Well, I think this means a return trip to the Finals for Pittsburgh. I mean, there's the chance that Ottawa can beat them but that would be a huge upset. Penguins have the second best regular season record this year and they just took out the number 1 team in the league as well as the 4th best in their opening round despite injuries and a constantly changing line-up with some inexperienced players who weren't even part of last years run. At this point, I don't see how the Senators are going to beat them. I'm surprised they've managed to make it to this point but it just shows how good Karlsson is of a defensemen. If the Senators could actually acquire some better talent to support him than they could have a chance to dominate their division for possibly a decade. Oh well, a chance for their owner to whine about the Penguins some more as they go down, I suppose.
But who will they play in the finals and will they be healthy enough by then or will the wear and tear of the past season and last year be too much?
Had a couple conversations about the game at work today with Justin Williams Mr. Game 7 reputation being a focal point in the media leading up to the game and asking if I was worried. People know I'm a Penguins fan because I often wear a Pens jersey during game days in the playoffs so hockey talk is brought up sometimes to try and give me a hard time a bit. I was saying that I had a feeling Justin Williams probably wouldn't be a factor in this game. When Rust scored that first goal, I was instantly reminded of his 2 goal performance in Game 7 last year and was laughing to myself that the Penguins have their own Mr. Game 7 on their side. Best of all, Fleury got the shut-out. I kept hoping he'd get one this series particularly for Game 5 or 6 to close out the series and "steal" a game to further bolster his Conn Smythe potential. Fortunately, he saved it for Game 7. Phew. What a performance. A couple lucky breaks and quite a handful of highlight saves.
Personally, I don't really have anything against the Capitals. There are other teams I dislike way more. (Like the Flyers. Sucks they got lucky in the draft.) Last year, Pittsburgh seemed to be a team in the middle of a rebuild and while I hoped they might still get past Washington last year, I was prepared to accept that the Capitals would most likely finally see some postseason success and eliminate them to move on to the third round. But then the series began and despite looking pretty evenly matched, Penguins began to get the upper hand and that's when I was fully on board with believing they could actually win the cup that year. It was a bit of the same this year. Before the playoffs began, Pittsburgh wasn't exactly brimming with good news as different players were injured and on the mend while Washington was pretty much healthy and even a bit more stacked than last year. However, I wasn't about to concede defeat. Seeing how Pittsburgh would perform against Columbus in the opening round would be the best indication of whether this team could make another run. As I said earlier, once I saw Pittsburgh handling the Blue Jackets pretty easily in their opening games while Washington was having trouble beating Toronto, I've been thinking a repeat just might be in the cards for this team. Admittedly, Washington finally got themselves on track near the end of the series but they dug themselves into too much of an early hole with this series.
It's crazy that Ovechkin hasn't made it to the finals or won the cup with some of the talent and teams the Capitals have put out. I honestly would be fine with Ovechkin winning a cup. The guy has proven that he is one of the all-time great goal scorers in the league and is very talented even though his defensive abilities may not be as well developed as his offensive. For a few years now, he has been one of the few players doing all he can to try and get his team over the hump. This year was the first regression I've seen in his playoff performances in awhile but, as I also mentioned earlier, sometimes a player can just have a bad year. Unfortunately for the Caps, a lot of times the team they have lost to in the second round ended up going to the Finals. Maybe they'd have still lost to that team if they faced them in the third round but the way the playoffs worked out they've ended up facing a bunch of those teams in the second round and losing to them there making their playoff record dismal at second round success. It's really crazy that they can't get past it despite year after year of making it to the second round and having a lot of those series go to a Game 7 as well. And now, they're going to have to make some changes and probably lose a good chunk of their team. If the Capitals get weaker, Pittsburgh benefits because their team is pretty well built to last for a few more years. Rangers are on the decline, Flyers are in a bit of rebuild, Devils are restructuring, Islanders looked to be on the rise but seemed to have suddenly stalled, Carolina is going nowhere. Columbus is the only team right now that may be trending in the right direction to compete in the division and the playoffs but its hard to say with just one good season and no real record of sustainable success yet.
From where this team was 2 years ago to now, I'm still amazed at the sudden transformation but I'm really happy to see this franchise really living up to the potential everyone thought it had after back to back Finals in 08 and 09. If Crosby and company can win another Stanley Cup, quite a few players will tie the Blackhawks and their recent 3 cup wins. It's the Blackhawks that suddenly become the team that Pittsburgh was expected to be this decade but they've got a chance to fulfill those expectations with another good chance to win a cup again this year. Doing so will but them into a 3 way tie with the Oilers and Blackhawks at 5 cup wins in franchise history which is also the number 5 spot for teams with the most cup wins.
Of course, if some kind of madness occurs and the Ducks and Penguins actually do meet up in the Stanley Cup Final for the first ever such match-up, I'm going to be highly conflicted on that one. But for now, it's best to treat each team separately with the assumption the other one isn't around in the Final.
Topic: Hockey Discussion: The Leafs Would Like To Borrow Taylor Hall's Horseshoe (Read 185741 times)
