Friends.

Some of us have them. Some of us don't. What is a friend? Can you make a friend in the playoffs? How do you keep a friend? Am I a friend? Do I have friends? How do I meet other hunks?

The Dallas Stars and Anaheim Ducks are groups of people. Are they friends? How do we know? Can we know?





Via tumblr and Cartoon Networks' Check It Out

What is a friend?

A friend stands behind you. A friend helps you do your job when you are incapable of doing it yourself.

Bruce Boudreau is a friend to referees. He helps them watch the unhinged Dallas Stars to protect his friend Ryan Getzlaf.

"We've warned the refs about them anyway."

A good friend has his friends' backs. Bruce Boudreau is a good friend.

Trevor Daley is a good friend to Ryan Getzlaf also. He had advice to pass along to Getzlaf:

"If his jaw hurts and he can't play then maybe he should sit out."

Such caring. Such compassion. A true friend, Daley is.

A friend of my friend is a friend. Daley and Boudreau probably talk on Kik nightly.

That's what friends do.

How do you get a friend?

You get a friend by being a classy individual. Getzlaf is a classy individual.

You can play hard and do all the things you want, but me personally, if a guy's got a bad jaw, I'm not going to hit him in the jaw but everybody's different.

Such class. If a clinic were being given on sportsmanship it would be run by Getzlaf.

No Dallas Stars would be invited. They are mean.

How do you keep a friend?

I don't know. I lose a lot of friends though. Getzlaf has a friend in Corey Perry. He showed Jamie Benn how to not be a friend in game one:

Friends don't hit friends in The Johnson, I think. The Ducks are Masters Of Friendship, but I think they might be doing it wrong here. Trevor Daley knows how to keep friends though, and in the immortal struggle of losing friends vs keeping friends I think Daley won in game one.

The key appears to be to stand up for your friends with actions instead of silly words after a game is over.

How come I don't have a friend?

You don't have friends because you are crybabies, Anaheim. You got outclassed for the good part of two games in Anaheim, but won both. The Stars changed tactics up when they came home, finally got some bounces, and the world is ending.

Because the Stars are mean?

Look, everyone knows you are the number one seed. And, no one cares. Seeding is meaningless after the series starts. You are feeling the pressure of consistent playoff failures. You are feeling the pressure of potentially getting knocked out by a low seed for a second straight year. We get it.

But, guess what? Still, no one cares. You're in the playoffs. Everyone is injured this time of year. In 1999 Mike Modano won the Stanley Cup with a broken wrist. Brett Hull had two shredded groins and a ripped up left knee by the time game six was won. In 1998 when Bryan Marchment intentionally took out Joe Nieuwendyk's knee the Stars had to keep playing, but ultimately didn't have enough firepower to eliminate the Detroit Red Wings in the Western Conference Finals without their second line center.

As a quick aside, I've never seen the Sharks video of that play before. The announcers repeatedly saying that Marchment was finishing his check is nauseating.

The point is that champions keep playing. They fight through whatever obstacles get in their way on their path to the Cup whether they get to the top or not. The Ducks comments smell of fear. The Stars have gotten right in their faces. No matter what Boudreau may say the Stars have put the fear of God in them.

When the Stars attack the Ducks take time to adjust. When the Stars push the physical play they obviously get under the skin of the Ducks. In Anaheim the Stars matched Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn almost exclusively against Corey Perry and Getzlaf. In game three they let Antoine Roussel and Ryan Garbutt see them a little.

Those two clearly ruffled some feathers. But they also allowed Seguin and Benn some ice time away from the Ducks top two players. Whether that is the reason they won or not is a topic for debate, but the Ducks top duo are at least thinking about something else now.

They just want a friendly series, but the scum from Dallas are trying to drag them into a street fight unwillingly. The appropriately named Patrick Maroon lamented this fact after the game three loss:

Maroon: "They're going to get in our best player’s face, I guess Wednesday night we're going to have to do the same thing." — Eric Stephens (@icemancometh) April 22, 2014

Such a good friend. He has Getzlaf's back. Maroon also had a friendly warning for the Stars.

More Maroon: "We're going to have to show that intensity. We can't let that happen to our star players. They'll get it." — Eric Stephens (@icemancometh) April 22, 2014

That isn't very nice.

Fortunately, whatever it is if Maroon is taking significant shifts against Benn and Seguin they will probably take it. Because it will likely mean many goals.

The Ducks may ultimately beat the Stars, but it isn't going to be by crying through the media. For a team that has been through the battles you would think they know the games are won on the ice. The Ducks have much bigger things to worry about than the Stars tapping Getzlaf in the face, but if this is what they want to focus on the Stars are going to go back to California tied two games a piece.

And these two teams are still not going to be friends. If they were being friendly, as the Ducks seem to want, this would be the most boring series still going. The Stars don't want to be boring, but the Ducks do. Impasses such as these hurt friendships. Such is life in the playoffs.

Dinguses.

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