Quote:
Originally Posted by dissentowner
Careful, despite things playing out in the 3rd of the Ducks game exactly how I called it I took a pile of #### for suggesting such a thing. You are right though, the Hawks will try and compete for a few periods but the players are not stupid, they know that there is nothing to be gained by winning and much more to gain by losing. They learned growing up that sometimes you have to lose to win in the long run. The only ones that are never on board with that are the coach, because he probably won't be there when the corner is turned, and the goalie, because goalies are just hardwired to stop everything they can. The Ducks absolutely quit going into the 3rd, they didn't check, they backed off every rush, when they got the puck they just turned it over to the Flames. They played totally different then they did the first two periods, they made sure they lost that game because losing right now leads to winning down the road.
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They backed off because that's how bad teams protect a lead. And they pulled their goalie - an odd choice when trying to lose. And oddly, all of their shots and attempted shots in the third came after Lucic scored. Seemed like they were trtying to regain the lead by doing that.