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.
Dance fad of the 1970s / TUE 3-18-25 / A wish might be made on a loose one
/ 1976 #1 novelty song by Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots / Bourbon brand
whose name originated from a hunting expedition / Tusked Ice Age mammal /
Cardamom-spiced brew / Likek someone with an "O.O.O." auto-reply set up,
perhaps / Darth Vader's boyhood nickname / Like a person who might prefer
platonic relationship, informally
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Constructor: Larry Snyder and Jonathan Kaufman
Relative difficulty: Extremely Easy, even for a Tuesday
THEME: PARTY FOUL (65A: Knocking over someone's dri...
16 minutes ago