2002 Playoffs: Who Wins the Cup...

[Buck Aki Berg]

...if this doesn't happen?



To refresh memories, this occurred in game three of the ECQF between Detroit and Vancouver. The eighth-seeded Canucks took the first two games in Detroit, with game three tied at one apiece in the final minute of the second period when Lidstrom found the back of the net from 89 feet out. That goal proved to be the winner (and was predicted instantly - and correctly - to change the dynamic of the series), and Detroit would proceed to win the three subsequent games, then the three subsequent series, to take the Cup.

Without this goal, do the President's Trophy winners get out of the first round?
If not, who faces Carolina in June (bearing in mind that the second round matchups would be Colorado/Vancouver and St. Louis/San Jose)?

Click to read more...

 

[Psycho Papa Joe]

Even though it was a bad goal, there is no guarantee the Nucks win that game.

That said, if you remove Detroit out of the equation, IMO the Avalanche would be the heavy favourites out of the remaining teams. I just don't see the Sharks, Nucks, Blues or Canes beating them.

 

[BraveCanadian]

Bad goals happen to all teams/goalies from time to time.

I have a hard time believing that one softie was the reason the Canucks lost the next 3 in row.

 

[tony d]

Yeah, I think Colorado would have repeated as champs.

 

[silkyjohnson50]

Assuming that Detroit gets knocked out, Colorado would have to be the overwhelming favorite. Outside of the disasterous game 7, that series was a battle. Colorado actually had a chance to close out Detroit at home in game 6, but Hasek stood on his head and the rest is history.

In addition, Forsberg was playing out of his mind and could have taken out any other team not named Detroit IMO.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Assuming that Detroit gets knocked out, Colorado would have to be the overwhelming favorite. Outside of the disasterous game 7, that series was a battle.

It wasn't a battle so much as it was survival; Detroit soundly outplayed Colorado the entire series, outshooting them by about 8 shots per game. More than that, Colorado barely made it past Los Angeles and San Jose, depending on two Game 7 shutouts from Roy.

Carolina would've had an excellent chance at besting Colorado in the Stanley Cup Finals, because outside of Forsberg and Roy, the team really wasn't playing all that well.

 

[canucksfan]

The big line for the Canucks did nothing that series outside of game 2.

The goals of all of the games are on youtube

 

[silkyjohnson50]

It wasn't a battle so much as it was survival; Detroit soundly outplayed Colorado the entire series, outshooting them by about 8 shots per game. More than that, Colorado barely made it past Los Angeles and San Jose, depending on two Game 7 shutouts from Roy.

Carolina would've had an excellent chance at besting Colorado in the Stanley Cup Finals, because outside of Forsberg and Roy, the team really wasn't playing all that well.

Detroit has consistently been a team that outshoots opponents. Watching that series you never got the sense that Detroit was soundly outplaying Colorado. Games 2-5 were all 1-goal games and game 6 was a tightly played 2-0 game, with the difference being Hasek.

You can say that outside of Forsberg and Roy that the team wasn't playing all that well, but Forsberg and Roy were Colorado two best players, so it's not like it was a couple of grinders that were carrying Colorado. Those two players alone had the ability to single-handedly beat opponents, and outside of Detroit, i'm confident that they would have that year.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Detroit has consistently been a team that outshoots opponents. Watching that series you never got the sense that Detroit was soundly outplaying Colorado. Games 2-5 were all 1-goal games and game 6 was a tightly played 2-0 game, with the difference being Hasek.

You can say that outside of Forsberg and Roy that the team wasn't playing all that well, but Forsberg and Roy were Colorado two best players, so it's not like it was a couple of grinders that were carrying Colorado. Those two players alone had the ability to single-handedly beat opponents, and outside of Detroit, i'm confident that they would have that year.

Oh, no, I really did get the impression that Detroit dominated, and I've watched that series no less than three times over the years (I VHSed it). The games were generally one-goal games, because Roy almost always kept things close for his team that season. Consider Game 3 in Denver, Detroit doubled up on shots 42-21 and won on a deflected shot off, I believe, Skoula. Detroit was beating on the door so hard that in retrospect, it was only inevitable that it'd break down for at least one game... just so happened to be Game 7. That series should've been over in five if not for some clutch hockey by the usual suspects; the difference in the end not being Hasek, but instead a 20-man effort against a 6 or 7-man effort (didn't mean to throw Drury, de Vries, or Reinprecht under the bus).

 

[TheGoldenJet]

It wasn't a battle so much as it was survival; Detroit soundly outplayed Colorado the entire series, outshooting them by about 8 shots per game. More than that, Colorado barely made it past Los Angeles and San Jose, depending on two Game 7 shutouts from Roy.

Carolina would've had an excellent chance at besting Colorado in the Stanley Cup Finals, because outside of Forsberg and Roy, the team really wasn't playing all that well.

This is revisionist history at its finest.

The series was back and forth all the way until game 7. Colorado was always threatening to win and even pulled off a huge game 5 win to go up 3-2 in that series.

Shots have very little bearing in Red Wing series in general, particularly in that era. The Wings outshot LA in 2001, Anaheim in 2003 (where they were swept), and Calgary in 2004 and were soundly beaten in all those series. If anything one could argue the Wings played worse when they took that many shots.

 

[Kirikanoir]

Ah yes the moment that killed Dan Cloutier`s career in Vancouver a moment that will live in infamy forever.

Detroit in spite of finishing 1st won only once in its last 10 games of the season. They faced Vancouver the hottest team in the league who went 26-9-3-3 in the second half of the season.

The Canucks won Game one on a OT winner by Henrik Sedin, and then scored 4 of their five goals on 19 shots in Game 2. Dominik Hasek was being booed by the home crowd by the end of Game 2 and one could literally see the frustration on the Detroit Players.

Everything was going Vancouver`s way and they were heading home up 2-0 and clearly had Detroit rattled.

And then Cloutier has one of the biggest gaffs in Canuck history, and gave Detroit new life and the series and Cloutier`s career went down hill after wards.

What makes it so frustrating is they had Detroit right were they wanted them. I will always believe if Cloutie does not meltdown and Vancouver gets decent goaltending the rest of the series, that they would have got at least a split in Vancouver, and been up at least 3-1. With how well they were playing there is IMO no way Detroit comes back to win that series.

To the question at hand Colorado vs Vancouver and St. Louis vs San Jose. Tough call, anyone of the four could have won. I certainly don`t think Colorado was unbeatable. San Jose took them to seven games and lost Game seven 1-0. Given the roll Vancouver would have been on by that point I`m picking them to get by Colorado in series 2 and to beat San Jose in the Conference final.

 

[Kirikanoir]

Just had this interesting thought to add. We`re talking about who would have come out of the West in Vancouver knocks off Detroit. But what about the East. If Montreal does not meltdown down in the third period of Game 4 of the second round against Carolina they are up 3-1 in that series. Do they then go on to win the series and play Toronto in the conference final? Do they keep their cup win every decade streak alive?

Or does Toronto finally end their long Cup final drought, and perhaps even win their first Cup since expansion?

 

[quoipourquoi]

This is revisionist history at its finest.

The series was back and forth all the way until game 7. Colorado was always threatening to win and even pulled off a huge game 5 win to go up 3-2 in that series.

Shots have very little bearing in Red Wing series in general, particularly in that era. The Wings outshot LA in 2001, Anaheim in 2003 (where they were swept), and Calgary in 2004 and were soundly beaten in all those series. If anything one could argue the Wings played worse when they took that many shots.

So now the Red Wings were soundly beaten by Anaheim in 2003? I don't think you understand the difference between outplaying and winning. Detroit badly outplayed Anaheim, but lost four straight because Giguere did what Roy didn't. It's not that shots had very little bearing, so much as it is that Detroit consistently ran into a hot goalie: Roy in 2000, Potvin in 2001, Giguere in 2003, Kiprusoff in 2004, Roloson in 2006, Giguere in 2007. Four of those goalies made the Finals, and the other two took the WC Finalist to 7 games. Detroit controlled the flow in every one of those series, all losses.

It wasn't back and forth with Colorado in 2002 either. It was just forth, and with a little resistance before the Avalanche succumbed. Yeah, they won three games, but outside of Game 4, they didn't have a terribly strong top-to-bottom game. Even in Game 5, they shouldn't have reasonably come out of that overtime with a win, if not for some magic/luck against Shanahan. Colorado squeaked out three one-goal wins. Detroit had one one-goal win (42 shots to 21), two two-goal wins, and one in which they won by a touchdown. It only looks close in retrospect because of individual efforts by Roy and the second-line that stretched it to a seven-game series, but no, it was not a great battle of equally matched teams; Colorado wasn't a very good team.

 

[Blades of Glory]

It wasn't back and forth with Colorado in 2002 either. It was just forth, and with a little resistance before the Avalanche succumbed. Yeah, they won three games, but outside of Game 4, they didn't have a terribly strong top-to-bottom game. Even in Game 5, they shouldn't have reasonably come out of that overtime with a win, if not for some magic/luck against Shanahan. Colorado squeaked out three one-goal wins. Detroit had one one-goal win (42 shots to 21), two two-goal wins, and one in which they won by a touchdown. It only looks close in retrospect because of individual efforts by Roy and the second-line that stretched it to a seven-game series, but no, it was not a great battle of equally matched teams; Colorado wasn't a very good team.

Colorado ran out of gas. They had played deep into June 2001 en route to winning the Cup, and it took a significant toll on their star players during the following season. Joe Sakic and Patrick Roy carried them into the playoffs, but Sakic especially was physically spent when April rolled around. Sakic, Rob Blake, and Adam Foote played major roles in the 2002 Olympics for Canada, and those extra games, coupled with the 23 playoff games they played in 2001, had them exhausted by the time the 2002 playoffs rolled around. The fact that the Avalanche reached Game 7 of the Conference Finals is a testament to Sakic and Peter Forsberg, who had returned rested for the playoffs, having the ability to put a team on their back. Forsberg led the playoffs in points while Sakic finished third, despite playing only three rounds.

Still, you are kidding yourself if you think any other team in hockey had a chance to beat the Red Wings. If Forsberg, Sakic, and Roy couldn't do it, no one was going to.

 

[Buck Aki Berg]

Just had this interesting thought to add. We`re talking about who would have come out of the West in Vancouver knocks off Detroit. But what about the East. If Montreal does not meltdown down in the third period of Game 4 of the second round against Carolina they are up 3-1 in that series. Do they then go on to win the series and play Toronto in the conference final? Do they keep their cup win every decade streak alive?

Or does Toronto finally end their long Cup final drought, and perhaps even win their first Cup since expansion?

These are actually some interesting questions that I never thought to ask (mostly because I had blocked Montreal's collapse from my memory! ). If Montreal keeps it up and takes out Carolina, I think the ensuing conference finals could have been one for the ages (if for no other reason than that it would have been the first time in a lot of people's lifetimes that the most storied of rivals have met in the playoffs).

Between an eighth-seeded Montreal team playing over their heads and a Toronto team coming off two series that had gone seven games apiece, I have to pick Montreal representing the East. Consensus seems to be that if Vancouver meets Colorado in the second round, the winner of that series takes out San Jose/St. Louis and goes to the finals. Given the storylines for Montreal/Toronto, I think they wouldn't have stood a chance against the Western Conference representatives.

 

[CloudReader]

Just had this interesting thought to add. We`re talking about who would have come out of the West in Vancouver knocks off Detroit. But what about the East. If Montreal does not meltdown down in the third period of Game 4 of the second round against Carolina they are up 3-1 in that series. Do they then go on to win the series and play Toronto in the conference final? Do they keep their cup win every decade streak alive?

Extremely unlikely looking back at the roster, as back then, the rich perennial contenders were all loaded:

Yannick Perreault - Saku Koivu - Donald Audette
Gino Odjick (lol) - Doug Gilmour - Oleg Petrov
Chad Kilger? - Joey Juneau - Andreas Dackell
Bill Lindsay - Jim Dowd - Sergei Berezin (benched)

Karl Dykhuis - Patrice Brisebois
Sheldon Souray - Stephane Quintal
Andrei Markov - Craig Rivet

Jose Theodore
Jeff Hackett or Stephane Fiset

The Habs had lost their best offensive player in Zednik, but Gilmour remained a clutch performer, Koivu came back energized, and Theodore was regarded as the best that regular season. Maybe they could have gotten past the Leafs, who were missing Sundin (no 1 center was Alyn Mccauley), but I doubt they could have beaten the Red Wings.

One play I will never forget during game 7 between Detroit and Colorado: Roy had just been replace by Abeischer and the Red Wings were going on a powerplay. The Wings were one-timing passes to each other so fast that the Avalanche defenders literally stood still.

 

[Kirikanoir]

but I doubt they could have beaten the Red Wings.

Well the question of whether Montreal or Toronto could have won was assuming Vancouver finishes the deal and takes out Detroit in the first round.

Obviously if Detroit makes the final they would be favored against whoever they play.

 

[David Bruce Banner]

Yep, that right there is where Cloutier broke his brain. Up to that point he was an above average NHL goalie... after that, not so much so.

An analogy can be made to baseball, where suddenly, a guy can't make a simple throw to second base (Sax, Knoblauch) or hit the plate again (Ankiel, Bibby). They call it "the yips", and for an NHL goalie, it can ruin your career faster than a blown out knee. The worst thing about it, was that the whole Canucks team lost their confidence in him at that moment too (which just made Cloutier's struggles worse), and started playing tentative, safe hockey. Detroit, or any other team worth its salt, will kill a team playing like that.

If the Canucks kept playing like they were right up to that point, I see no reason why they wouldn't have had a good chance at making the finals.

 

[CloudReader]

Well the question of whether Montreal or Toronto could have won was assuming Vancouver finishes the deal and takes out Detroit in the first round.

Obviously if Detroit makes the final they would be favored against whoever they play.

I still don't think so for Montreal given that they snuck into the post season with 88 points, and how they (including Theodore) absolutely collapsed games 5 and 6 versus Carolina. The remaining Western teams weren't push-overs after Detroit and Colorado either. Take St. Louis for example, one of the best scoring lines in hockey Tkachuk - Demitra - Mellanby, plus Dough Weight on the second line, Pronger and MacInnis on the blueline. Also, had the Blues not played Detroit, Pronger could've remained healthy through the post season.

 

[Indrew]

These are actually some interesting questions that I never thought to ask (mostly because I had blocked Montreal's collapse from my memory! ). If Montreal keeps it up and takes out Carolina, I think the ensuing conference finals could have been one for the ages (if for no other reason than that it would have been the first time in a lot of people's lifetimes that the most storied of rivals have met in the playoffs).

Between an eighth-seeded Montreal team playing over their heads and a Toronto team coming off two series that had gone seven games apiece, I have to pick Montreal representing the East. Consensus seems to be that if Vancouver meets Colorado in the second round, the winner of that series takes out San Jose/St. Louis and goes to the finals. Given the storylines for Montreal/Toronto, I think they wouldn't have stood a chance against the Western Conference representatives.

What if Chara doesn't get injured in game 5 against Toronto, and newly inserted Rico Persson doesn't take a 5 minute major for hitting Tie Domi from behind.

 

[Buck Aki Berg]

What if Chara doesn't get injured in game 5 against Toronto, and newly inserted Rico Persson doesn't take a 5 minute major for hitting Tie Domi from behind.

I don't think the memory of that penalty will ever die....

 

[JackSlater]

This is revisionist history at its finest.

The series was back and forth all the way until game 7. Colorado was always threatening to win and even pulled off a huge game 5 win to go up 3-2 in that series.

Colorado was always threatening to win. They were also being outplayed for most of the series. It was infuriating to me.

Shots have very little bearing in Red Wing series in general, particularly in that era. The Wings outshot LA in 2001, Anaheim in 2003 (where they were swept), and Calgary in 2004 and were soundly beaten in all those series. If anything one could argue the Wings played worse when they took that many shots.

I have to disagree with this. Detroit outplayed each of those teams to varying degrees(LA wasn't basly outplayed at all). They also happened to lose to each team. The best team does not always win the series.

Anyway, I still think that Detroit wins that series if that shot did not go in. If Detroit was eliminated the Avalanche were clear favourites. I would probably give St. Louis better odds of winning with Detroit gone than Carolina.

 

[Big Phil]

Keep in mind Colorado did nearly knock off the Red Wings. If Patrick Roy doesn't act like a hot dog in Game 6 who knows. Forsberg was killing the Red Wings as well remember, it was hardly his fault they lost.

But there was nobody who was going to stop the Avs. Detroit nearly didn't.

 

[Kirikanoir]

But there was nobody who was going to stop the Avs. Detroit nearly didn't.

Well I think that is arguable. Colorado barely got past San Jose. If you told San Jose before the game that in Game 7 of a playoff series they would out shoot the home team and only allow their opponents 1 goal, they would have been elated. Nine out of 10 times you hold your opponent to 1 goal you should be celebrating a victory at the end. Unfortunately for San Jose that 10th try was against Patrick Roy.

 

[quoipourquoi]

The fact that the Avalanche reached Game 7 of the Conference Finals is a testament to Sakic and Peter Forsberg, who had returned rested for the playoffs, having the ability to put a team on their back. Forsberg led the playoffs in points while Sakic finished third, despite playing only three rounds.

Sakic definitely had a hand in getting the Avalanche to the WCF, but in the series itself, he didn't have much of a hand in their three wins. In Games 2, 4, and 5; Sakic had a goal and an assist, and was a -2. Forsberg, by contrast, had 7 points on the Avs' 9 goals in those games. Almost all of their losses were a direct result of Forsberg being held off the scoresheet: Only 1 point total in Games 1, 3, 6, and 7.

The series was seemingly on the shoulders of Forsberg and Roy, not Sakic.