Welcome to playoff hockey again, Avalanche fans!
It’s been a few years since you’ve been here with a vested, rooting interest, so it’s important to remember a few things:
1. Playoff panic and an actual heart attack are not the same thing, so learn to recognize the difference. A heart attack will not make you feel like dumping your beer straight onto your own face when MacKinnon dangles Pekka Rinne to flip one in top-shelf, and playoff panic likely won’t come with accompanying fatigue or pain in your arms.
2. Never make juju-jinxing bets with your friends, no matter how confident you are that Erik Johnson is going to win that fight. The minute you put on your friend’s Nashville hat as penance for shooting your mouth, you’ve doomed your team to multiple years of mediocrity and a GM that will trade a third-round pick for Zac Rinaldo.
3. If you’re going out to watch the games, make sure you have Uber or Lyft downloaded on your phone. We all think we’re going to pace ourselves and only drink during our team’s game, but it’s never fun when you have to figure out a way home after chugging your fourth Landshark whilst screaming that Jonathan Quick never has been and never will be elite.
4. Have fun! You may feel, at times, like composing a song titled ‘The wheels on the bus are falling off’ to the tune of an old children’s jingle, but seriously: save that for Capitals fans. They’re the original composers of devastatingly sad tunes about blown leads and a god-given curse against ever winning a Cup, so let them continue to feel their well-deserved panic. Just remember: the playoffs, this year, are the icing. Enjoy them.
Now that it’s playoff time, by the way, let’s take a quick look back at the team’s postseason history, from our newest (and already fantastically prolific) writer Jon. [Mile High Hockey]
Here’s also a very nice story on Gabriel Landeskog, talking about all that he’s done to help the team as they went from the bottom to... well, here. [Tampabay.com]
Oh yeah, and this happened!
Hart Trophy voting at NHLcom:
— Mike Morreale (@mikemorrealeNHL) April 10, 2018
MacKinnon 62 pts (7 1st votes)
Hall, 54 pts (3 1st-place votes)
Kopitar, 43 pts (3 1st-place votes)
Kucherov, 26 pts (2 1st votes)
Giroux, 18 pts
If you, like me, get an unhealthy amount of joy from just devouring the sour grapes of people who are mad on line, go ahead and check out the replies on that announcement from Morreale.
Speaking of awards, here’s a very deep dive by InGoal Magazine’s Paul Campbell into who likely will win the Vezina this year, regardless of what the numbers say. [InGoal Mag]
And in terms of teams who aren’t in the playoffs, here’s another fun tidbit from up north:
Henrik Lundqvist said he has been bothered by a knee injury since late October or early November. He'll have an MRI.
— Colin Stephenson (@ColinASteph) April 10, 2018
Every fan has, at some point, had to reconcile their own fandom with the sheer stupidity of their favorite team’s management, coaching staff, or ownership, so no one has any right to look down on New York and laugh about this.
But also, holy hell.
And for a bit more non-playoff news, here’s a bit of April golfing sadness for the St. Louis Blues. [STL Today]
In non-hockey related news, by the way, this is pretty neat:
A debut 10 years in the making...
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) April 11, 2018
Andre Ingram finishes with 19 points (4-5 3PT), 3 rebounds, 3 blocks and a steal pic.twitter.com/2sCxGznD7c
Finally, quick PSA!
K, I'm asking on behalf of the out of town #AvsFam , tweeps at the games please be so kind as to upload as many videos as ur hearts desire. For us not lucky enuf to be there. pic.twitter.com/bLw7gbdbj6
— R Y (@avsgrl19) April 11, 2018
Saw this on my feed and thought I’d share it with all of you. Go nuts! Share the heck out of that game. Many people aren’t able to attend playoff matchups - which is a damn shame - and it would be cool to give them a little taste.
Now, let’s do that hockey!