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Today it starts. The battle is officially over and the war has begun. The shock and awe campaign is about to begin while we start dropping nukes down upon the Minnesota Wild. And take my word for it, it's gonna be a great series. ESPN, and that fucking hack Barry Melrose, have picked the Wild to win in 6. I've got the Av's winning in 5.
At the end of February the Av's had 18 games left. I predicted that we'd win 14 of them. I was pretty close. We won 11, had 1 OTL (to MIN), and 6 loses. So we secured 23 points to take us to 6th in the conference. Minnesota did finish first in our division and 3rd overall, but just by the skin of their teeth. We also beat them in the last game of the regular season in the shootout. There's no doubt that the Wild (the worst mascot team name in the history of sports) are a talented team, coached by Jacques Lemaire, have an outstanding goalie in Backstrom and a great scorer out of Gaborik.
On paper I think both teams are pretty even. On the ice I might give the Wild the edge but for one reason only. Coaching. Lemaire is a great coach who demands his team play the style the he sees fit. Coach Joel Quenville, Coach Q, in my opinion has been less than brilliant when dealing with the Av's the past couple of seasons. He's a good coach and has been put to the test in terms of dealing with injuries and putting together lines this season. However, Coach Q does not have a very good post-season track record. If memory serves me correctly, the best that Coach Q has done was when the St. Louis Blues (the team he coached before coming to Colorado) was making it to the Western Conference Finals in 2001. Do you want to know what happened? The Av's destroyed them in 5 games.
To say the least this is going to be a great series. And to be truthful I couldn't imagine having to play San Jose, Detroit, or Anaheim in the first round. This is a team we know and a team we know we can beat. This is what we've been waiting for all year folks. The NHL playoffs are back and my boys, The Colorado Avalanche, are going to surprise a lot of people.
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