I think I shortened my life expectancy by multiple years last night.

The Stars don't like to make anything simple do they? Twice this season against the Ducks we were leading 4-3 going into the final minute, and twice we lost on last minute goals coupled with OT winners both of which Selanne played a huge part in.

So how do you think my nerves were holding up with the score 4-3 going into the final minute last night and with Selanne on the ice and Dallas doing their usual trick of just trying to hold on. Then it came...or so we thought. Selanne had a lovely little redirection on the puck to put it past Lehtonen and my heart sank, that was until the ref waved his arms indicating no goal. Koivu had skated across the crease taking out Lehtonen and the refs saw it, thank the heavens.

Still it was not over yet. Once again the Ducks continued their pressure and promptly put the puck in the net and yet again my heart sank but the drama continued as the refs once again waved the goal off on a hand pass. On watching the replay it would appear the refs got both calls absolutely right so much so that even the usually very 'homerish' Ducks commentators agreed with them, the Ducks fans however did not in the slightest and the arena nearly exploded in rage. I still do not have a clue how the refs saw that hand pass at game speed accurately enough to call it but am I ever thankful.

Still the drama wasn't completely over. The Ducks continued to pressure with the crowd doing everything they could to will the team on and they came close yet again with one shot going just an inch wide of the post but in the end the Stars did just enough to hang on for a huge win given Chicago's loss earlier in the night.

It is still a tall order but when you look at the remaining games we can still do it. 3 points out with 4 games to play (3 for Anaheim) and the schedules look like this.

Anaheim:
San Jose
LA
@LA

Chicago:
@Montreal
St Louis
@Detroit
Detroit

Dallas:
Columbus
Colorado
@Colorado
@Minnesota

There is still time.

I see the stars making it at chicago's expense.

I go away and St louis turn into a goal scoring machine! Detroit are Detroit and the Habs are pretty solid as well!

My opinion is Chicago will not make it and its in Dallas's hands but something still tells me the Flames have a chance

I reckon the Stars are just dragging it out for themselves but fair play as they deserved to win last night. Ducks seemed to be the more leggy of the two sides playing back to back games. Lots of very poor decisions made (or not) by the refs made it pretty frustrating but it doesn't detract from the strong 2nd period the Stars played. I couldn't believe it when Teemu scored with 2 minutes to go...and on other nights the officials would have overlooked Koivu's goalie interference....

Btw, I quite like the Duck commentators (Hazy and Ahlers) and in comparison to lots of others I actually think they're often fairly generous to the opposition and critical of the home side where appropriate. Frankly some of the other guys around the NHL are pretty crappy...

I will second that Ronnie when i watched our game a few weeks ago i found your commentators more than bearable which usually i cant stand the other teams announcers.

Take a bow Jack Edwards. Even most Bruins fans can't stand him. I love it when the Bruins games are on Versus because then I don't have to listen to him.

Dont you mean Jack Russell?

Yep, that's the guy. "Critical of the home side" is not a sentence that springs to mind when you listen to his commentary. I live in hope that one day Andy Brickley or Mike Millbury will tell him to STFU before beating him to a bloody pulp.

Ha...funnily enough there's a thread about Hazy after Sunday's game on this very subject...

http://fans.ducks.nhl.com/community/topic/7500-hazy-needs-to-put-more-homer-in-his-announcing/

I also heartily agree with the comments about the Kings guy. If you've heard him you'll know he has a tremendously irritating way of trailing off at the end of sentences.

Ronnie, I am glad I am not the only one who finds that incredibly annoying! I struggle to listen to him because I find myself wandering off of the actual game being lulled to some kind of trance by his weird way of commentating lol.

I don't like that thread though. A commentator should be biased to a team? Really? I have a lot more respect for the Ducks guys after hearing their comments of late. One Jack Russell is enough for this league

Then again, my experience with Ducks fans (not including you Ronnie) is one of extreme bias towards their own team and not really wanting to accept anything outside of their own little worlds.

mc_homer wrote:Ronnie, I am glad I am not the only one who finds that incredibly annoying! I struggle to listen to him because I find myself wandering off of the actual game being lulled to some kind of trance by his weird way of commentating lol.

I don't like that thread though. A commentator should be biased to a team? Really? I have a lot more respect for the Ducks guys after hearing their comments of late. One Jack Russell is enough for this league

Then again, my experience with Ducks fans (not including you Ronnie) is one of extreme bias towards their own team and not really wanting to accept anything outside of their own little worlds.

Hey, I thought you didn't mind the Ducks fans...it was the team you didn't like!?

Anyway, I didn't say I agreed with the leading post on the topic but if you read the whole thread you'll see a lot of fans don't think Hazy is a homer and don't want him to be! Imo, you want a commentator to be as neutral as possible - it's enough to know that he's obviously rooting for the home team without blatantly tub-thumping and making comments totally clouded by bias.

Oh yes..and good luck to the Jackets this evening. As much as I would like to see all 5 Pacific teams to in the play-offs I really wish the season to be done and dusted as quickly as possible!

My experience is mostly limited to the ones that came onto the Stars forum so I am sure they are not all the same but lets just say I have had more run ins with Ducks fans than any other team My hatred for the team originally started with the fans and developed into the team with Pronger and now Perry/Getzlaf.