While the fan in me remains bitter the Blackhawks were eliminated in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs for a second consecutive year (mostly financially bitter – since my job indeed mandates I cover the Blackhawks and that’s kind of hard to consistently do when they’re not playing), the hockey geek in me is ecstatic that the clear-cut best team in the NHL survived the utter bloodbath that is the West and will possibly (unless the never-say-die Ottawa Senators have something to say about it) meet the best in the East in what would be an epic, balls-to-the-wall track meet of a Stanley Cup Final.
If it wasn’t obvious after round 1 who the definitive best team in the West was, it certainly is now. The Nashville Predators borderline effortless mopping-of-the-floor with the #1 seed Chicago Blackhawks makes a whole of a hell lot more sense in the present day after seeing them do just about the same thing to two of the West’s other top dogs, the St. Louis Blues and Anaheim Ducks.
I know many of you will disagree with me on this concrete fact since the Blackhawks are the center of the hockey-playing universe and there’s no way anyone could ever be better and all, but at least I can say I have one of the five best hockey players on the planet and someone who experienced the beating, firsthand, on my side: Patrick Kane.
This is what the all-world winger had to say about the Blackhawks first round sweep at the hands of the West’s representative in the Stanley Cup Final.
“Maybe we had a chance in Game 3 when we were up 2-0, but it was a clean sweep and that’s probably how it should’ve been,” Kane told CSN Chicago. “So now it’s time to regroup”.
I don’t think it should take Amy Adams’ expert linguist character in “Arrival” to translate exactly what Kane is trying to say here: The Predators were the much better team and by the waning games of what would be a clean series sweep, there was virtually no hope due to this realization.
And it was pretty obvious through their anemic performance. No matter what the Blackhawks did or tried, nothing was enough to penetrate what, throughout the playoffs – not just against the Blackhawks – has simultaneously been an impenetrable wall and unstoppable force. You almost can’t blame them for becoming consumed by demoralization and giving off as much energy and effort as a sloth on Xanax during those final games.
Historically, it would have been a vice versa situation with the formidable Blackhawks toying with the pedestrian Predators. The Blackhawks simply fell victim to this torment they had grown notorious for raining down upon the West for the betterment of the past 8 years. This time it was them who got the short end of the stick. The little brother who was always bullied by the big brother grew up to be 6’3, 230 and finally got his retribution by kicking big brother’s ass.
