Basically that means I pick the Ducks in 6. I see two wins for Anaheim at home and split on the first two  road games. Vancouver takes game 5 and the Ducks finish off the amped but worn out Canucks at GM Place. Hot goalie or not, Vancouver is going to go up against some decent depth when they step on the ice this series. I do not have any fancy numbers to throw out, this isn’t Moneyball and it sure as hell isn’t baseball. When Jonathan Cheechoo obviously hurt his knee but somehow pulled it together to play the rest of the series, throw the numbers out of the window. Expect nothing less when the Ducks and Canucks collide tomorrow night.

“They’re a little grittier than most teams,” Ducks left wing Chris Kunitz said. “They want to get in your face. They want to make sure that you’re going to feel it every time. They’re not going to miss any checks. It’s going to be a rough series.”

Kind of like the Flames, but not as physical. The only thing I can recall from the last time these two teams met was when Dustin Penner pushed Tommi Santala in to the boards and Kevin Bieksa jumped Penner from behind. That happened in the first period and it created a nice hive of nastiness for the rest of the game. There is no reason to suspect this series wont be the same way, except that Vancouver might become a bit worn down after the first few games. The Canucks are a proud team with a equally proud proud fan base behind it, which should give them more energy when they need it.

The keys to this series will be how well Anaheim can control themselves when it comes to retaliation. Vancouver is looking for an edge and it wont be to try to match speed, physical play or even goaltending.

The goaltending edge has goes to Anaheim, not because Giguere or Bryzgalov are better goalies. Anaheim gets the edge because they have two goalies who can play equal to Luongo, Dany Sabourin will not play unless its a blowout or Luongo gets hurt, Roberto will play every game even if he looses 50-0 in each of them.

From what I watched in the Dallas series, Vancouver is a tough team down low. They like to cycle and they like to posses the puck to get the shots they want. So speed is not a factor for Anaheim to watch out for, but they have to play strong in their own end. Huskins and DiPenta have to be physical and not take obstruction calls or let their man walk to the net and if one does squeeze by, he needs to be dealt with accordingly to know it’s going to cost you to score like that.

So how do I think the Canucks have a chance? To agitate the agitator. Get in the Ducks players face, draw a penalty, take a key player off the ice for 2 or 5 minutes. The Ducks take a whole lot of penalties and seem to have this swagger that they can kill off anything or get the goal back if they wanted to. While I think they are right, Vancouver has to do that to get a sniff and I am betting they will. If the Canucks can get a goal or two on the power play, every game, then it might be a series.

Ducks in 6

EDIT: According to this article, John Bucigross reads my blog and doesn’t give credit. He picked the same order of wins and loses as I did for the Ducks to close this series out. While credit is being wished upon, I stole that banner from TSN, haha.