from Dave Feschuk of the Toronto Star,

Nobody doubts Chicago’s credentials; the Blackhawks do this like it’s nothing. This is the fifth time in seven seasons they’ve been in the West final — remarkable given their conference’s superior talent pool.

And the Ducks? Over that same seven-season span, they have missed the playoffs twice, lost in the first round another couple of times and been to the conference final just this once. They’ve swung and missed enough that Boudreau has been attempting to frame his team’s best players, Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, as overlooked underdogs.

“Where do we play?” Boudreau was quoted as saying by NHL.com. “If (Getzlaf) was in any of the Eastern cities, everybody would know who (he and Corey Perry) are, and they’d be on national TV an awful lot.”

That’s laughable stuff, of course. That allegedly forgotten man named Perry was voted by members of the media (a good chunk of it Eastern) as winner of the Hart Trophy in 2011. It was only a season ago that Getzlaf finished second in Hart voting to Sidney Crosby. No matter that they play in palm-tree-shrouded obscurity, the hockey world is well aware of Anaheim’s stars.

But the hockey world is also well aware of this: The Ducks have yet to prove themselves as serious Stanley Cup contenders.

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