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Getting Ready

Tonight’s the night.  Playoff time, what you’ve waited the whole year for.

There are so many articles out there with season recaps, playoff previews, predictions, etc.  Here are a bunch I think might interest you.

Anaheim Has Gone From Warm and Fuzzy to Fiery and Nasty

The Anaheim Ducks used to have an animated Tinkerbell that fluttered across the scoreboard and sprinkled pixie dust onto pictures of players’ heads.

Tinkerbell cannot possibly recognize her team anymore. The Ducks have essentially traded pixie dust on the head for punches to the face.

“We fight,” Anaheim General Manager Brian Burke said. “It’s what we do. We put a premium on it.”

…snip…

Sitting in their dressing room, the Ducks are as likely to be talking about right hooks as wrist shots. They monitor the Web site hockeyfights.com, which features penalty statistics that the N.H.L. does not always publish. Parros and Thornton take boxing lessons in the summer to hone their craft.

Wild Head To Anaheim With Their ‘Enforcer’
From the toughest to the meekest
Emery’s play getting rave reviews this season
Which traded player will have the biggest postseason impact?
Another first for Crosby: playoffs
Wings ripe for the picking: Cherry
‘Tis season to dream
The Stanley Cup playoffs – Eh to Z
The Cup: Gotta love it

Non-playoff reads

McSorley isn’t bad for a rookie
Team could have interest in bringing back Forsberg

Fridge unplugged: LW Todd Fedoruk said he’d like to remain a Flyer, but believes that as a seven-year veteran he should earn more than the NHL minimum salary of $450,000.

Fedoruk will be a UFA on July 1. “With any job there’s an increase in pay,” he said.

“I feel I deserve to get off that hump and earn some money.

“I lose a fight and all of a sudden, peril.”

Fedoruk said he needs to overcome the tentativeness he’s had since sustaining facial fractures in an October fight with Minnesota’s Derek Boogaard.

“You try to ignore it, but it’s something I have to look at because it’s affecting the way I play and the way I fight,” he said. “The tentativeness of getting hit is what I have to release.

“Come September, I’ll be eating nails for breakfast.”

Update 415pm: Tonight’s Ducks-Wild game is being streamed live on Yahoo for free.

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