This Dallas vs Vegas Series Is Everything That Makes The Stanley Cup Playoffs The Best Playoffs In Sports
If you want to win in the playoffs, you need to play 60+ minutes of hard dick hockey. From the very first puck drop to the very final whistle, you need that intensity to be ramped up to 100. Obviously not every team has that in them. The Leafs sure as shit don't because they're soft as 2-ply. The Caps didn't have it in them because they're old and just not very good.
But when you get two teams matched up against each other who are both able to dial it up and go absolutely ape shit every time they touch the ice? Well it doesn't get any better than that. And that's exactly what we have going on in Dallas vs Vegas right now.
First minute of the game and you already have two guys getting taken off their feet. First hit from McNabb gets the barn rocking and all the fans into the game. The second hit from Benn lets everyone know they're going to witness a battle out there all night long. You want to lay out 5'8" Logan Stankoven? No problem. Just as long as you know that psychopath Jamie Benn is going to be hunting you down for the rest of the night/series/your life.
You've got two mutant captains going toe-to-toe, face-to-face. Both of these guys can score, don't get me wrong. But I think you'd be most concerned about both of their wires getting crossed at any given moment. The most skilled team doesn't always win in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It's about who has the most lunatics who can also happen to either A) put the puck in the back of the net or B) keep the puck out of their own net. Skill helps, but psychopaths are better in the playoffs.
It's that deranged brain level of thinking that makes a team somehow play better on the road in the playoffs. They say a playoff series doesn't truly start until a team wins a game on the road, but so far in this series neither team has been able to win at home. They just go into the other team's barn, pump their shit around a little bit, and call it a day.
Again, skill helps to be able to score goals like this.
That's a preposterously nasty snipe from Evgenii Dadonov. But look at the rest of the goals from this game. It's all about getting pucks on net, getting to the greasy areas of the ice, playing hard dick hockey, and just finding a way to get the puck across that goal line.
Watch the All Star Game if you want to see a skills competition. But if you want playoff hockey, then you want pucks on net and bodies on the floor.