The power of the mullet!!

It's been quite the busy weekend, so I haven't gotten a chance to talk about these first two playoff games yet. After all of my hype for Friday's game, the result was pretty much a buzz kill, But I knew my Hawks could come through in game 2. But so far, the biggest story has been Kaner, who is playing like a stud, and looks like one too.

The theme for Friday for me was anticipation. Driving to the UC I just had so much excitement, and all the fans did too. I felt like we were all confident for a victory, but as Wolf once told me, "don't get too cocky, Starfox..." and I should have remembered these wise words from one of the best N64 games because the Preds seemed like they wanted to be known as a force to be reckoned with instead of "that team that's gonna get pwned by the Blackhawks". I thought Niemi played well on Friday, and Captain had a couple of chances to score, but "Heeeey Pekka Rinne" was also very good in that game. Not good enough to stop the mullet though! As Kaner was the only one to score. The Hawks overall just looked flat, and couldn't keep up with the Preds' defensive strategies. I knew that by the time game 2 started they would figure out a way to get past them, and they certainly did.

The theme for Sunday was anxiety. I was just as pumped for the game, and so were the fans, but almost all of them I talked to also expressed that they were still somewhat nervous. The main point I wanted to stress to everyone was that Niemi is too good, and as long as we limit their shots on goal while not letting them limit ours, we can take this game and maybe more. And i'm glad I was right so far. Bolland scored a nice one, and Kaner used the mullet magic once again. And Niemi. Oh, my goodness Antti Niemi. Although I was right in that he didn't have to face alot of shots, I was extremely happy bout the way he played, and it was only fitting that his first playoff victory ever was a shutout. That's more than that other goalie we have would have done...what was his name again...?

So now I look foreward to watching tomorrow night's game at Nashville. I anticipate that crowd being very loud, maybe getting the Preds players a little too amped up. Maybe being so pumped up for the crowd, they will focus more on scoring themselves than playing their usual defensive game, and since Niemi is such a stud, they won't score themselves anyway. I like our chances of winning, but i'm still keeping Wolf's advice in the back of my mind. a 2-0 lead would just be very helpful.

And Kaner's mullet will continue to propel the Hawks to victory too... ^_~