Attached below is a ticket price preview image for the Stanley Cup Finals. The image shows the round-by-round home averages for both the Kings and Devils, along with the average and low prices for all seven Stanley Cup Finals games.

Here is your series ticket link - http://tiqiq.us/BzB

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In honor of L.A.'s success, today's cartoon is drawn using a "Quick Penner" method.

The L.A. Kings, after finishing off a 95-point regular season, have pulled off quite a series of upsets through the first three rounds of these playoffs. They've amassed a 12-2 playoff record while disposing of the western conference's two best teams along with another team that finished just ahead of them in the standings. Now they just have to manage a lengthy break while the New Jersey Devils finish up their eastern conference finals series.

Here's a similar story for those interested in repetition: The 2003 Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, after finishing up a 95-point regular season, pulled off quite a series of upsets through the first three rounds of the playoffs. They amassed a 12-2 playoff record while disposing of the western conference's two best teams along with another team that finished just ahead of them in the standings. Then they had to manage a lengthy break while the New Jersey Devils finished up their eastern conference finals series.

"All of this has happened before and will happen again."

Now I don't want to overplay the mirrored storyline too much -- each of these teams is upsetting favorites in their own special way -- but I do think I have some sense of the cloud of bizarre joy that Kings fans are sitting on right now. That spring of 2003 was beyond magical. Words don't quite capture it, but the universe drips of awesomeness when things are consistently going your way.

Enjoy the hell out of it, Kings fans.

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Drawing tablet strikes again!

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Hey everybody! I'm back from Spain and am finishing up my first five-day work week in quite a while. Whew! Anyways, here's the photo from Barcelona that best represented the Anaheim Ducks' season, taken outside the Maritime Museum.

It's a replica of a submarine built in 1850something that I assume was destroyed within one minute of touching water. But a proud effort nonetheless.

Anyways, I'm still a bit disconnected from hockey -- my trip to Spain meant that I saw nothing between the Hossa hit and the trio of round one game sevens, and then my brother came to town last week for my niece's first birthday party, which meant an Angels game and a lot of uncle-ing duties, and then there's this day job which prevents me from seeing a lot of east coast goals, and there's always Drawception, and...

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Two kind of big things concerning your favorite and least-favorite Ducks blogtoonist:

1. Even though I haven't been terribly blog-active over the past week or so, I'm about to turn even more invisible in both posts and comments. Starting tomorrow, I'm off to Barcelona, Spain, to go visit my sister for a week. (Spambots, this is an excellent chance to sell lots of viagra!) Anyways, I'll likely have nothing but playoff boxscores for a while -- go printed drama!

2. Beyond that, some other big news -- it seems I have put myself back on the "employed" side of society yesterday without even applying! One of my old jobs invited me in and coerced me back into a regular day job that essentially starts today -- yay?

On the one hand, it'll be good to make some money again and put some structure back in my schedule -- in a lot of ways, I feel like I was a better blogger back when I had a desk job. At least I read a lot more from other hockey blogs back then, and I frequently wrote posts the day before they were to publish.

On the other hand, I won't be as free to comment steadily throughout a workday -- it'll be a bit more sporadic, as there is some work to be done and meetings to attend, and I'll be busy for stretches. But at least it's not a traveling gig -- you won't have to put up with any Vegas cartoons or anything. :)

Both international travel and steady employment will put a bit of a damper on my Drawception craze, though -- that may be a good thing, as I've been putting a moderately-unhealthy amount of time on mouse drawings like this one (I never turn down a hockey prompt!):

Blonde Montreal Canadiens hockey player (+7)

After the jump, another round of high-scoring Drawception cartoons -- plus-ten and up!

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Hey, non-Duck BoC fans! Looking for playoff tickets?

Good Afternoon Earl,

I hope all is well!

The Sedins and the #1 seed Vancouver Canucks will take on Dustin Brown and the #8 seed Los Angeles Kings while the #2 seed St. Louis Blues will battle #7 San Jose Sharks in the first round of the Western Conference Playoffs. Attached you will find the average ticket price per game overview for these great first round playoff match-up. This is a great opportunity to remind your followers that they can purchase tickets direct through Battle of California . Please use the attached graphics and following links:

Round 1 Blues vs. Sharks Tickets

Round 1 Canucks vs. Kings Tickets

Go Sponsorship.

Anaheim Ducks at Calgary Flames, 1 pm
Anaheim Calling and Matchsticks & Gasoline -- have you reserved your tee times yet?

nothing wrong with cartoon only post…in fact…it should end the season for the calgary game

-- Spade in Victorhell

You got it, bud -- drew this one into MS Paint using (mostly) only Drawception techniques. Not the best, but time expired on me (Drawception finished its maintenance update!). I guess the prompt was "duck punching through flame".

Similarly, time has expired on our poor Ducks -- we'll get 'em next year. :)

Prediction: I'll be around for game comments today, and if Drawception goes under maintenance again, I may even be paying attention! :) Ducks see the big picture and lose a (fail for) nail-biter.

Go Lottery.

Anaheim Ducks at Edmonton Oilers, 6:30 pm
Anaheim Calling and The Copper & Blue -- plus a big game for Rudy and Meg below.

First off, congratulations to Anzeholics Anonymous and The Snuffle Bunnies on reaching the finals of the BoC Fantasy Hockey League! I was going to devote this entire post to recapping how they made it through the first two rounds, but you know...

...Drawception! -- a real time-killer for your average internet cartoonist. I've been on it for five days, participated in 111 games (probably 108 by cartoon), and have a score somewhere in the 700s. So yeah, I've been putting in some time into it. :)

It's actually been pretty challenging -- the time limit plus the basic mouse drawing (plus I'm sometimes too ambitious) means that I'm still drawing up to near when the clock expires, and there's been a couple cartoons that I've had to let the clock run out on -- they just never made it. But overall I've had more successes than failures, and after the jump, a list of my most popular cartoons so far. Just for fun, here's one I liked that didn't quite make it on the list -- I probably spent a third of the time working on the word bubble (writing is hard with a mouse!):

Pregnant woman accepts helping claw from lobster (+8)

The "+8" refers to how many rec's the cartoon got, usually from participants within the thread. The remaining toons are all +11 and above -- quality! :)

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Anaheim Ducks at Vancouver Canucks, 7 pm
Anaheim Calling and Nucks Misconduct -- in case you don't like Total Badasses.

Running this blog can be a funny or odd job sometimes. Take, for example, this e-mail that showed up in my inbox a couple of days ago:

Hi Earl,

I came across Battle of California while searching for resources around Stephen Hawking and education and was wondering if this is the correct contact in regards to the content on the site. My team just created a graphic on Mr. Hawking, would you be interested in taking a look? I'd love to get feedback from your readers, as well as yours.

Thanks in advance for your time.

Hahaha, what?! I must have missed that one post where... uh... ?

My first guess was that this guy was thinking of another blog (Battle of Calculus?), and absent-mindedly wrote to us instead, but this sort of request really demands to be seen through. So I quickly wrote back, trying to mask my belief that the guy was insane -- I couldn't fully hide it, though:

Indeed, I'm one of the blog authors of Battle of Cali, and your email has me curious enough that sure, I'd be interested in seeing your graphic, and if you'd like, I could run it past our readership as well. Let me know,

Earl Sleek

And then... silence. For days. Shit -- he's onto us! He saw my doubt-ridden response, double-checked who he was talking to, then must have contacted the correct BoC for his image distribution -- crap, I fucked this up...

And then yesterday, BOOM!:

Hi Earl,

Thanks for getting back to me. The graphic illustrates the achievements and contributions Mr. Hawking made throughout his life. The piece lives here and you're welcome to use it as you'd like: http://onlinephd.org/stephen-hawking/

Let me know what you think, I appreciate all feedback.

Thanks!

No need to click on the link -- I've got the whole thing after the jump. Warm up that mouse scrolling finger -- it's a tall one!

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Edmonton Oilers at Anaheim Ducks, 5 pm
The Copper & Blue and Anaheim Calling -- never too early for an entry draft preview.

I didn't get around to writing it (fortunately for you), but today's post was originally going to be a breakdown of contenders in this season's Celebrity Apprentice, handicapping the remaining players and associating each of them with an NHL team. But that was going to be pretty lame and was going to take some work, so I went with something just as lame but much easier -- Drawception drawings!

Meg brought it up in a fanshot yesterday, but Drawception is essentially Pictionary Telephone where different users alternate between drawing a phrase and labeling a drawing, and it has some fun time-killing potential. And at the very least, I was incredibly distracted yesterday from a Ducks sabotage loss -- hooray!

As you might guess, I'm more of a drawer than a labeler so far -- so here's seven of my drawings from Day One (to keep things hockey-relevant, many were drawn while the Ducks were losing), along with the prompts that made me draw them. Don't judge the art too harshly -- it's all mouse-drawn without any "undo" or "fill" features. :)

Prompt 1: Cat & Dog gently caress each other in the rain.

Awwww -- more after the jump!

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Anaheim Ducks at Phoenix Coyotes, 6 pm
Anaheim Calling and Five For Howling -- plus Meg and Rudy with better posts below.

Today's been a bit swamped, so here's a quick mishmash of stuff:

A pretty important game for the BoC Sabotage Initiative tonight -- the Coyotes currently sit one point behind the Kings and one point ahead of the Sharks (and tied with the non-cartooned Stars), and each of these teams has four games left to play. If the Ducks don't want to be the only California team to miss the playoffs, best to make two points readily available for the Coyotes tonight!

Go Sabotage!

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San Jose Sharks (bubbling) at Anaheim Ducks (babbling), 7 pm
Fear The Fin and Anaheim Calling -- why not get blogged down in the details?

So the Ducks are basically eliminated, and yet I still drew a pretty quality cartoon today. I know -- I'm as shocked as the rest of you!

As the cartoon notes, there's a Pacific Division questionnaire running this morning at SB Nation NHL, featuring one blogger apiece from four of the five Pacific blogs (apparently Plank is a slacker), plus three bloggers from this one.

And since I'm such a slacker that I don't like doing more than I have to, here's my answers reprinted -- hooray for easy filler! :)

1. Why will your team win the Pacific?

* Bursts into tears.

2. Why will your team miss the playoffs?

Because games played in calendar year 2011 count towards overall standings. Since January 1st (a month after Bruce Boudreau took over), the Ducks are 22-12-5, the best 2012 record in the Pacific Division. There’s hope in Anaheim, just not for this season.

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Boston Bruins at Anaheim Ducks, 5 pm
Stanley Cup of Chowder and Anaheim Calling -- it's time for Sunday Mass(achusetts).

Today I'm feeling so lazy that I'm recycling an image from a previous instance when I was too lazy to draw a cartoon. It's laziness-squared!

Not much at stake for tonight's game -- Bruins are safely in the playoffs and the Ducks are safely outside, and the Kings took State Rape off the table last night despite outshooting Boston 42-25. I suppose Ottawa would like the Ducks to win in regulation tonight, and we do owe them a favor for 2007...

Ah, whatevah! More cartoon recycling after the jump.

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St. Louis Blues at Anaheim Ducks, 7 pm
St. Louis Game Time and Anaheim Calling -- blue note vs. blue duck.

I'm out of the house real early this morning, so there's something to blame beside my crippling laziness for today's cartoon-only post.

This game may not mean much in terms of playoff positioning, but Ducks need to keep battling hard -- after all, there's still fantasy hockey to be played. :)

And anyways, I shall be in attendance tonight with my dad and brother down in Row B, wearin' the ol' green shirt. Drink if you spot me on TV.

Prediction: I could really use a Jaraslav Halak loss tonight for fantasy purposes -- Ducks shockingly beat the Blues before losing to the greens.

Go Green Shirt.

Anaheim Ducks at San Jose Sharks, 7 pm
Anaheim Calling and Fear The Fin -- two blogs that make our jobs waaaaaaay easier. :)

So there's a BoC game tonight, but it's only a small part of a bigger mechanism -- Battle of California fantasy playoffs start tonight! Here's your printable bracket -- let March Madness begin!

Since I'm the only blogger to make it into the only playoffs that'll matter this year, I guess it's up to me to congratulate myself and seven others -- nicely done, and good luck! Now a quick look at the matchups after the jump.

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Nashville Predators (gasp!) at Anaheim Ducks (sigh...), 5 pm
On The Forecheck and Anaheim Calling -- stomp me if you've heard this one before...

Not going to spend a whole lot of time writing today's post, because I had to wait until all of yesterday's games ended before seeing what angle I'd be taking today. Fortunately, Marty Havlat scored an overtime goal that signaled the return of an old and controversial BoC tradition, one that hasn't been utilized in over a year.

First, the legwork -- gotta justify the use of extreme graphics:

March 13: Los Angeles Kings 5, Detroit Red Wings 2
March 14: Anaheim Ducks 4, Detroit Red Wings 0
March 17: San Jose Sharks 3, Detroit Red Wings 2 (OT)

TOTAL: Battle of California 12, Detroit Red Wings 4

Sweeeeeet... So tasty! So yummy!

Oh, Detroit, you meddling octopus -- you've been good enough over the past couple of years to never have to suffer the tradition that put this blog on the map while simultaneously pissing off mapmakers everywhere. But you know what they say -- waiting makes the art grow fonder. Bwa ha ha ha!

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Los Angeles Kings (36.0% playoff-likely) at Anaheim Ducks (0.3% playoff-likely), 7 pm
Jewels From The Crown and Anaheim Calling -- make sure all comments turn green by tomorrow or they'll be pinched!

I tried to go with a "legend of St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland" theme today and came away with okay results. But hey, a skewered winged wheel is always nice, and this cartoon features two of 'em!

You can finish the job, Sharks. :)

Anyways, happy nearly-St-Patty's Day, everyone! Hooray for slain Red Wings! Huzzah!

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Detroit Red Wings (inside) at Anaheim Ducks (outside), 7 pm
Winging It In Motown and Anaheim Calling -- Red/Wild Wing.

Just a lazy cartoon today, as I'm embarrassingly caught towards the end of Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender animated series. Yeah, I'm basically an infant.

But winged octopus makes a re-appearance -- hooray!

In case you're new, the Duck's usual reading material.

Anyways, there's no real BoC Sabotage incentive for the Ducks tonight, but the Kings are comin' on Friday. I'll try to put a little more effort into that one. :)

Prediction: I should be around for game comments tonight -- stop on by! Ducks win for no real reason, but since it's against Detroit it's great.

Go Avatar.

Anaheim Ducks (webfoot) at Colorado Avalanche (bigfoot), 6 pm
Anaheim Calling and Mile High Hockey -- for your traditional one-blog-per-team format.

So I haven't watched the last one-and-a-half Ducks games, but that doesn't mean I've missed any goals! :)

With Anaheim's loss in Dallas, though, the Stars are becoming a near-lock for the playoffs, according to Sports Club Stats' 50/50 method. That means that pretty much two western playoff spots have yet to be claimed, with five teams in the running (sorted by SCS's playoff odds):

It's intriguing -- the Ducks really could ruin things for all of California, as Anaheim has a game remaining against all five teams in the table (two against the Sharks). With some strategically-placed regulation losses (including one tonight) and a couple of big wins when needed, the Ducks could share their misery state-wide!

Here ya go, buddy!

A couple of random items after the jump:

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Anaheim Ducks (Pacific basement) at Dallas Stars (Pacific penthouse), 5 pm
Anaheim Calling and Defending Big D -- Texas-tentialism.

Cartoon archives, what have you got for me today?

As of this morning, Sports Club Stats has the following 50/50 method playoff likelihoods for the BoC teams:

Anaheim Ducks 2.4%
Los Angeles Kings 33.4%
San Jose Sharks 67.0%

So the Chance that everything is going to be okay on this blog = Slim chance that Ducks make playoffs + Chance that all 3 BoC teams miss playoffs = 2.4% + (97.6% * 66.6% * 33.0%) = 23.85%

So keep some hope, Ducks fans! Anaheim is fucked, but there's nearly a 1 in 4 chance that there won't be anybody in this state to gloat about it this summer. C'mon, Ducks and/or Avs and/or Flames! :)

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Anaheim Ducks (12th!) at St. Louis Blues (1st?!), 5 pm
Anaheim Calling and St. Louis Game Time -- plus Rudy and Meg below!

Barely-relevant, bad-pun cartoon, away!

The Ducks have 15 games remaining, and probably have to win about a dozen of them to finish in the top eight. The remainder of the schedule is littered with tough opponents, including two remaining games against this first-place Blues team. And even though Anaheim has shown a phenomenal turnaround under Coach Kirby in calendar year 2012, they've still dropped 3 of their last 5 in regulation.

You know what they say around here -- go drama.

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Anaheim Ducks (7 points out) at Los Angeles Kings (3 points out), 7:30 pm
Anaheim Calling and Jewels From The Crown -- plus Meg has a Sharks Gameday below too!

Image-recycling week continues!

One other time I took a Rudy Kelly request.

A week ago some random Kings blogger named Rudy Kelly sent me an e-mail request:

I don't know if you're busy or anything but would it be possible to get the numbers we did on Jack last year for this season? Kinda want to see if he improved at all before we traded him. If not then no big deal. Thanks!

I was sort of busy (or lazy, I forget?), so I promised I'd get around to it in a day or two, promptly forgot about it, then finally remembered this morning when Rudy ran his post -- go read that. It's a small sample size obviously, but it's pretty damning. Jack Johnson sucks at hockey.

So this morning I decided to get my act together and run the JMFJ Effect test on the Kings' defensemen this season. If you recall from last season, the test compared how each defense partner did at even-strength with JMFJ vs. without JMFJ, and the results were damning there, too -- pretty much everybody had better results without Johnson on the ice. This season's results are tabulated after the jump, but I'll warn you now -- not every defenseman felt the JMFJ Effect to the same degree this go-round.

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Calgary Flames (2 points out) at Anaheim Ducks (7 points out), 7 pm
Matchsticks & Gasoline and Anaheim Calling -- Gary vs. Ifornia.

Oof -- just as the Ducks were getting back in sight of the western bubble, two regulation losses in a row. As the (fucking) non-swearers like to say, double hockey sticks.

That's the first time the Ducks have dropped consecutive regulation decisions in calendar year 2012, and I forgot how shitty it feels. Well, more accurately, the last time the Ducks were losing regularly, I wasn't feeling much at all. So congrats, Ducks! I'm no longer numb to losing! :)

But I am still lazy, so here's a recycled cartoon from two years ago that strangely still sort of works:

I don't even remember what Kurri milestone Selanne was chasing in March 2010, but nowadays it's the career points pursuit. Teemu sits just 3 points shy of Jari for 19th overall -- Finnsanity!

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Buffalo Sabres (bovine) at Anaheim Ducks (avian), 7 pm
Die By The Blade and Anaheim Calling -- we're not in Finland anymore, Toto.

Happy Leap Day, everyone! Here's a fun cartoon from the archives that's pertinent to tonight's opponent:

I'd have drawn something new, except I'm pulling double duty over here -- I have no idea what Sleza's been up to lately (whatever it is, I'm almost certain she's accomplishing it at a much improved rate), but our go-to source on Teemu Selanne blog translations has fallen behind, so I'm going to do the noble thing and give the last two entries a try, courtesy of Google Translate. If nothing else, it'll help us better appreciate the benefits of human translation -- hurry back, Sleza! :)

Sleza (or any Finnish readers) -- if you want to fix or elaborate on anything Google has translated, go for it in the comments.

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Anaheim Ducks (6 points out) at Colorado Avalanche (2 points out), 6 pm
Anaheim Calling and Mile High Hockey -- are you a buyer or a seller? Go to your local grocery store and find out!

I'm too busy following twitter-insanity and TSN television this morning to effectively pen a new cartoon, but here's two cartoons from last summer that are trade-based.

It's tough to say what the BoC teams will be up to today -- Ducks are playing so well that they might do nothing, Kings have already made their splash with Jeff Carter (now we're just waiting to see if Dean files a grievance), and the Sharks? They might get stuck doing nothing since they only know how to trade with Minnesota.

If anything happens on the BoC trade front, though, we'll try to "break" the "news" "here"! :)

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Chicago Blackhawks (top-eight) at Anaheim Ducks (top-thirteen), 4 pm
Second City Hockey and Anaheim Calling -- how Illinnoying. :)

I don't know if it's happening today, or tomorrow, or some game after that, but some pretty big milestones are coming for Anaheim's favorite Finn:

All-Time NHL/WHL Career Scoring Leaderboard
. . .
19. Jari Kurri -- 1,398 points
20. Luc Robitaille -- 1,394 points
21. Teemu Selanne -- 1,393 points
. . .

Not only would Teemu's next point put him alongside Lucky Luc in the top 20 scorers of all time, but pretty soon he'll be moving past his countryman Jari Kurri as well.

Forget Linsanity -- this is Finnsanity!

Now I know this is probably not terribly thrilling for Kings' fans, and rightfully so -- Robitaille and Kurri have incredible legacies with Los Angeles (yes I know Kurri played a year in Anaheim; that's not what I mean), and it's naturally not going to feel good to see a Ducks living legend pass both of them. But this isn't just your typical Ducks scumbag -- it's Teemu. The Finnish Flash with awesomeness to spare.

So congratulations, Teemu -- you're constantly incredible. But also, congratulations again to Luc and Jari -- you guys were just as awesome. Southern California has been blessed with some of the game's finest scorers and ambassadors over its hockey history, and Teemu's climb up the scoring charts offers us a reminder of just how lucky we SoCal fans have been.

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Anaheim Ducks (fowl feather) at Carolina Hurricanes (foul weather), 4 pm
Anaheim Calling and Canes Country -- two non-destinations for Rick Nash.

I had a blogger's dilemma today -- should I write a post with any content in it, or should I draw a bad-pun cartoon? You know what I picked:

Oh, whatever -- go to Puck Daddy if you want to read up on the Blue Jackets' probable asking price for Nash. Good player, but I'm glad Anaheim's not in that sweepstakes. Barstool Bob's job is to find Rick Nashes before they make $7.8M per year, not afterwards.

But still, it's kind of fun to watch the wary bidding process unfold -- go deadline drama! :)

Prediction: I'm only going to be around for the early part of today's game -- stop on by! Ducks 3, Canes 1. Goals by Rooster, Top Possum, and Daft Pig.

Go Ducks.

Anaheim Ducks (above .500) at Tampa Bay Lightning (at .500), 4:30 pm
Anaheim Calling and Raw Charge -- my 3-year-old nephew is a huge Lightning (McQueen) fan.

I'm recycling cartoons today for a couple reasons. One, I spent a lot of time making data tables that you'll get sick of fast, and two, I also got caught up yesterday arguing with Ducks fans in the comments of this AC post, mostly about whether the Ducks should trade Lubo (uh, nope!) but also whether the Ducks should later this summer trade everything they own for the rights to negotiate with Shea Weber (uh, nope!).

In fact, from a Ducks perspective I'm not terribly interested in this trade deadline at all. Anaheim probably should be "sellers", but enough is finally going right on the ice with this team that I'm happy enough to see how this roster plays out, UFAs and all. I think we owe this to two individuals, mainly -- there were many points in this season where Teemu Selanne could have barged his way out the door, but he didn't -- let's not pull the rug out from his potentially last season just as things are rolling.

And then there's Bruce Boudreau -- we really ought to give him full opportunity to coach the hell out of this team. Because that's exactly what he's been doing.

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Anaheim Ducks (avian) at Florida Panthers (feline), 3 pm
Anaheim Calling and Litter Box Cats -- Happy Hockey Day, America! / Happy Every Day, Canada!

I really wish we played the Panthers more -- I could do lots with a drawable team name like that. For instance...

An Earl Sleek Instant Classic.

Indeed, as of this morning, the Panthers sit with a 2-point cushion atop the Southeast Division, but they'd best hold onto that perch -- the Washington Capitals are second in the Southeast Division but ninth place in the eastern conference. I'd write more, but it's Sunday, and I don't want to spoil this sweet Looney Tunes tribute more than I have to. So...

T- t- th- th- that's all, folks!

Prediction: I've got a fairly busy day, but I will be home in time for puck drop -- stop on by for game comments. Sufferin' succotash! Tweety Ducks 3, Sylvester Cats 1. Goals by Porky Perry, Bugs Beleskey, and Yosemite Saku.

Go Ducks.