The Quick And the (Brain) Dead: Western Conference Final Preview

Yes, I probably should have started previewing playoff matchups when the playoffs actually started, but a combination of work hunting, NHL watching and trying to resolve the NHL’s greatest dilemmas (thoughts like “is Danny Briere a rat-faced weasel, or a weasel faced rat?”, “just how the hell do the New Jersey Devils manage to get so much noise from an arena without giving Snooki and The Situation free tickets and instructions to argue in the stands?” and “just how does Claude Giroux play so well with the tongues of the entire NBC announcing team wedged firmly up his backside?”) got in the way. That’s not to say I haven’t been watching with great enjoyment. And now I have a few minutes free and the urge to ramble, so away we go with the Western Conference.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

The NHL’s Western Conference final this season is a final to make hockey traditionalists grind their teeth in anger. Not because of the prospect of the product on the ice-in fact the coming matchup between the Phoenix Coyotes and LA Kings is likely to be one of the highlight series of this year’s playoffs.

But it’s a series between one team that somehow failed to truly light the West up in the regular season (how the hell did the Kings end up an 8th seed?!) despite having all the pieces to do so, and another who (according to hockey purists at least) should have been dead (or playing in Hamilton, which some would argue is almost the same thing) years ago. After all, as Don Cherry and other hockey dinosaurs never tire of telling us, usually at great volume…YOU CAN’T PLAY HOCKEY IN THE SUN BELT.

If there was a movie remake of a fairly obscure Western starring Sharon Stone and Leonardo Di Caprio planned around the matchup between these two teams, there can frankly only be one title.

The Quick and the (Brain) Dead

As well as proving that I’ll go to pretty much any lengths to get an obscure movie reference into my column, the above title pretty much focuses on two of the main features of these two team’s playoff runs.

The Quick is of course Jonathan, LA’s goalie, who not only has an awesome surname as far as goalie attributes go but will be one of the major reasons the Kings win the series. He’s the rock on which the Kings build, the tree on which they weave their skilful web.

The Brain Dead? Phoenix Coyotes’ Raffi Torres, who has been suspended by the NHL after a moronic hit on Marian Hossa and left his team better for it.

Then of course there’s the hockey goaltending demon who appears to have taken the place of Mike Smith for this playoffs. Well, in fact the whole of this season. Let’s not forget that in Tampa last season he was a backup, with a save percentage of .890 and judging by Twitter was known by Tampa fans as Mike “fucking” SMITH. (as in “Mike fucking Smith let in another one)

This year, he’s .930 in the regular season, carrying a 948 save percentage after starting every PO game AND appears to have got over that strange recurring habit of dropping to the ice like a shot duck every time an opposition forward farts in his general direction.

It gets weirder with the Coyotes, though. They’re a team that have three skaters in the top 30 in PO points (Antoine Vermette at 12, Mikkel Boedker at 26 and Rusty Klesla at 30) going into the WCF. For comparison, Philadelphia have three in the top ten as of now…and are out. By that measure Phoenix staying in while Philly are eliminated is the hockey equivalent of the Bachelor turning down Scarlett Johansson for Deena from Jersey Shore. It just isn’t something you could ever see happening beforehand if you have a working brain.

And yet happen it has. Somehow, every team that goes to the desert gets an attack of Yote Fever. Whether it’s the heat, the surrealness of going to Glendale and seeing real-life fans in the stands and more of them every time you go, or just one of those weird illnesses that comes around in the hockey world once in a while, it’s taking over Arizona-more to the point, the team are infected with optimism.

The Coyotes aren’t a team who will fill the highlight reels, but they are a team who will win games. They’re playing like a team whose lives depend on success. And Glendale is finally responding to them. After a few false-starts in the playoffs before, this appears to be the season the Yotes have finally shook off the last remaining sneers and established themselves as a legitimate force in the Western Conference.  Whether a loss in this series will kill all that momentum remains to be seen.

Speaking of momentum, many are saying that LA have the momentum going into this series after eliminating the #1 and #2 seed so far. If they eliminate the #3 seed it’ll not only be the first #8 seed to make the Stanley Cup Final since Edmonton in 2006, but they’ll also have done it in the hardest way possible-by eliminating the 1,2,3 seeds. (sure, you can argue that Phoenix are only a 3 seed cause they managed to come out on top in a STUPIDLY close and relatively low-point-scoring Pacific Division while other teams in the West were lower seeded only due to their division location, but so be it).

LA definitely have the more visible talent. Who do you think the top scorer was for Phoenix in the regular season? Nope-it was Radim Vrbata. RADIM VRBATA. In terms of “name recognition” he’s hardly on a par with Dustin Brown, Mike Richards, Drew Doughty, Anze Kopitar…hell, even Jeff Carter.

(While we’re on the subject of Jeff Carter, he annoys me. Mainly because he pulled the MOTHER of all “trade me” tank jobs in Columbus (he had all the get-up-and-go of a freshly run-over skunk on the ice in Ohio) but partly because I’m amazed someone who thinks “defence” is what you have around “de garden” can still be considered a key player on a playoff team).

But anyhow,

Back in July I picked the Kings to win the Stanley Cup, mainly because of their fearsome amount of talent. They look like a team peaking at just the right time. And that’s why, Mike Smith or no Mike Smith, I think the Yotes run ends here.But I don’t think they’ll go down without biting a chunk our of LA first.

I predict LA in six for this one.