The Best of Down Goes Brown (19 page)

 

 

Game seven. Those two words are all but guaranteed to get a hockey fan's blood boiling. There's something almost poetic about a hard-fought series ending with one winner-takes-all game. And when that game seven comes in the Stanley Cup final, the drama can be almost unbearable. With the Cup in the building and up for grabs, every play is crucial and every player knows he has a chance to create his legacy.

For a long time, a game seven in the final was one of the rarest sights in hockey. The best-of-seven format was adopted in 1939, but only eight series went the distance over the next forty-eight years. More recently, though, fans have been spoiled. If you only started watching hockey in 1987, you've been lucky enough to see a seventh and deciding game in the Stanley Cup final eight different times.

Let's take a look back at the past twenty-five years' worth of game-seven drama.

 

The hockey pool is an annual tradition for many fans. Training camp is winding down, the season is just around the corner, and all around North America friends and colleagues gather in boardrooms and bars to draft the fantasy teams that will lead them on a path to glory.

Well, maybe not so much glory. For most fans, it's more like a path to frustration, second-guessing, and regret. After all, only one team can take home the league title in any given year. Everyone else will be left to look back on the draft day mistakes that cost them the championship.

It doesn't have to be that way. With a little bit of focus and a clear strategy, you too can dominate your hockey pool. All you need to do is follow these simple tips:

 

• Be aware of your league's roster rules and the potential consequences of not following them. For example, failing to have two NHL goaltenders on your roster can result in invalid lineups, forfeited matchups, and a front office job offer from the Flyers.
  
• Despite still indicating his interest in a comeback, Vesa Toskala has yet to sign with an NHL team. Until he does, don't forget to reduce your scoring projections for every player in the league by about 25 percent.
  
• Every year there are a few players who greatly exceed even the most optimistic projections, and who can almost single-handedly determine the winner of a pool. You should probably try to figure out who those guys are going to be this year and then draft a whole bunch of them.
  
• When it's time to collect everyone's twenty bucks for the prize pool, ask Sabres owner Terry Pegula if he'd be willing to kick in an extra $10 million up front for no reason. He usually agrees to that.
  
• For extra NHL authenticity, remind everyone in the first round of your draft to waste everybody's time with long-winded congratulations to last year's champion and their thanks to whoever is hosting this year's event.
  
• Just for fun, take Paul Bissonnette in the last round then send him a message about it on Twitter. He'll probably find that every bit as hilarious as he did the first 500 times it happened.
  
• As much fun as a fantasy league can be, never lose sight of the fact that the players you're drafting are more than just names in a row on a spreadsheet. They're also characters from your favorite hockey video game.
  
• A “sleeper” is a player capable of putting up big numbers, but who remains unknown to most fans. To find one, try building a time machine and traveling back to before we had the Internet.
  
• Jarome Iginla should be at the center of any decent draft strategy. Actually, that's not true—I just wanted to be the first hockey writer to ever use “Jarome Iginla” and “decent” and “center” in the same sentence.
  
• Many experts will tell you to avoid Russian players, since as Europeans they're lazy and selfish and refuse to work as hard as North Americans do. This is utter nonsense; Russia is technically part of Asia.
  
• Playoff pools: When faced with a choice between two players with similar talent levels and statistical output, it's generally a good idea to lean towards the one whose team qualified for the post-season.
  
• Sure, it's always more fun to play in a pool with an “easy money” guy who puts together a terrible team that finishes dead last every year. But Scott Howson already told you that he's busy this week, so stop calling him.
  
• Don't be that guy who goes to a hockey game and yells at the players to let them know they're on your fantasy team. To really get their attention, whisper it from under their beds just as they're falling asleep.
  

 

The 2012 Stanley Cup final matchup was, on the surface, a tough one to get excited about. The Kings and Devils had no real history together, there was essentially zero rivalry in place before the series started, and there were few if any ready-made storylines to focus on. Many expected that the series could wind up being a forgettable dud, and they looked like they'd be right when the Kings shot out to a 3–0 lead.

And then, almost without warning, the series took a turn. The Devils mounted an admirable comeback, extending the series twice before finally falling in an entertaining sixth game. So while the series isn't likely to be remembered as an all-time classic, it did end up providing its share of memorable moments.

Let's take a period-by-period look back at the 2012 Stanley Cup final: