that "superstar" forward group just got swept by an expansion team
They had one superstar and 2 other guys playing like superstars, neither of whom they have anymore. I never even called them a superstar forward group either, so there's no need to get all insecure and defensive.
As a fan of a team who understands the importance of a guy like Vlasic, I'd thought you guys maybe more than any other fanbase would appreciate what a guy like Dumoulin brings to the table. A team can do much worse than have Dumoulin on your top pairing.
(No, I'm not saying Dumoulin is on par with Vlasic. I'm simply referring to a guy being great at the parts of the game that don't necessarily show up in the stat sheet)
Plenty of teams have a defenseman worse than Dumolin on their top pair (hell, SJ technically has Paul Martin on their top pair, though he is #4 in TOI), but Dumolin was the ice time leader for Pittsburgh.
On top of that, I know that you didn't compare the two, but Vlasic is just flat out on a different level from Dumolin. In his last 6 playoff series, Vlasic has been hard matched against Kopitar, F.Forsberg, Tarasenko, Crosby, McDavid, and now Getzlaf. In those 6 series, those players have 7 goals and 10 assists in 34 games. (And off the top of my head, at least 3 of those goals were in garbage time.) These aren't their numbers at 5V5 or when Vlasic is on the ice, these are their numbers as a whole in the entire series. Those 6 superstars combined have scored at a 17 goal, 24 assist per season rate against the Sharks. Effectively, you could say that against Vlasic, the very best players on playoff teams suddenly score at a rate that is weak for a 2nd line player.
I think defensemen like Dumolin are very effective, but the Penguins were getting scored on by the other team's top players quite often. Had the Pens had Vlasic in Dumolin's spot, maybe they wouldn't have let guys like Ovechkin, Oshie, and Hoffman score the way that they did.
2016 was more dominant, but 2017 was more impressive imo. How many teams can lose their #1 dman and goalie heading into the playoffs, completely shape shift their style, and still go on to win the cup?
It depends on how you define impressive. They went to game 7 OT against a terrible Ottawa team and were mostly outplayed in every series except that Ottawa series. It's definitely more impressive forCrosby, Malkin, Kessel, and the goalies, who didn't have to (and didn't) put up elite superstar numbers to win, but that 2016 team impressed me a lot more because they just flat out dominated the best Sharks team in the history of the franchise in that 2016 SCF.