Sometimes you run into a hot goalie and the Pens got Halak'd that year. Believe he stonewalled the Caps in the previous round, no?
I won't fault the Pens that playoffs, they just came off back to back Final appearances.
Similarly, I won't fault the Pens for losing to the Caps in 2018 either, even though I believe they could have won that round.
Exactly, to me that Habs series the team was gassed. They didn't have the experience on going the distance and making the playoffs consistently, they had been bounced from the Sens in 5 after missing the playoffs for years before, then went to the finals on a magical run and lost, then won again the next year, the wear and tear on the team was evident, players were playing through lingering injuries that didn't need surgery but were nagging them, for Fleury in those 3 seasons before the playoffs began in 2010, he was playing an average of 70 games per season, he was going to hit a wall hard.
Defensively the Pens weren't that bad in that series, some brain farts, but that can be chalked up to more mental mistakes than anything, but the offence basically said no mas and Fleury was flubbing routine saves here and there and it piled up because if you're barely scoring 2.50 goals per game and allowing
Pens scored 18 goals vs the Habs that series.
Habs scored 19 goals vs the Penguins that series.
Habs beat them by scoring 2.7 goals per game to the Penguins 2.5. Some like to act like it was worse than it was, but honestly given how the stars basically went impotent in that series, there was some serious exhaustion and Shero needed to inject some youth into that line-up. When you're relying on Poni, Feds, Guerin in his last year, etc as a big part of your top 6, that isn't going to help. Poni was decent in his time after the deadline and even had 5pts in 11 playoff games, but of those 5, only 1 was a goal. He was a super safe add vs getting a more offensive winger.