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Umm well, let's see who Chicago let go without suitably replacing them....
Burish
Ladd
Byfuglien
Eager
...
Am I missing anyone? So, they let go just about everyone who could agitate and deliver the physical blows that alter momentum. That's very counterintuitive unless you've got a full three lines that can score enough to keep the other team's hitters honest.
Vancouver obviously keyed in on this fact and really physically beat the shit out of Chicago from the get-go. It was painful to watch really. And when you think about "well, who's going to hit back for Chicago?", there's no answer. Keith and Seabrook will be on the ice too long to really step up their physcial game. I guess Chicago has learned the painful lessons about today's NHL, in that it's really hard to keep an entire roster with all of the characters you need to be a strong playoff team. That being said, they did only lose by two goals, they did hit a few posts and get a couple bad bounces (although Vancouver did as well), and Crawford looked solid. It's only one game, and if they can score enough to get ahead of Vancouver's physical game, they might have a shot.
However, I don't think that's all that possible. Vancouver is a machine.
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