Each year, more so than any other league, there is a steady stream of upsets and unexpected runs in the NHL playoffs. One might have thought the high point of this parity was 2010 when all four first round series in the East were won by the lower seed and the 7th seeded Flyers eventually defeated the 8th seeded Montreal Canadians in the Conference Finals. However it appears that 2012 has topped this in terms of absurdity. This spring has caused even the most knowledgeable of hockey fans look clueless. Both of the sexy picks to win the cup(Pittsburgh and Vancouver) were eliminated in the first round, each in a manner that caused even more surprise. Vancouver has absolutely dominated by the seemingly easily beatable Kings while Pittsburgh played possibly the most ridiculous series in NHL history against Philly. The high scoring excitement was matched only by the incredible violence of the series. In addition both 2 seeds were eliminated as the upstart Blues were swept by Los Angeles and the defending Champion Bruins fell to Washington in seven. Hell, Washington winning a series and pushing the Rangers was a suprise in itself....and they won by limiting the minutes of their most potent score(Ovechkin)? I Could go on for days about all the weird nuances of this post season but in interest of time, i'll stick to the four teams that are still around.
New York: The only thing that about their playoff run that has suprised people is the difficulty they've had putting Ottawa and Washington away. However people should be a tad more suprised. New York was hardly a Cup favorite prior to the start of the season. While they landed the top free agent prize (Brad Richards), they weren't among those being discussed as cup favorites. They barely snuck into the playoffs last year as an 8th seed and were immeadiatly eliminated by Washington who went on to be swept. The Rangers have no star power and have had trouble scoring all year. While Lundqvist may be the best goalie in the NHL, relying on him was never good enough for a cup run, until this year. It appears as though the team has fully gelled under third year coach John Tortarella and really bought into his gritty philosophy. Despite all this, New York still qualifies as a suprise team, if only slightly.
New Jersey: For years this wouldn't have been a surprise in the slightest. The Devils are one of the league's model franchises but recently they haven't been as successful.Suprisingly this is their first conference final appearance in nine years. In fact it had been five years since they made the second round. Not only did they miss the playoffs last year, they were the worst team in the league for most of the year. After a furious run that ended up in 9th place last year, the Devils re-entered the playoff picture this year due to the re-emergence of veterans Pat Elias and Martin Brodeur, the unexpected contributions of role players such as David Clarkson and Petr Sykora, and the vast improvement of 2010 free agent signee Ilya Kovalchuk. Despite all this improvement they were still 4th in their own division. While New York's unexpected run at 1st in the East was heavily discussed, the Penguins were supposed to be shoo-wins to take home the cup. Even Phillygot some attention as a contender after their bold offseason acquisiton of Goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov. New Jersey was recognized as good all year, but not good enough to compete in their own division. While all eyes were focused on the Rangers holding on to the top spot and Crosby's return, the Devils quietly finished the season 11-4-1 with Stanley Cup and playoff experience all over the roster. Perhaps this shouldn't have been as much of a surprise.
Phoenix: Forget that they have one of the most respected coaches in the league and that they've been in the playoffs the past two years. This team has not had an owner in 3 years. Take some time to digest that. They don't have an owner....and they're in the conference finals. Now we can consider that despite being respected, Dave Tippett has a tendency to lose in the 1st round (four consecutive times), the team lost all star goalie Ilya Bryzgalov this offseason(who many perceived to be the catalyst of the team), and that last year's playoff "run" consisted of being swept a Detroit team that went on to lose the next round. After analysts left them for dead in preseason predictions, they didn't do much to change anyone's mind by early February. After a 21-7-5 run to end the year; they still needed to win the Division to barely sneak in the playoffs. Perhaps what suprises people has less to do with that all of that and more to do with the fact that more the most part people were unfamiliar with Phoenix's team. The Raffi Torres's and Keith Yandles of the world often go unnoticed in the mainstream hockey scene. Overall Phoenix is a suprise for three main reasons: 1. People aren't familiar enough with the team to recognize their potential. 2. Analysts tended to focus on what they lost instead of what they still had/added. 3. Mike Smith turned out to be unfuckingbelievable. Who wudda thunk it?
Los Angeles:Every so often an 8th seed makes a deep run and a little less often a team makes a dominating playoff run but never have the two been combined......until now. I can't begin to explain how incredibly strange this is. I've watched playoff hockey since 1999 and i've never seen a team start the post season 11-1 or even anything close to that. So the first team I saw do it was the 8th seeded Kings who many thought were the most likely canidate for a sweep in the first round. Looking back it's clear to see that Los Angeles was a tad underrated by the average pundit. They're a team with one of the league's best goalies in Quick, top playmaking forwards in Anze Kopitar and Dustin Penner, young star defenseman Drew Doughty, and gritty veterans Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, and Dustin Brown. Looking at it that way it seems reasonable to think a team like this could make some noise in the playoffs. However it's ludacris to think any team should start the playoffs 11-1. Hell, it's only been done twice before and those were the 68 and 73 Canadians, some of the greatest teams of all time. LA looks every bit as good as any team in the past few years so perhaps the surprise isn't that they've come this far, but that they were an 8th seed in the first place.
Overall what this postseason teaches us is to look past the few teams making big headlines to see if any other teams have a chance. But even with this we still have very little chance of understanding the absurity that is the NHL playoffs.
Stay Hungry My Friends
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