And so it comes to this. Had you asked me to write down all the possible head-to-heads for the Stanley Cup when these playoffs began and then order them in descending likelihood, I have to wonder how far this would have been from the bottom. I'd like to believe it would be closer to the middle somewhere, but I can say with tremendous certainty that it definitely would have ranked fairly low at the beginning of this season.
You're usually lucky if you get one Cinderella in the Final, and here we've technically got two.
The Devils were definitely a stronger kind of a six-seed, seeing as they did still finish the year with more than 100 points and were sort of a universal favorite to beat the Panthers in the first round. Still, very few people had them getting much further than that, let alone play in the last series of the year.
And the Kings? They had their handfuls of believers in those first two rounds before a clear majority caught on that they've been in a different gear ever since this postseason started. It's not the series many of us were expecting, but that sure as hell doesn't mean it won't be interesting.
Brit's jolly cry of approval / SUN 3-16-25 / Florentine artist known for
frescoes / Frodo's enchanting friend / 14-line poem with only two rhymes
across three stanzas / Subway commuters, informally / Not-so-joltin' joe? /
Dug through for digital analysis / Hawkeye's real first name in the
"Avengers" movies / German soccer legend Manuel who innovated the
"sweeper-keeper" role / Cote quote? / Girl who's "sweet as apple cider,"
per an old song
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Constructor: Paul Coulter
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: "Have It Both Ways" — two Across answers share a common Down
segment—that segment reads one wa...
3 hours ago