Hockey Newsletter - Apr. 12, 2000
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be
When the NHL first expanded from six teams to 12 (was that really 32 years ago? Egads!), the league brass did a very strange thing. The original six were put in one conference and the newbies were put in another. So come the Stanley Cup Finals, some poor expansion team would have to face the best of the 6 and be humiliated night after night coast to coast to coast.
In 1968, 1969 and 1970, that poor team was the St. Louis Blues. Led by Red Berenson, the Plager brothers, Glenn Hall, Jacques Plante and coach Scotty Bowman, the Blues went down 4-straight each time -- twice to Montreal, and once to Boston (remember the Bobby Orr flying goal?) Mercifully, the league decided to change the current divisions and save St. Louis from further embarrassment.
Fast forward to the year 2000. St. Louis has come out on top of their conference for the first time since those early days. But this time, they're IN the strongest conference. And while that's a good thing, it could also lead to heartbreak again. True, they beat out the best in the entire NHL to win the President's Trophy, but they will have to face any or almost all of Detroit, Dallas and Colorado just to get into the finals.
Yikes!
Now we're not here to make predictions or anything, and we're not supposed to out-and-out cheer for any one team, but for old-times sake, we're going to cross our little CTVSportsnet.com fingers and hope that Chris Pronger and his mates won't be singing the blues in June.
Meanwhile, in the East...
What were the Flyers thinking? Couldn't they have thrown a couple of games at the end of the season so that they wouldn't have to face Buffalo in the first round? Don't they remember 1998 when the Sabres trashed their sorry asses even with Lindros in the lineup? Dominik Hasek is on another tear, winning Player of the Week honours for the last week of the season. Why would anyone want to face that momentum in the first round? We're sure the New Jersey Devils were more than happy to finish in 4th place rather than 1st on that last day of the regular season. In playoff history, Bure isn't quite as overwhelming as the Dominator.
CTVSportsnet.com's Steve Milton certainly has something to say about the first round matchups:
"The primary ingredients of an upset pie include a goaltender who can't or won't be beaten; coming into the first round on a roll; success on the road; strong penalty killing; an attractive power play and a favourable season's record against your opponent.
None of the lower-half teams in this year's playoffs have all of the above, but Buffalo has the first four of the six, and Philly -- sans Lindros and avec a rookie goalie -- must be a little worried. Make that a lot worried."
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(retired link)