This is the time of year when you can expect to repeatedly encounter some variation of these words: We’re down to just two teams left standing in the NHL playoffs.
That phrasing always seemed oddly appropriate, since it implies that the rest of the league must be on the ground. And metaphorically speaking, that’s true. By the end of the third round, the floor is littered with failed playoff teams. Some may have collapsed from sheer exhaustion, others are sprawled out after a swift and bruising knockout, and a few are curled up in a little puddle of tears, wondering how it all went so wrong.
So before we move on to praising Boston and Chicago, let’s spend a few minutes picking through three rounds of postseason wreckage. Here are the 14 playoff teams that have been eliminated, ranked in order of how disappointing their playoff runs ultimately were.
I'll add to the chorus that thought Vancouver should have been #1. While Pittsburgh failing to reach the finals certainly qualifies as a major disappointment for a team with that much star power, it wasn't totally unexpected. For all the hype and in spite of their impressive record, concerns about defence and goaltending were raised throughout the year and the Pens were sort of able to gloss over it with a superpowered offence, something they weren't able to do in the playoffs. As you've pointed out on numerous occasions, DGB, defence tends to be what wins hockey games in the modern era.
ReplyDeleteHeck, the Pens didn't even have the best regular season record, so I think people got blinded by all the big names they put on their team and didn't look close enough at the numbers.
Contrast that with Vancouver - one shortened year removed from back-to-back President's Trophies, third in the west (and second was an Anaheim team that many thought was worse than their record) and given the nod at the year's outset as a Stanley Cup favourite and they get swept.
At least last year there was the consolation for Canucks fans that they lost to the eventual champions; here, if Chicago loses, the Vancouver Canucks quite literally could not have had a worse playoff run, being swept by the team that lost to the team that lost to the team that lost to the team that won the cup.