Know Thy Enemy's Fans: Winging It In Motown

JN: What are your feelings on having to take on the Ducks in the first round? Would you have preferred a different opponent or will the last playoff series between these two teams as conference rivals be a great way to end that rivalry?

JJ: I'd love to be in a position to get a garbage team like Minnesota in the first round, but since Detroit was going to be a low seed, the Ducks are the matchup I'd have most-wanted between Anaheim, Chicago, and Vancouver. The Hawks are scary good this year and I just don't want to deal with Vancouver. I have to admit the possibility of one of my favorite Western Conference rivalries ending like this makes the fact that Detroit probably matches up against Vancouver better ok.

JN: What are the biggest areas of confidence/concern for the way the Red Wings play going into this series?

JJ: I'm confident that the overall possession stats have Detroit as one of the ten-best and Anaheim as one of the ten-worst. I'm sure Ducks fans are tired of hearing about regression, but it's the elephant in the room. Over any short season/series, a team can outperform what those metrics say, but the likelihood that they won't is still there. For concern, the Red Wings have gone through big periods where they can't score goals and don't deal with big, aggressive forechecks well. They'll need four lines to play consistently well and that's hard to do in the playoffs.

JN: What are the biggest areas of confidence/concern for the Ducks' game?

JJ: For as big and aggressive as the Ducks are, they certainly seem as easy as ever to force composure issues onto. Once you get Ryan Getzlaf frustrated, he seems to spend more time jawing at the refs than being one of the toughest guys in the league to get a puck by. I honestly have no idea what to expect from the Ducks' goaltending in this series either. They could turn out hilariously easy to beat or terrifyingly Giguerian. The Ducks also have more proven forward depth than the Wings do, boasting 11 forwards who put up double-digit points to Detroit's seven.

JN: What should Anaheim Calling readers know about WIIM's community? What's going to get them in/keep them out of trouble if they visit?

JJ: WIIM isn't a courtroom, it's a bar room and we're the bartenders. Our regulars are Wings fans and like to talk about Wings stuff. They can flip shit with people they know, but popping in to tell everybody in a bar that they're stupid is a great way to get kicked out of the bar. As the mods, we're significantly more interested in keeping the regulars happy than the overarching search for universal truth on a hockey blog. We don't mind those kind of discussions and I think they're personally fun, but so many people get caught up in pointing out subjectivity in others while ignoring their own. People who do that aren't going to be popular anywhere, really. We're open for discussion and even some fun ribbing. We're not open for trolling. Sometimes we have to give time-outs when somebody gets out of hand. Those are generally only a one-day thing.

JN: What should AC readers expect from WIIM folks visiting our corner of the blogosphere?

JJ: If they don't already know how much of an asshole I am, they should probably be aware. I'll behave and will take guidance from mods when given though. They should also know that I'm keeping an eye on how WIIM commenters behave at AC and will consider the case of every person who gets banned at AC as to whether they will also receive a warning/ban at WIIM.

JN: Finally, who ya got in the series and how many games?

JJ: I think Detroit pulls the upset and takes game seven through some sort of magical play where the puck goes in off of Dan Cleary who is in the Ducks' crease and who may or may not be interfering with the goalie when it happens.

[If you're interested, my answers to the same questions can be found on WIIM - JN]