What happened to the 2003 Red Wings?

[Sanderson]

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

I think it was largely the big break until the finals that did it.

Giguere was so lights out in the Conference finals that they swept Minnesota letting in exactly one goal in the entire series. Anaheim thus had its last game May 16th. New Jersey, on the other hand, needed all seven games, so their last game came a week later on May 23rd. Game one of the finals was May 27th, so Anaheim had been off for ten days, completely breaking their rhythm.

Now, a bit of a rest can be an advantage, especially when the opponent has to go through a long series, but not when the break is that long. It completely undermines the wave you are riding on. Here the long rest did much more to hurt Anaheim than the lack of rest hurt New Jersey.

You never know how series would play out under different circumstances, but I'm pretty sure Anaheim would have started a whole lot better into the series if they didn't have to sit out for so long. A series that starts soon after game 4 of the conference finals would probably see Giguere stay on top of his game.

 

[Brodeur]

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

Offensively it didn't seem like the Devils did anything drastically different than what Anaheim's previous opponents would have done. If anything the Devils were trying to figure out their lines after Joe Nieuwendyk's injury kept him out of G7 against Ottawa. Sergei Brylin shifted to center for a few games and then Mike Rupp got a chance and made the most of it.

Oleg Tverdovsky had been a healthy scratch in six of the seven games against Ottawa, but he was inserted against Anaheim since Pat Burns thought he was better speed matchup against Anaheim's forwards. Although in Game 7, Ken Daneyko was put back in for Tverdovsky. Maybe Burns was just playing a hunch that Tverdovsky could dial it up against his former club?

One oddity to that SCF that we wouldn't see today was that all of Anaheim's D were lefty (and 6/7 of NJD's were too). Probably hard to track down footage from the earlier series, but I recall in 2010 that the Devils D was all LH and the Flyers targeted the D playing on the right side. And then the Devils turned the tables against the Flyers in 2012 and did the same.

Just going through the goals from 2003:

Game 1: Friesen (centering pass from LW corner), Marshall (Giguere thought he had smothered the shot, cycle started in LW side)

Game 2: Elias (PP, somewhat fortunate bounce from point shot left Giguere out of position), Gomez (deflection of point shot, cycle started in LW corner) Friesen (scooped loose puck from LW corner)

Game 3: Elias (partial breakaway, bad 2nd period line change by Anaheim), Gomez (deflection by net)

Game 4: shutout -- naturally I had tickets for this game

Game 5: Rheaume (backdoor by net, nice puck protection + pass by Stevenson), Elias (PP fantastic play between Elias and Rafalski), Gionta (intended to be a pass, Ducks player accidentally deflected it past Giguere), Pandolfo (directed in by skate but wasn't a kicking motion), Langenbrunner (Rupp missed shot and the puck hit the back board and rebounded right to Langenbrunner in the slot), Langenbrunner (broken play)

Game 6: Pandolfo (cycle play from LW boards), Marshall (PP tip in front of net)

Game 7: Rupp (deflection of point shot), Friesen (loose rebound from point shot, cycle started in LW corner), Friesen (goal off rush, cut in from RW)

Just off the goals, there seemed to be a little concerted effort to attack the right side D. Other goals were taking shots from the point and going for tips/rebounds. I can't imagine Detroit/Dallas/Minnesota weren't trying to do that.