In Visitors, I invite one person each month to share perspectives on a sport, a sporting event, sporting aspects or any thing in between. This week, Warren Kelly, who had written about the NHL season, joins us to analyse the NHL playoffs. If you would like to contribute for a future edition of Visitors, do not hesitate to e-mail me.

By Warren Kelly

The NHL playoffs are over. The season itself was a study in contrast and surprise – the playoffs were a fitting end to that season. Major market teams that everyone thought would go all the way were swept. Small market teams who had never had playoff success rolled over everyone in their way. And the NHL proved that it doesn’t matter where the team is, how much money it has to spend, or any of that – anyone really can win the Stanley Cup.

Round 1 started off with a list of A players – the New Jersey Devils, the New York Rangers, the Detroit Red Wings, the Dallas Stars – and a list of the “also rans” – the Carolina Hurricanes, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, the Edmonton Oilers, the Buffalo Sabres, the Colorado Avalanche, the Nashville Predators. The A teams were expected to move on, and the also rans were expected to roll over and let them. But it didn’t work out that way at all.

New York and New Jersey ran into each other in round 1. This was expected to be the tough series, but Jersey swept the Rangers. Detroit met bottom-seed Edmonton, and lost in six games, showing fans exactly what was in store for them this year in the playoffs. Edmonton consistently outplayed their opponents, and left a lot of “experts” guessing. The Stars, who were a popular pick to win it all this season, lost in five games to a Colorado team who also took everyone by surprise. The underdogs were all over the favorites early on – with the exception of the Jersey Devils. And there was speculation about how long they would last.

Carolina was matched up with the Devils in round two, and took care of business. Speculation was that New Jersey had too much time off after their sweep of New York, and had gotten rusty. At the time, I thought the same – in reality, the Hurricanes were just that good this season. Edmonton upset the San Jose Sharks, though they still didn’t have the respect of many of the experts (I certainly wasn’t picking them to go much further in the playoffs!). Anaheim moved on past the Avalanche, and many people were expecting them to be in the finals.

So the divisional playoffs featured Anaheim vs. Edmonton and Buffalo vs. Carolina. It was clear to everyone that the Stanley Cup Finals would be between Anaheim and Buffalo. Well, everyone except for Carolina and Edmonton. Both teams managed to impress everyone watching, and so it was that the NHL’s nightmare came true – two very small-market teams were playing for the Stanley Cup. Hockey purists were lined up behind Edmonton – the idea that the Cup would travel to the Deep South two years in a row was unthinkable. Then Edmonton dropped the first two games of the series.

I had actually expected that. They had a lot of time off after taking care of Anaheim pretty quickly, and one of the lessons of the playoffs this year seems to have been that the team who gets the time off gets rusty. And the Oilers looked bad in those first two games. But they won Game 3 at home (as many predicted). Then Carolina won Game 4. Only one team in NHL history has come back to win the Cup after going down 3-1. The series was over.

Then Edmonton won the next game. On the road. In overtime. Carolina’s star rookie goalie Cam Ward had been beaten. Oilers fans began to hope. Game 6: Edmonton 4, Carolina 0. In Edmonton. The series is tied, and there is celebration in Edmonton. The rest of the hockey world watches – can an 8th seed come back from a 3-1 deficit to win the Stanley Cup? Is history being made this season – this season of so many historic changes? Small market or not, Game 7 was highly watched.

But in the end, the Southern Boys did it. Game 7 saw Carolina reassert themselves on their home ice, winning 3-1 and making sure that the American south kept the Cup for another year. But parity showed its face this year, as the small market, low budget franchises showed that they could, in fact, play with the big boys. EPSN is hating the fact that they gave up the TV contract – NBC picked up the Finals for next to nothing.

And next year, things will be even more exciting. Pittsburg picked up another strong offensive player in the draft this year, grabbing Jordan Staal in the first round to complement last year’s star Sidney Crosby. Washington acquired Nicklas Backstrom, another scorer, to augment their offense. The future of the NHL looks bright, just one year after it was thought that it had no future at all.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 16th, 2006 at 12:41 am and is filed under NHL, Winter Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.