The No. 8 seed Anaheim Mighty Ducks will take on the No. 2 seed Detroit Red Wings tonight at Joe Louis Arena for Game One of the Western Conference Semifinals. This will be the fifth time in their history that these two teams square off in the NHL playoffs. Puck drop is tonight at 7 PM EST. (Ducks technically dropped the Mighty because it was apparently too Disney, cake eater-ish, and Julie the Cat-womanly-like)
Detroit almost forgot they had to come back and play hockey again as they were pretty close to taking the Cup by default and hibernating for the summer before realizing the Ducks, who beat the No. 1 Sharks, wanted to play some stick and puck with them.
You might think this is going to be another joke series, but as ESPN puts it, don’t let that No. 8 tag fool you; these Ducks are still mighty.
The Ducks have a different goalie in net these playoffs, Jonas Hiller who could do the things I thought Mason could have done to us in the first round. The Ducks also have a little more momentum than the Wings as they just finished their series while the Red Wings were at home practicing and picking their butts. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Wings come out a little flat.
That being said, this Red Wings team is way too much like the Hawks in Might Ducks 1 before Bombay works his magic and transforms District Five into the Mighty Quacking machine. (I’m reluctant to make that comparison because we all know who prevails in the end, and I hate the Hawks in the movie. I think you get the picture though; and understand, you can’t do an Anaheim Ducks series preview without overkilling the Disney movie The Mighty Ducks. It’s just un-American.)
The Wings averaged 4.5 goals per game last series (and against that team we should have had twice as many!), but all it takes to spice things up in the playoffs is some solid goaltending and the Ducks had that in their first series. Hiller had a modest 1.64 goals-against average, so once again the Wings will have to overcome some solid goaltending to put the puck in the net. They might be facing the Ducks, but they’re not facing Goldberg (by the way, is Goldberg related to Turtle from Entourage?)
Anyway, it’ll be a fun series to watch, but the Wings will prove to be too much for the Mighty Ducks. I’m putting my life savings ($560) on the Wings in 5.
Here’s a nice long clip of the Mighty Ducks movie that you can watch and envision the Wings whooping on the District 5 Ducks:
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