What happened to the 2003 Red Wings?

[SnowblindNYR]

I know they got stonewalled by Giguere but from what I remember they returned most of their juggernaut super team from the year before other than Hasek. But they had Cujo who is probably better than Vernon and Osgood. That sweep was probably every bit as shocking as the Lightning in 2019.

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[Brodeur]

Anaheim was quietly very good in the 2nd half of that season. Going into that series, I thought Detroit would win but that the Ducks would be a harder out than most were expecting. Both teams had similar 2nd half records:

Anaheim: 25-11-2-3
Detroit: 25-10-3-3

Quick look at the rosters and Detroit was a little top heavy on the blue line. In the Anaheim series:

Lidstrom: 33:35
Schneider: 28:16
Dandenault: 25:51
Chelios: 25:43
Woolley: 15:25
Bykov: 11:14

Jiri Fischer missed that postseason after a knee injury in November. Dandenault (13:29) had been a #6 defenseman the previous playoff. And maybe this was around the time Chelios was starting to slow down?

Despite that, Detroit did handily outshoot Anaheim in that series.

 

[Oddbob]

I know they got stonewalled by Giguere but from what I remember they returned most of their juggernaut super team from the year before other than Hasek. But they had Cujo who is probably better than Vernon and Osgood. That sweep was probably every bit as shocking as the Lightning in 2019.

It was mostly Giguere. He was unreal that playoff, especially in this particular series. The Wings dominated all 4 games, but couldn't score. Cujo let a couple of not great goals in as well, which were made worse by Giguere going Conn Smythe on the Wings.

As a Wings fan, the only series that we lost that sucked more was the 1994 Sharks playoff defeat as we were even heavier favourites in that one. 2003 was definitely more boring though with it being the height of the dead puck era in 2003.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

It was mostly Giguere. He was unreal that playoff, especially in this particular series. The Wings dominated all 4 games, but couldn't score. Cujo let a couple of not great goals in as well, which were made worse by Giguere going Conn Smythe on the Wings.

A bit of digression but did NJ do things differently or did Giguere just not keep up his ridiculous play because he's human?

 

[Oddbob]

A bit of digression but did NJ do things differently or did Giguere just not keep up his ridiculous play because he's human?

Probably a little of both. NJ was very trap heavy as we all know, so that probably hurt Anaheim as well. Also, Detroit got one goal off of 64 shots in one of the games, and New Jersey scored 6 off of 37 in one of the Finals games. I think he was probably tiring quite a bit. He also only gave up 1 goal in the whole Minnesota series just to put in perspective how awesome he was.

 

[The Panther]

Here's the Red Wings taking the ice in 2003: