As many have already noted, the quality of hockey between the Nashville Predators and Anaheim Ducks as they exchange proverbial haymakers in their Western Conference Final has been top class.
Like every other hockey fan, Don Cherry has also greatly enjoyed the series so far, particularly the physicality, hard hits and not-so-proverbial haymakers we’ve seen both sides swing at each other.
“I’ll tell you something, I’ve seen rough hockey and everything, but I’ve never seen anything – this is the roughest, toughest, most vicious game I think I’ve ever seen in the playoffs,” Cherry said of Game 5 between Nashville and Anaheim Sunday afternoon during Coach’s Corner.
Words like ‘rough’ and ‘vicious’ aren’t normally terms of endearment, but in the context Cherry was putting that Game 5, and the series as a whole, into there’s no greater compliment.
“I hate to say it, but think of [that Game 5] and you people that like big ice surfaces – I’m watching Team Canada, you can fall asleep when they get over in the corner – [that] game had everything going for it,” Cherry said. “You’d never fall asleep watching it.”
Nashville leads the West final 3-2 with a chance to close it out and reach its first-ever Stanley Cup Final Monday.
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