the rest of the NHL averaged only 1.96.

The Bolts have that crucial post-season experience that was missing a season ago, and are playing with an edge and sureness that just didn't exist at this time in 2014... Their forward lines are the deepest in the league, deeper even than Chicago's, with legitimate scoring threats throughout the whole roster... Between the pipes, Ben Bishop just put up a second straight stellar season and broke his own franchise record by notching 40 victories between opening and closing day.

However, Tampa Bay has an Achilles heel and it is known as team defense. Beyond the first line, the defensive talent drops off dramatically and opposing players often get left open in the slot. Tampa Bay could make a run all the way to the Promised Land, but all the same, this Achilles heel could cause them to bow out early.


WESTERN CONFERENCE

Anaheim Ducks
The Ducks have a Cup to their name and often do well in the playoffs, which makes it odd that nobody outside of Southern California noticed them as they went about winning the West's top seed for this post-season. Maybe it's because they did so one year after the face of their franchise, Teemu Selanne, skated off into retirement along with fellow Finn Saku Koivu.

I follow hockey closely but saw very little of the Ducks this season, so I cannot offer much authentic insight about them. I do, however, know that Ryan Getzlaf can generate points at any time; and I know the addition of Ryan Kesler gives the Ducks a gadflyish presence that was lacking in 2014; and I know that the presence of ten 30-point producers means they should be able to count on the kind of secondary scoring that is essential to playoff success. This squad just might bring Lord Stanley's Cup back to the LA Basin for the third time in four years.


St. Louis Blues
The Blues are the oldest franchise to have never won the Stanley Cup, and it has been 45 years since they reached the finals. After last season's go-for-broke Ryan Miller experiment crashed and burned with a first-round playoff exit, this season did not start with any sense that they would be good enough to make a title run, but like some sage once said: That's why they play the games.

The Blues played strong all year and enter the playoffs having been tough as steel down the stretch, with more than a few prognosticators now picking them to win it all. Their hallmarks are grit, balance, and a roster that seems to present match-up problems for every opponent they face. With 37 goals and 36 assists, Vladimir Tarasenko is on the cusp of stardom, and even though everybody knows who he is, he still might be the most underrated forward in the league.

But is the Blues' goaltending good enough? Brian Elliott and Jake Allen are both good, yet neither established himself as a clear #1 over the other and that is often a bad sign. Is either of them clutch enough to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat when the team is facing difficulty?


Nashville Predators
Last year, when the Preds failed for the second straight year to qualify for the post-season, heads rolled. This year they are back in the playoffs with home ice advantage against the powerhouse Blackhawks in the opening round.

With Peter Laviolette behind the bench; Pekka Rinne in net; Shea Weber patrolling the blue line; a pair of 60-point scorers in 20-year-old Filip Forsberg and 35-year-old Mike Ribeiro; and a whopping ten centremen who are all able to move seamlessly to the wing without missing a beat, this team is for real. It has a good chance to turn the Music City into the third place in the Southeastern U.S. that Lord Stanley calls home.


DARK HORSES

Chicago Blackhawks:  They've won two of the last five Cups, they missed the finals by just one game last season, and overall they have the deepest roster in the NHL. This team would be the brightest "dark" horse ever to ride the land even if Patrick Kane wasn't expected back for Game One tonight. But he is. Damn.

Vancouver Canucks:  After several years' worth of near-misses and high-profile player departures, wouldn't it seem about right for the Canucks to finally win a championship right when everybody thought their window had closed? And even if Ryan Miller starts off behind Eddie Lack, wouldn't it seem about right for him to finally earn a ring after all those years in Buffalo, plus last year's crash and burn when he temporarily played for St. Louis? After all, he did account for 29 wins this season versus Lack's 18.

Ottawa Senators:  Not every team in the playoffs has equal talent, but each one does have extremely good talent; and when talent levels are close to even, belief can make all the difference in the world. With that being said, watch out for the team from Canada's capital because it enters the post-season on a hot streak and brimming with confidence... and with The Hamburglar standing on his head... and more important than anything else, it enters with a sense of purpose after assistant coach Mark Reeds died of cancer yesterday morning.


PREDICTIONS

Whoever wins the first round series between Nashville and Chicago will go on to represent the Western Conference in the SCF.

If Nashville wins it all, Mike Fisher will have several clutch goals in the SCF and will end up being awarded the Conn Smythe.

However, Nashville won't win it all because this year's champion will come from the East.

If Tampa Bay makes a deep run, its Russian Connection (RW Nikita Kucherov, C Vladimir Namestnikov, and D Nikita Nesterov) will be a big factor and all three of those players will have starring moments. Also, fourth-line centreman Brian Boyle will quietly win a higher percentage of face-offs than anyone else playing for any other playoff team.

If the Rangers win it all, it will be in part because Martin St. Louis lights it up in clutch moments -- and Lightning fans such as myself will need to figure out how we should feel about that.


WISHES

Obviously, for the Lightning to win the Cup (and for them to finally get around to retiring Dave Andreychuk's number when they raise the banner to start next season).

If my above wish doesn't come true, and if I am wrong about this year's champion coming from the East, then I want this year's champion to be the Winnipeg Jets. Just because. After all, it would be right for a small-market Canadian city to witness the Cup being paraded through its streets while ticker tape rains down.

Since Ottawa fans howled with nationalist rage when Mike Fisher departed for Nashville -- mocking him as "Mike Underwood" because they perceived the move as being done for the benefit of his smokin' hot, country-singin' American wife Carrie Underwood -- wouldn't it be fun to see Nashville face Ottawa in the Stanley Cup Finals?

Despite my soft spot for Winnipeg and small-market Canadian teams in general, if the above happens and Nashville faces Ottawa, I want Nashville to win... and I want Fisher to score the Cup-winning goal, in Ottawa, in overtime... and then I want Carrie Underwood to get down and dirty and do something inappropriate on the air while drinking from the Cup.

Wait. Did I just type that?