NASHVILLE — Cam Fowler figured they would run out of gas. They had to. No one can sprint up and down the ice — always sending two forwards deep on the forecheck, always blitzing defencemen up in the neutral zone, always going full speed — for 60 minutes.
“I think it's hard to sustain,” the Anaheim Ducks blueliner said Wednesday. “It takes a lot of effort to play that hard.”
Most teams, even in an era of the 40-second shift, pace themselves. If they don’t, the tank empties in the third period and players start to tire.