Finally, the time of year we have been waiting for since Pronger knocked the Ducks out of playoffs last year, since he was traded and since the hype began, playoffs. An interesting series against Minnesota this time, I find it hard to believe it will be a snooze like 2003 when the Wild scored one goal in four games. While I think they will score more, I think the goal mark will stand for the amount of wins they conjure up during the series.

The Ducks will do what they always do against a good team, pound the hell out of them. If they dress the Boogey Man, he takes up a skilled player roster spot, so do you match the physical play or try and run with the Ducks? The goalie is a rookie backup who has played well after filling in for Fernandez. The defense has a couple of ex-Ducks in Keith Carney and Kurtis Foster and Brent Burns has the most points, 7-18=25, on the blueline.

The Wild have a good team, they took the 4th least penalties in the league, 6th best power play and allowed the fewest goals of any team but were .500 on the road. So what do I think all of this means? It will be low scoring more then likely, but that will only help the Ducks. Minnesota has such a good defense because it is the definition of team defense, when you bang a couple dirty goals home, you force a team like the Wild to open up. They do not want to open up, they only want to counter on your mistakes. If the Ducks get a two goal lead early, it might be all she wrote. Anaheim is no slouch when it comes to defense.

In this series the Ducks have size, speed, defense and two goalies who can shut you out every night. I wont say that the Ducks are faster then Minnesota, because Gaborik is worth two Ducks, expect a lot of Sammy in his face, being physical. But I was surprised to see Minnesota has 5 skaters with 20+ goals and another with 19. So they can run a little more with the Ducks this year, but I don’t think they want to get in to a shootout with Anaheim (not the kind of one on one).

Rattle the rookie goalie early and often, pound the defensemen on the forecheck and make sure Gaborik knows he can’t run around with little care. Brett Hull and Ray Ferraro both predicted a longer then expected series. Was that of the sweeping kind?

Anaheim in 5