Hurricanes after 2006

[HisIceness]

The Erik Cole comparison is apples to oranges in terms of impact. Cole was a 60 point LW power forward at best, missing from a team that already had Brindamour, Whitney, and Ladd on left wing. The sabres were injured to the point of playing AHL regulars on defence for a conference finals game 7, and the Oilers lost their starting goaltender who was considered a strong candidate for the Smythe before he was injured.

If the 06 hurricanes aren't the clearcut answer to "Cup Champ with the greatest proportion of why they won being injured opponents" please tell me who is?

So because the Sabres lost Jay McKee and the Oilers lost Roloson, the same Roloson who gave up 4 goals in game 1, that's the "clearcut answer"? Yeah I'm not buying it.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Did anyone think the Hurricanes were destined to repeat in 07. Or, did you think 06 was a one off? I remember watching them in 06 and not being very impressed. They seemed to get alot of breaks (Koivu eye injury, Sabres having no D left, and Roloson injury).

What say you?

2006 postseason was a weird year with lots of upsets and injuries. Nobody thought Carolina was going to make it to the finals. And nobody looked at that roster and thought they’d repeat.

In the cap era I’d say they were the weakest cup winner.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Buffalo did lose like 5 of their top 6 defensemen at one point in the series. And yes, Roloson have a Smythe-ish run and then turning to fringe NHLer Ty Conklin is significant (if they had Markkanen available in the whole series, that might have been all the difference, Marky actually had some talent)...

 

[MadLuke]

So because the Sabres lost Jay McKee

Numminen-Tallinder-Connolly-Vanek.

They started with so much talent, that they were still an explosive team (Drury of that era + Briere, Miller in net, Campbell still playing, you have an puncher chance) obviously but some game the team #6D and Dmitri Kalinin were their first pair.

Once the injury get in they were not a specially above average conference final playoff team opponent, same goes for the Oilers without their number 1 goaltender, nice run, peak Pronger, etc... but not the level of opposition that make you think that the Hurricanes were an significantly better than you average cup winner (which you need to be to be a likely to go back to back, it is quite rare for a team to do this)

Put it that way, you have to chance to place a free bet during the end of the 2006 summer.

If the Hurricanes win the cup in 2007, you get $10,000
If the RedWings win the cup in 2007, ..you get $11,000
If the Senators win the cup in 2007, ..you get $12,000
If the Sabres win the cup in 2007, ....you get $14,000

Which line do you pick ? If the answer is not easily the Hurricanes, I think that make you part of the group that did not feel Carolina was on a destiny to repeat, they were not even a clear favorite to win it (which is still a much lower bar than likely to win, a favorite to win can easily have less than 16.66% chance of winning). It would be good to see if there is any actual disagreement to start with going on here. I feel most would agree if money was on the line.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

So because the Sabres lost Jay McKee and the Oilers lost Roloson, the same Roloson who gave up 4 goals in game 1, that's the "clearcut answer"? Yeah I'm not buying it.

um, no. they lost jay mckee on top of already having lost tallinder, numminen, and kalinin. that left lydman (a legit top pair guy) and young brian campbell (who would become a high minute guy later, but through the first two rounds was #5 in icetime, over 30 seconds/game less than mckee in #4), holding down the blueline with four career minor leaguers.

rory fitzpatrick (all 7 games in the series), doug janik (5 games), jeff jillson (4 games), and after mckee was lost, nathan paetsch for one game.

you can make the argument that losing connolly (who, btw was 3rd in playoff scoring when he got hurt, one pt behind heatley and havlat in #1) was similar to losing cole. caroline had an embarrassment of riches at LW just like buffalo still had briere, drury, derek roy, and paul gaustad down the middle. but jesus, dividing 69 minutes of icetime in a game seven between fitzpatrick (best known for being a joke all-star vote), janik (in his fifteenth NHL game), paetsch (his second NHL game), and jillson (his last NHL game)…

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

carolina fans hate when i point this out, but

goalie playing the best hockey of his life: ward, jon casey

powerplay that caught holy fire: 31 for canes, 35 for the ’91 north stars

two-way beast leading the way: brind’amour, mark tinordi

young star in his second year: staal, modano

scoring depth: stillman, williams, whitney; bellows, gagner, broten

ringers: recchi, weight; propp, bobby smith

breakout power forward who got hurt: cole, dahlen

non-descript d playing above its head: hedican, ward, commodore, kaberle, wallin, wesley; wilkinson, chambers, glynn, dahlquist, johnson

defensive ace centering fairly unplayable wingers on the fourth line while doing the lord’s work on the PK: kevyn adams, marc bureau

carolina had a little more scoring punch in the top nine (i haven’t mentioned matt cullen or andrew ladd), minnesota had the checkers from hell (gaetan duchesne and stew gavin), but in terms of impact players, each forward group went nine deep

only one team played a stacked penguins squad with six of the top 20 scorers of all time, two other 1,000 pt hall of famers, and an all-star five-time vezina finalist goalie (who, yes, eventually also made the hall of fame), while the other played a cinderella oilers team whose number one center was shawn horcoff and lost its starting goalie in game one (but man, pronger was something else, wasn’t he?)

 

[MadArcand]

carolina fans hate when i point this out, but

goalie playing the best hockey of his life: ward, jon casey

powerplay that caught holy fire: 31 for canes, 35 for the ’91 north stars

two-way beast leading the way: brind’amour, mark tinordi

young star in his second year: staal, modano

scoring depth: stillman, williams, whitney; bellows, gagner, broten

ringers: recchi, weight; propp, bobby smith

breakout power forward who got hurt: cole, dahlen

non-descript d playing above its head: hedican, ward, commodore, kaberle, wallin, wesley; wilkinson, chambers, glynn, dahlquist, johnson

defensive ace centering fairly unplayable wingers on the fourth line while doing the lord’s work on the PK: kevyn adams, marc bureau

carolina had a little more scoring punch in the top nine (i haven’t mentioned matt cullen or andrew ladd), minnesota had the checkers from hell (gaetan duchesne and stew gavin), but in terms of impact players, each forward group went nine deep

only one team played a stacked penguins squad with six of the top 20 scorers of all time, two other 1,000 pt hall of famers, and an all-star five-time vezina finalist goalie (who, yes, eventually also made the hall of fame), while the other played a cinderella oilers team whose number one center was shawn horcoff and lost its starting goalie in game one (but man, pronger was something else, wasn’t he?)

They were the same the way the Sedin Canucks and 97 Senators were the same. I.e. not at all.

 

[HisIceness]

um, no. they lost jay mckee on top of already having lost tallinder, numminen, and kalinin. that left lydman (a legit top pair guy) and young brian campbell (who would become a high minute guy later, but through the first two rounds was #5 in icetime, over 30 seconds/game less than mckee in #4), holding down the blueline with four career minor leaguers.

rory fitzpatrick (all 7 games in the series), doug janik (5 games), jeff jillson (4 games), and after mckee was lost, nathan paetsch for one game.

you can make the argument that losing connolly (who, btw was 3rd in playoff scoring when he got hurt, one pt behind heatley and havlat in #1) was similar to losing cole. caroline had an embarrassment of riches at LW just like buffalo still had briere, drury, derek roy, and paul gaustad down the middle. but jesus, dividing 69 minutes of icetime in a game seven between fitzpatrick (best known for being a joke all-star vote), janik (in his fifteenth NHL game), paetsch (his second NHL game), and jillson (his last NHL game)…

We're just going to have to agree to disagree.

I understand Buffalo wasn't at full strength in 2006, but the reality is no one is. Carolina this very year didn't have Chatfield or Walker in the lineup against Florida, and they lost to a better team. It sucks, but it's a part of the game.

For years I've been reading complaints from Buffalo fans about Carolina having a lot of "luck" and the more I hear it the less seriously I take it. Buffalo the very next year with an even better team lost to a one-line Ottawa team in 5. Montreal fans on this board also complain about losing Koivu in the first round even though he had 2 secondary assists. To me it's just sour grapes.

Shit happens, it is what it is.

 

[JianYang]

It was a long time ago, but I dont recall expecting Carolina to repeat, so that was no surprise.

The surprising part though is that it was probably the peak of Staal and ward even though they were just getting started.

 

[JianYang]

We're just going to have to agree to disagree.

I understand Buffalo wasn't at full strength in 2006, but the reality is no one is. Carolina this very year didn't have Chatfield or Walker in the lineup against Florida, and they lost to a better team. It sucks, but it's a part of the game.

For years I've been reading complaints from Buffalo fans about Carolina having a lot of "luck" and the more I hear it the less seriously I take it. Buffalo the very next year with an even better team lost to a one-line Ottawa team in 5. Montreal fans on this board also complain about losing Koivu in the first round even though he had 2 secondary assists. To me it's just sour grapes.

Shit happens, it is what it is.

To be fair, the guys that Buffalo lost was very abnormal in the playoffs both in terms of volume and importance.

In the case of koivu, Its basically the way he was knocked out of the lineup that leaves a bad taste. You dont want to lose a key guy to an ileagal play. On top of that, the infraction didn't even result in a penalty call, if I recall correctly.

 

[MadLuke]

We're just going to have to agree to disagree.

I understand Buffalo wasn't at full strength in 2006, but the reality is no one is. Carolina this very year didn't have Chatfield or Walker in the lineup against Florida, and they lost to a better team. It sucks, but it's a part of the game.

For years I've been reading complaints from Buffalo fans about Carolina having a lot of "luck" and the more I hear it the less seriously I take it. Buffalo the very next year with an even better team lost to a one-line Ottawa team in 5. Montreal fans on this board also complain about losing Koivu in the first round even though he had 2 secondary assists. To me it's just sour grapes.

Shit happens, it is what it is.

I think complaining about their goaltender being so bad they went with Ward and won instead of just bad enough is even more sour grapes.

I think there is a bit of being lost in semantic, and I feel you could be in the group that agree and not disagree.

By how much did you in the summer of 2006 considered the Hurricanes bigger favorite to win in 2007 above the RedWings and Senators ? If so, why with that defensive group, versus the Lidstrom-Chelios-Hasek Wings ? Redden-Phillips-Meszaros-Volchenkov sen ?

Back to back rarely happened in the previous 20 years, what make them (or that summer FA-draft) significantly above the usual cup winner ?

I do not think they had more luck than 1993 MTL (who avoided the Bruins-Pens, got to play Mogilny-Lafontaine less Sabres before the end of game 3, Turgeon less Islanders, 1993 instead of 1991 Gretzky running out of gaz) or the Blues or the Letang less Pens that won an overtime game 7 game, you almost always need good fortune to win it, but if you do, that does not make you a likely repeater.

We should not mistake, illegitimate winner with not more likely to go win it the next year than the average cup winner (that about never do it).

Same goes for diminishing the Sabres, still a good team despite all the injury (Briere-Miller-Drury, etc..) but with the defensive core down, not a special level of team that mean much, like beating the 1997 Avalanche for the RedWings was, when you beat a .930 Patrick Roy by outshooting them by ~70%, a team that had third pair of defensemen that could play on the first one of mediocre teams and Ricci-Keane-Deadmarsh-Yelle level of player in the bottom 6.

 

[Terry Yake]

There is a gap between good and particularly good, they faced good teams, Devils were a good team, the 2006 and the 2007 Sabres could have been particularly good when healthy, but they were not, making them just a regular good playoff teams. (and we can enter circular reasoning here a bit, Canes were great they did beat the Sabres, why the Sabres were good?, it took 7 games for Carolina to win the series)

This is not the general feeling that a Colorado would re-win it with that core many times after they beat the particularly good Red Wings in 1996.

Since 1970, the back to back champ

- 1975 Parent/Clarke/Barber/Leach flyers
- 77-78-79 4 cups in a row maybe best team of all time Habs Dynasties
- 81-82-83 Dynasties Islanders
- 1985 Gretzky Oilers
- 1988 Gretzky Oilers
- 1992 Mario pens
- 1998 Red Wings
- 2017 Crosby-Malkin Pens
- 2021 Kucherov-Point-Hedman-Vasileskiy Tampa Bays

If you are not the 2002 Red Wings, you pretty much always easily take the league against any single team even the previous cup winner.

If we make the question more precise: did you think the Canes had more than 25% chance to be in that rare group because they were both a way better than average Stanley cups winners and particularly well-placed age/keeping free agents wise to be next summer in talk to be put in next hockey Dynasties list that will try to go for 3 in a row, saying no to that should not be seen as putting a champ down.

With Whitney-Weight-Reechi and a Cam Ward playing like he was playing they were loaded enough to get around not having a big name number 1 D on a legit cup winner, which is already a lot.

The second half 90s Red Wings, 80s Oilers or 10s BlackHawks, 20s Tampa they were not.

How much would you have bet that summer that a team defense group led by Bret Hedican and a rookie goaltender will repeat ?

It is just really hard to be in that this team will go repeat it category.
The panthers were a great champ, kept their core, this summer they were a +900 betting line to repeat, i.e. a ~10% chance of winning..... it is really hard to win 4 round of hockey, it is extremely hard and rare to do it 2 years in a row.

The Ducks did not felt like a team that would likely repeat either... but an argument could be made they had a higher chance to do it. The Red Wings were the kind of team that felt likely to repeat in comparison.

07/08 was a weird season for the ducks with the selanne/niedermayer "retirements" and then losing andy mcdonald because of cap reasons. doug weight was awful as his replacement and selanne/niedermayer were rusty by the time they returned. that stars team they faced in the playoffs was a bad matchup for them and ended up making it all the way to the WCF

if they had been able to keep mcdonald and not have to deal with the retirement saga, i think that ducks team has a very good chance at repeating. they likely run into detroit again in the WCF and it would've been a toss up