Welcome to the NHL Connect blog page for Willa Ford. Willa Ford burst onto the music scene in the late 1990s. The singer/dancer recently appeared on Dancing with the Stars. She will chronicle the Dallas Stars’ Quest for the Cup, led by her husband, Stars forward Mike Modano.


We’ve handled one big, strong, quick-skating tough team, and now we have another. But this goaltender is up for the Vezina, and they have potentially an even greater set of forwards to throw against our young D.


(I said to Mike this morning, “This goaltender probably isn’t going to like you very much in the next few days and he replied with “He’s a great guy off of the ice, but no, hopefully he isn’t happy with me when this series is over.”)


To top it off, the San Jose arena is one of the loudest and most passionate – I had to change it – crowds that I’ve ever seen in person. It worries me, but for some reason Mike loves it. He said he hopes they boo him, he hopes they give it to his goaltender and his team and his teammates because it drives him; he’s pretty excited about San Jose, and he thinks the games are going to be a lot of fun to play in.


For me, there are two things to look at in this series: first is the goaltending, but it always comes down to that doesn’t it? It’s weird because in every game, you have a hero and a goat – I mean look at the stats, the goaltender is the only player on the team credited with either the W or the L.


I believe in Turco, his wife is one of my best friends; they’re good all-around people and he wants it so bad for his team and the fans and the city and I think that he’s going to deliver on all of the promise of his last two playoff series. He’s been phenomenal, and even the biggest of his doubters has to be able to see how dominant he’s been lately.


The second thing is, obviously, the offense of the Sharks versus the defense of the Stars. Mike and Stu Barnes and a couple players who were rotated on their line will have to be good defensively again, that was working in the Anaheim series.


In fact, whatever they did in Anaheim hopefully they work on and improve upon it and continue to do more of the same. Hopefully they don’t change things up, because why would you?


If something is working, then let it work again. I believe that Anaheim and San Jose are very similar teams, so it’s almost a good thing that we played Anaheim in the first round and now we get the Sharks.


There is also the fact that for this game, Dallas has had a little extra time off. Now, you can argue whether that is good or bad, but without getting too far into it, I believe that the effect was a good one on the Stars.


In the case of Mike especially, with the layoff, it’s going to help. He gets time to regroup, to heal up, to prepare for another long and grinding playoff round.


They got one day completely off between this series and the last, and he basically laid on the couch, went out and hit some golf balls, came home and ate a big, healthy meal – and then the next morning they went right back to work.

I feel really good about this series, I don’t know why. Maybe I think that if we could beat Anaheim, and we’re playing another team like that – that big strong fast and aggressive sort of team – then we have a good, solid playbook, a strong goaltender, and a team that is getting healthier, more confident, and more playoff-ready with each passing game.


And that sounds like a recipe for success.