The day after, a few thoughts:
1) Well, that absolutely sucked. I still can’t believe we made the round trip from Birmingham for that horrendous game. Had we won that drive home would have been a piece of cake. But after that game? It was pure torture.
2) Being from Birmingham we obviously can’t make every game, but we go to a lot- and that honestly was one of the worst home games I can remember in a long time. Other than maybe Forsberg’s PK sequence in the first period, there literally was nothing for the fans to cheer about- nothing. And the fact that kind of game occurred in the playoffs is so very disappointing.
3) Looking back at it, I thought defensively we were still pretty good. If you think about it, they really did not have all that many more scoring chances than we did, which is almost hard to believe. Goal 1 came off terrible turnover, goal 2 was a great deflection, and goal 3 off a juicy rebound. Maybe I am off here, but I don’t think Anaheim really had a ton of great chances other than that.
4) When I got on here this morning, I thought I would find some extreme negativity and overreaction, but pleasantly surprised to not see too much of that.
5) What happened last night was exactly what I was afraid of. It really isn’t surprising that we lost that game- as I posted last night, if you go back and look at past playoff history, when a team wins the first 2 on the road (which doesn’t happen often) more times than not they lose game 3 at home. It has happened twice now this year. I don’t know if it’s a mental thing or human nature or what, but it happens a lot.
6) It is hard to feel that way right now after that stinker of a game, but we are still in great position. I don’t think there is a single Preds fan on the planet who thought we would have had a prayer of being up 3-0, nor should we be overly disappointed that we aren’t. Yes, it hurts because we did have the opportunity, but we are still in control- at least for now. If you had told anyone last Friday that we would be up 2-1 after 3 games, every single one of us would have gladly taken that.
7) It goes without saying, but game 4 now becomes monumental, and now the pressure has kind of shifted back to us. I still like our chances. I know it is easy to think we have lost momentum now, but if you look at other series over the past few years, there usually is no such thing as momentum in a series. Some recent examples- we absolutely made the Blackhawks look awful in 2 games last year, yet they went on to win the Cup. Last year Minnesota led STL 2 games to 1 and hosted game 4. They were completely blown out 6-1 at home, losing home ice. At that time I am sure all of their fans thought they had blown it. But they won game 5 in STL and went on to win the series in 6. And last year, TB lost game 5 at home to Detroit 4-0, going down 3-2 in the series. But they won at Detroit in game 6 and went on to win the series. There are tons of examples just like those. One bad game, no matter how ugly, is usually just that- one game. And more often than not has little bearing on the rest of the series.
8) Point being, there are always extreme highs and extreme lows in playoff series, even for teams that eventually go on to win. It is almost never easy, and there is stress and pain along the way.
9) Finally, I obviously do not want this to happen, but even if we were to lose Game four I still think we can win the series.
1) Well, that absolutely sucked. I still can’t believe we made the round trip from Birmingham for that horrendous game. Had we won that drive home would have been a piece of cake. But after that game? It was pure torture.
2) Being from Birmingham we obviously can’t make every game, but we go to a lot- and that honestly was one of the worst home games I can remember in a long time. Other than maybe Forsberg’s PK sequence in the first period, there literally was nothing for the fans to cheer about- nothing. And the fact that kind of game occurred in the playoffs is so very disappointing.
3) Looking back at it, I thought defensively we were still pretty good. If you think about it, they really did not have all that many more scoring chances than we did, which is almost hard to believe. Goal 1 came off terrible turnover, goal 2 was a great deflection, and goal 3 off a juicy rebound. Maybe I am off here, but I don’t think Anaheim really had a ton of great chances other than that.
4) When I got on here this morning, I thought I would find some extreme negativity and overreaction, but pleasantly surprised to not see too much of that.
5) What happened last night was exactly what I was afraid of. It really isn’t surprising that we lost that game- as I posted last night, if you go back and look at past playoff history, when a team wins the first 2 on the road (which doesn’t happen often) more times than not they lose game 3 at home. It has happened twice now this year. I don’t know if it’s a mental thing or human nature or what, but it happens a lot.
6) It is hard to feel that way right now after that stinker of a game, but we are still in great position. I don’t think there is a single Preds fan on the planet who thought we would have had a prayer of being up 3-0, nor should we be overly disappointed that we aren’t. Yes, it hurts because we did have the opportunity, but we are still in control- at least for now. If you had told anyone last Friday that we would be up 2-1 after 3 games, every single one of us would have gladly taken that.
7) It goes without saying, but game 4 now becomes monumental, and now the pressure has kind of shifted back to us. I still like our chances. I know it is easy to think we have lost momentum now, but if you look at other series over the past few years, there usually is no such thing as momentum in a series. Some recent examples- we absolutely made the Blackhawks look awful in 2 games last year, yet they went on to win the Cup. Last year Minnesota led STL 2 games to 1 and hosted game 4. They were completely blown out 6-1 at home, losing home ice. At that time I am sure all of their fans thought they had blown it. But they won game 5 in STL and went on to win the series in 6. And last year, TB lost game 5 at home to Detroit 4-0, going down 3-2 in the series. But they won at Detroit in game 6 and went on to win the series. There are tons of examples just like those. One bad game, no matter how ugly, is usually just that- one game. And more often than not has little bearing on the rest of the series.
8) Point being, there are always extreme highs and extreme lows in playoff series, even for teams that eventually go on to win. It is almost never easy, and there is stress and pain along the way.
9) Finally, I obviously do not want this to happen, but even if we were to lose Game four I still think we can win the series.
