When I was in high school, our football team did generally the same thing every year. We would dominate during the regular season -- usually going undefeated -- and then we'd win a playoff game or two. But then we would hit a brick wall. Some other team from somewhere else in the state would waltz in and just beat the ever loving snot out of us. It was bizarre, frankly, watching a team dominate for an entire year, only to lose by 35 points in the 3rd round of the playoffs. But that's what we did every year I was there.
Though the Stars certainly haven't been dominant this season, this series against Detroit has a similar feel to those old high school playoff games. Against San Jose and Anaheim, the Stars could win if they played well, and they were fully capable of hanging around and making things interesting even when they didn't play well. But against Detroit, I feel like the Stars could play their best game of the season and still lose. It's like watching a college team play against a high school team.
Midway through the first period last night, Detroit coach Mike Babcock called a timeout (which I thought was odd at the time). The Stars had been making a push and were generally hanging around. I think Babcock wanted to pull his team aside to tell them something along the lines of: "You know, guys...I know the plane flight was long and that you are looking forward to eating some good Texas barbeque tonight, but that doesn't mean we need to allow this to be a competitive game. Frankly, it's rude getting the crowd's hopes up like that. I'm just asking for a little bit of effort here. Get ahead by a couple of goals and then prevent the Stars from getting past the blue line. It's not rocket science, guys. Go team!" and then, he turned to his assistant coach. "Man... I haven't done that much coaching in weeks. I think I'm going to go take a nap. Could you handle things for the rest of the period?"
I think the Stars could play the Red Wings 20 times and they'd lose every game. So, for the first time as a sports fan, I am not particularly upset that my team is losing in the playoffs. We aren't beating ourselves; we're not grossly underperforming. We just ran into a team that is waaaaay better than us. And they're kicking our ass.
On a side note, I noticed that the Sharks fired Ron Wilson. Evidently, they wanted the privilege of getting slaughtered by the Red Wings.
1 comment:
It's fans like you that give fans a bad name, sir!!
I would like to take this opportunity to point out that we ARE going to game 5. Maybe we lose, maybe we don't, but in game 4 we did show that we have what it takes to take on the Wings.
I can understand your sentiment about game 3 though. We were both there. It sucked. A lot. I generally felt though that the Stars were lacking energy (a possible lingering effect of the Sharks and Anaheim series?). Given an equal amount of readiness, the Wings might still be the better team, but I don't think it would be a lopsided series.
In the meantime, I'm routing for a game 7 Stars victory. Go Stars!
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