Rank the Cup Losers From the 2000-09

[BrianNYR]

someone in the HOH forum did this for the 90s, thought it was a good idea.

Lotta underdogs in this decade!

1. 01' Devils
2. 07' Sens
3. 00' Stars
4. 09' Wings
5. 08' Pens
6. 04' Flames
7. 03' Mighty Ducks
8. 06' Oilers
9. 02' Canes
10. 05' No Ones

The '05 No Ones are the biggest underdog of all time. In the years leading up to the 04-05 season, nobody would have ever thought "No One" would be in the Stanley Cup Finals.

 

[bobbyt911]

'09 Wings are a real curates egg. Regular season was underwhelming. We were terrible defensively, I mean truly atrocious. Made worse by the fact Osgood couldn't stop a beach ball. Luckily we had a monster offense which bailed us out night after night. Every game we were either blowing a 2 goal lead in the 3rd period, or coming back from a 2 goal deficit in the 3rd.

Then come the playoffs Osgood went into '08 beast mode. We swept the BJs in round 1, 75% of which was down to Ozzie.
2nd round was the war against the Ducks. Every Wings player involved in that series said it was the toughest series they ever played in.
3rd round we beat Chicago 4-1, but 3 games went to OT, Brian Campbell was like a 4th forward for us, and they weren't really ready to beat a proper team in the playoffs yet.

So onto the finals with Pittsburgh by which point we were crippled with injuries.

Lidstrom - emergency surgery to quite literally save his testicles. Missed 1 game and came back
Ericsson - emergency appendectomy. Missed one game and came back.
Rafalski - separated shoulder and herniated disk
Datsyuk - broken foot. Missed first 4 games of finals, came back as soon as the swelling had gone down enough to get a skate on
Cleary - Double groin tear. Couldn't walk up stairs, but carried on playing.
Lilja - out with concussion
Kopecky - out with broken cheekbone (no loss mind )
Hossa - torn rotator cuff. Had off-season surgery and missed first 3 months of following season.
Holmstrom - no specific injury but so beaten up he talked about retiring, said he didn't think he could put his body through that again.

We got outplayed the first 2 games of the finals, but thankfully we had Fleury in net to give us a 2-0 lead. How we took that series to 7 games I have no idea, we only played well in one of them. That whole playoff run was based on Ozzie's goaltending and heart, grit and will from the players.

TL;DR - the team looked good on paper but never actually played that well.

They weren't great defensively in the regular season (Osgood's poor season didn't help), but in the playoffs they were arguably the best at both ends of the ice.

I think you can argue either, but you can't say "without a doubt" one way or the other.

OT but since were talking bout great serieses you guys remember the 01-02 1st round series between the Leafs and Isles? what a series!! also the Eastern Finals loss to the Canes that year hurt, same with the 99 loss to the Sabres. Both times the Leafs should have won except they were either too injured from previous series(Isles-02) (Flyers-99) or just flat out pooped the bed

 

[bobbyt911]

soo 01-02 Leafs-Isles???