Your unpopular playoff retrospective opinion

[PeE eL DuBoiS]

Looking at past years playoffs, what opinions do you hold that don’t seem to have a ton of support?

I’ll go first of course

Dustin Brown was the true MVP of LA’s 2012 cup run and should have taken the Smythe. Quick was amazing, Kopitar spectacular, but throughout those playoffs Dustin demonstrated to the rest of the team that it was theirs to win. I pretty much expected it.. but still felt a bit jaded on his behalf when they handed it to Quick.

Quick's 2012 playoff performance was incredible, arguably the best in modern goaltending, and Kopitar and Brown would have sooner been awarded Quick's jock strap before receiving his Conn Smythe trophy.

 

[GarlicbreadTB]

Red Wings wins a few more Stanley Cups during the period from 2006-2009 with a different coach than Mike Babcock.

 

[SoupGuru]

There is no formula to winning the Stanley Cup.

 

[themelkman]

In the 2019 Western conference final, the St. Louis Blues deliberately made principle point of contact to the back of San Jose's net with the puck 10 times in games 5 and 6.

They also made sure that heads were the principle point of contact on many hits

 

[Habssince89]

I would argue for Letang getting the Smythe in 2016 but that is really based on the fact that both were more deserving than Crosby that year. I have the same opinion about Kuznetsov in 2018, both Crosby in 2016 and Ovechkin in 2018 were given the Conn Smythe as a legacy award I daresay because, in the minds of some, there might not ever be a chance to give it to them again.

Sid and Ovi were both deserving but it is very clear, in my opinion, that they were not the most deserving players on their respective teams in each of those playoffs.

Thank you! I've argued this for years and Crosby fans always call me a hater. Letang was incredible in that run. Kessel/Letang/Crosby all met that bar to be considered, but I think KL was the top choice.

 

[Video Nasty]

That Ed belfour was as good a playoff goalie as Patrick Roy. I was the biggest Roy fan growing up and you can’t argue the accomplishments, but Belfour not only beat out Roy 2 vezinas to 0 while both were in the league, but belfour beat Roy in the western conference finals twice back to back years. Belfour career playoff save % - .912 Roy - .913

A few things here.

1. Career playoff SV%: Belfour .920 Roy .918, so your core idea briefly gets stronger at surface level value.

2. However, Roy has 108 playoff games from the 1985-1986 through 1992-1993 baked into his stats. Belfour has 37. Roy had 3 deep runs with a .920 or higher SV% during this time frame of extreme scoring. He had 5 such runs at age 30 and beyond, most during the DPE when these percentages were common. It’s a flawed way to compare the two and Belfour doesn’t come out ahead.

3. Roy won the Vezina, his third, in 1991-1992, so it’s 2-1 Belfour under your constraints. We can’t ignore some of Roy’s finest work when considering who is a better playoff goalie just because Belfour wasn’t in the league yet.

4. I think Belfour is fairly underrated. He’s one of my absolute favorites and he was beyond sublime during 3 straight postseasons in Dallas. He doesn’t have as many great runs as Roy and that’s one of many reasons why he’s behind.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

Quick's 2012 playoff performance was incredible, arguably the best in modern goaltending, and Kopitar and Brown would have sooner been awarded Quick's jock strap before receiving his Conn Smythe trophy.

Agreed. For instance you can look at the record and see the Kings swept the Blues, but Quick's heroics kept them in those games when they were rattled, especially the clincher.

 

[Machinehead]

We would have beaten Chicago in 2014.

I respect Chicago but they were just a good matchup for that Rangers team. We all felt that way. On the flipside, out of every team in the league that year, LA was the absolute last team I wanted to see.

The day of game 7, I went to the Six Flags in New Jersey. I'm on the bus ride home and the Hawks are up 2-0. I sat there and said to myself "holy shit, we're gonna win the Stanley Cup."

And then, of course, Chicago blew the lead and Alec Martinez scored on like five deflections. I knew the run was over as soon as the puck hit the back of the net.

I don't know how hot of a take it actually is as the playoffs has everything to do with matchups, but a lot of people treated it like we would get swept by either team winning the WCF. We liked the Chicago matchup.

 

[Realgud]

Anaheim in 2009 is one of the best 8th seed in recent memory even though they got eliminated early. They started by eliminating the 1st seed (San Jose) in 6 games and they then lost to the 2nd seed (Detroit) in the 2nd round in 7 games and by only one goal. The Getzlaf + Perry + Ryan line was one of the scariest line I've seen and Hiller in net was godlike with almost double the second place goalie in GSAA numbers despite playing only 13 total games.

I was so relieved when Cleary scored the last goal of the series in the last few minutes of the third. It really felt like Anaheim was about to pull another upset and honestly I felt like no other team would be able to stop them if they ended up winning.

 

[Surrounded By Ahos]

A general one that I tend to be alone on an island about:

The fanatical tribalism of hockey/sports in general is by far the worst and most insufferable thing about following the game (which itself is a blast), and people who take this stuff seriously enough to be as emotionally affected by it as they often are (or worse yet, act like they're owed/entitled to something from the organizations due to their years of investment, or characterize fans of other teams as just about anything dismissive) are silly and ridiculous people.

I get that to some degree, that's intended to be the whole point of all this, and it's clearly encouraged and marketed that way by the organizations, but it's one of the things about it that I find stupid and merely tolerate rather than embrace or enjoy in any way.

That's not exclusive to playoffs, but playoffs sure do bring out the worst of it.

I'm right there with you on this one. People get 'their' team wrapped up so much in their identity, they take anybody talking smack about it as a personal insult. If my team beats your team, it means I'm a better person than you, because my team is better than your team. If my team loses, I'm going to be mad about it all night and potentially fight somebody, even though the score of a f***ing hockey game has minimal actual impact on my day to day life. It's exhausting.


(I realize I don't have too much of a leg to stand on here with my 15+ years and 20k+ posts on this website)

 

[algernon]

I'm right there with you on this one. People get 'their' team wrapped up so much in their identity, they take anybody talking smack about it as a personal insult. If my team beats your team, it means I'm a better person than you, because my team is better than your team. If my team loses, I'm going to be mad about it all night and potentially fight somebody, even though the score of a f***ing hockey game has minimal actual impact on my day to day life. It's exhausting.


(I realize I don't have too much of a leg to stand on here with my 15+ years and 20k+ posts on this website)

Pump those numbers up, ROOK.

 

[Ignatius]

Thank you! I've argued this for years and Crosby fans always call me a hater. Letang was incredible in that run. Kessel/Letang/Crosby all met that bar to be considered, but I think KL was the top choice.

Back in 2009 there were some people who were arguing that Crosby should have won the Conn Smythe over Malkin. I definitely feel like he was worthy of the award but honestly Malkin's production during that playoff run was historically exceptional to the point to where he could not be denied that award in my opinion and apparently in the opinion of the overwhelming supermajority. Malkin single handedly torched Carolina in the ECF and turned career bottom sixer Max Talbot into a Pittsburgh legend.

2017 Cup Run Sidney Crosby is an all-time, all-around truly marvelous player performance. The Penguins do not make it out of the second round if he was not as ridiculously good as he was that year, I mean no chance whatsoever that they beat the Capitals without him playing at the level he did.

 

[Dead Coyote]

There is no formula to winning the Stanley Cup.

IF YourGoals > TheirGoals Then
Win StanleyCup()
Else {
Lose
}

 

[Avsfan1921]

There is no formula to winning the Stanley Cup.

Get to 16 w’s before anyone else?

 

[NOTENOUGHRYJOTHINGS]

Yes if Toronto was a western team you would see Reilly dunking on McDavid and Draisatl or Mackinnon and Rantanen every year.

And it would be downright embarrassing to see guys like Makar or Heskainen feebly try to shut down Marner in a 7 game series.

Nah I meant now. If Toronto was a western team going against the likes of Colorado, Vegas, Dallas, Edmonton, Anaheim, San Jose. I feel they'd match up with all of them perfectly and most likely could have lots of conference finals to SCF experience on them by now. Who knows about Matthews and Marner and their ability to perform against those teams, but this whole era/narrative of choking probably may have been wiped away or would've been non-existant earlier against those early western matchups.

Doesn't matter cuz the Leafs got to beat the best to be the best either way.

 

[Nemesis Prime]

Crosby shouldn't have won either Smythe.

2016 should've been Kessel, 2017 should've been Malkin's second.

 

[HanSolo]

While this year I don't bother defending the cap gymnastics this year cause Hertl and Hanifin are huge adds, last year the LTIR shenanigans weren't as huge a benefit for Vegas as people make it out to be. Yeah they had a lot of money in excess salary but a lot of it was in guys like Quick who didn't play a single minute of the playoffs or Blueger who played like two games as a depth guy. The only real add was Barbashev and with him in the lineup, and taking out the rest of the press box jockeys, Vegas was either under or just barely over the cap.

Might be more unpopular with some Ducks fans, but Niedermayer didn't deserve the Conn Smythe in 2007 as much as McDonald or Getzlaf. That year it felt like there were so many guys who were essential to the cup win that they just gave it to the captain cause they couldn't decide on one guy.

This one will be really unpopular with Habs fans, but the Habs last run to the Finals was a huge fluke that came from the Habs cheesing every series by playing like 85% defense with neutral zone trapping and near full collapse to rely on Price making the stops the few times their opponents could penetrate their boring ass defensive systems. And no, it's not sour grapes over Vegas losing the conference finals, they barely eked by Minnesota and Vancouver that year playing way too predictable and uncreative offense. It was a perfect springboard for Montreal's cheese defense to land them in the Finals. Vegas deserved to lose but the way Montreal got as far as they did was annoying.

Mixed up my playoffs. They barely eked by Minnesota and Colorado.

 

[EichHart]

The Sabres would have won the 99 cup if they didn’t allow that obvious no goal in game 6 stand. The very next year they changed the ruling, therefore solidifying the obvious decision that it really wasn’t a good goal.

 

[Iggys Dome]

Carolina winning in 06 was the flukiest fluke to ever fluke

Even as a Flames fan, Oilers win that series easily with Roloson.

They needed Buffalo to literally lose every single one of their top 4 defensemen to even make it to the finals.

Worst cup winning team of the salary cap era.

 

[Leksand]

Quick's 2012 playoff performance was incredible, arguably the best in modern goaltending, and Kopitar and Brown would have sooner been awarded Quick's jock strap before receiving his Conn Smythe trophy.

I don’t realize Quick winning the CS was controversial. I thought it was more the one for Justin Williams. (I’m a Kopitar fan boy and wish he had a CS).

 

[paragon]

Carolina winning in 06 was the flukiest fluke to ever fluke

Even as a Flames fan, Oilers win that series easily with Roloson.

They needed Buffalo to literally lose every single one of their top 4 defensemen to even make it to the finals.

Worst cup winning team of the salary cap era.

What makes you think your opinion is unpopular?

 

[Leksand]

Don’t know if it’s controversial, but I really don’t have a problem with the Conn Smythe choices having an element of life time achievement award / generally the biggest star of the team / he deserves some recognition. It’s not in the award criteria, but I’m fine with that.

Concretely, in 2018 Kuznetsov had a very strong case, but I cannot make myself worked up about Ovie getting it - and now it feels good he got it. Kane, Keith, Toews getting one each seems right (and maybe it was correct each year anyway). Crosby gotta have one after three SC wins. And so on.

 

[brentashton]

Definitely have IMO but on another thought

I Always felt like if Toronto played in the west like in the 90s, they'd already have a cup by now lol

The west doesn’t want TO.

 

[Big Daddy Cane]

Carolina winning in 06 was the flukiest fluke to ever fluke

Even as a Flames fan, Oilers win that series easily with Roloson.

They needed Buffalo to literally lose every single one of their top 4 defensemen to even make it to the finals.

Worst cup winning team of the salary cap era.

Say what you want about Buffalo, but the Roloson excuse falls flat. Markkanen actually performed well, giving up 2 goals or less in 4 of the 6 games.

More importantly, the Oilers really struggled to score for chunks of the series. 3 GF total in Games 2-4. 1 GF in Game 7. Playing more conservatively to insulate the goalie wouldn't explain the collapse of their PP, going from 19.8% in Rounds 1-3 to a trash 11.1% in the Finals.

Carolina was on the other side of the goalie injury narrative (No Andersen vs. the Rangers in 2022). I don't buy that one either; you have to score to win games. Cinderella’s feet got swollen in the end.

 

[flyfysher]

Nah I meant now. If Toronto was a western team going against the likes of Colorado, Vegas, Dallas, Edmonton, Anaheim, San Jose. I feel they'd match up with all of them perfectly and most likely could have lots of conference finals to SCF experience on them by now. Who knows about Matthews and Marner and their ability to perform against those teams, but this whole era/narrative of choking probably may have been wiped away or would've been non-existant earlier against those early western matchups.

Doesn't matter cuz the Leafs got to beat the best to be the best either way.

Competitive during the RS? Sure. In the POs? Against Colorado, Dallas and Vegas I think they too soft.