MVN - Most Valuable Network

It Looks Like Springtime in Anaheim

It’s beginning to look a lot like springtime in Anaheim. The Angels are playing baseball again. The weather forecast is calling for 80 degree weather by the end of the week. Across the freeway they are putting up the Stanley Cup playoff banner at the Honda Center and the logo on the ice has been fully revealed. Coach Randy Carlyle is tightening up the ship and getting crankier with reporters. Aaah! Playoffs!

Dallas will not be arriving until this evening, so the only team going through the media gauntlet is the Ducks. After another hour plus practice this morning, Carlyle spoke with reporters and said the one thing he is looking from his players is “consistency.” Regardless of the area, they need to be consistent. Any comparisons to last year’s champion team are immediately dismissed as “past history.” It’s a new year and new challenges.

One person happy to take on those challenges is Todd Bertuzzi who clearly yearns to have his name on the Stanley Cup. “I want what they’ve got.” That’s his motivation. Sami Pahlsson, who is finally at 100% after a nagging sports hernia sidelined him numerous games this season, acknowledged, “It’s fun to win. We want to do that again.”

The excitement keeps growing and the only people hoping for a little more time before the puck drops at 7:10pm are the employees who are dutifully placing the playoff towels on all 17,174 seats in the arena. But at 7:10, Carlyle says that is the time we’ll “prove we’re here for keeps.”

In other notes: Corey Perry continued skating with the team this morning in non-contact drills. He continues to improve, but has no immediate timeline for return to the line-up.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 3:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.