If the Kings can somehow overcome the marked advantage the Oinkers...sorry, Oilers...have in physicality and find some consistency in consecutive performances, then, especially with Viktor Arvidsson coming into some really impressive form and the drive he adds to each shift he's out there, we may be able to sneak a vital away game which I agree will definitely as Statue4Deano says sow some seeds of doubt. I just hope Viktor can avoid injury and maintain his stellar momentum and that Arvidsson, Danault and Moore line continue to blossom...and, of course, score. I also feel a whole lot better with Mikey Anderson at the back.
I'd also prefer, as I would have preferred Pheonix Copley last year, David Rittich to start. I cannot believe he and Talbot are the same height. Rittich seems to be calmer, much bigger and plays more upright. He just seems to fill more of the net, while Talbot seems much smaller like, to me, JQ always did. Talbot didn't seem particularly sharp against the Blackhawks either.
With Mr. Hiller, I like his seemingly relaxed, technical style (I mean the way he presents...the language he uses...in his press-meeting analysis), but it feels to me that the team needs someone pushier and more dominant. Maybe we see only the persona, as Head Coach, he presents to the media, but as a person he seems far too philosophical about the unforgiveably offhand performances the team have served up lately, like the Wild and Ducks games, and that paying fans have had to endure. In my opinion, it's time also for PLD to prove to us doubters, both on the ice and, with less emphasis, the scoreboard, why he merits his multi-million dollar salary. I want to love the guy (purely platonically, of course, buddy) and I'm more than ready to have my gut proven wrong. Both me and my gut would welcome a large slice of humble pie for dessert. Like everyone here I just want Mr Dubois to play consistently up to the well above average level at which he was hired to play.
I realise that, as a purely amateur observer, I'm stating a well-trodden obvious when I say I always feel the first playoff game is a double edged sword for the home team. I'm actually not convinced, in my ignorance, that it isn't the visiting team in Game One that has the advantage. The Oilers may well have the home ice and the crowd, but with it comes massive responsibility and pressure and, irrespective of the regular season series, the payoffs...sorry, playoffs...are, as everyone knows, always a step up. In the first series, neither team, until Game One is concluded, can have any real sense of what kind of team they are truly going to be dealing with.
I hope on Monday night the Kings treat the first game as a payoff game, hit the ice skating and really take it to the Oilers right from the getgo. Add pressure to the pressure, I say. Let's take it from there and hope the officials are at the top of their game too and officiate fairly and squarely out there. Every game starts 0-0, so it's all to play for.
May the best team win....
(and the Oilers come second).
