In 2010-11, we were flying and absolutely wrecking most of the league and then fell off quickly, barely made it past Buffalo in the first round, and got absolutely hammered by Boston in the 2nd round.
Who do you blame for the collapse?
Complacency?
Versteeg throwing off chemistry?
Falling back to earth?
Other?
In 2010-11, we were flying and absolutely wrecking most of the league and then fell off quickly, barely made it past Buffalo in the first round, and got absolutely hammered by Boston in the 2nd round.
Who do you blame for the collapse?
Complacency?
Versteeg throwing off chemistry?
Falling back to earth?
Other?
I blame chemistry but not on Versteeg. The team blew up and lost it's captain. It will take a bit for them to all mold under new leadership. Also Pronger being out the season was hard for everyone.
I blame chemistry but not on Versteeg. The team blew up and lost it's captain. It will take a bit for them to all mold under new leadership. Also Pronger being out the season was hard for everyone.
Injuries and a Cup run/short offseason. Fatigue caught up to them.
I'm sure GKJ will go more in depth with the numbers, but teams that go to the Finals generally don't so well the next year. Blame Lavi all you want, but unless he had magical powers that team didn't have a chance. That doesn't absolve his questionable choices, but by that point it didn't matter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by funghoul
i still wanna know what caused the 2002 collapse. 1 goal in a playoff series? adam oates that *******.
At the rate this lockout is going, we might discuss every collapse going back to the 60s before it's done.
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Last edited by Beef Invictus: 10-13-2012 at 12:35 PM.
Injuries and a Cup run/short offseason. Fatigue caught up to them.
I'm sure GKJ will go more in depth with the numbers, but teams that go to the Finals generally don't so well the next year. Blame Lavi all you want, but unless he had magical powers that team didn't have a chance. That doesn't absolve his questionable choices, but by that point it didn't matter.
At the rate this lockout is going, we might discuss every collapse going back to the 60s before it's done.
To be fair we weren't even supposed to tango with St.Louis but we took them to seven that first year.
injuries. it's fair to say carter was invisible in the playoffs but richie poured everything he had into the buffalo series. with his wrist troubles and pronger's knee they were only going to get so far. combine that with the fact that hartnell-briere-leino came back down to earth after they tore up the 2010 playoffs and were a defensive liability pretty much every time they were out there. you can blame chemistry or coaching or dry island or whatever but that team just looked tired.
Injuries and a Cup run/short offseason. Fatigue caught up to them.
I'm sure GKJ will go more in depth with the numbers, but teams that go to the Finals generally don't so well the next year. Blame Lavi all you want, but unless he had magical powers that team didn't have a chance. That doesn't absolve his questionable choices, but by that point it didn't matter.
At the rate this lockout is going, we might discuss every collapse going back to the 60s before it's done.
Somewhere I have them written down, I don't know where. It's something like starting with 1980, the team who loses in the finals only got past 1 playoff round like 7 or 8 times the next year, and only the Gretzky-Messier Oilers and Crosby-Malkin Penguins made it back to the Finals (coincidentally, both time against the same team), so you can overcome that as long as you have multiple generational talents on your team.
Ken Hitchcock is a huge believer in it, which is what originally made me go back and look up the results. He thinks that getting to the Finals, and the not winning it, is such a huge mental toll, on top of the physical toll (on top of general league parity), it's just too much to overcome. You can include injuries in there.
Consider that and remember how hard Lavy had to ride Pronger-Timonen-Coburn-Carle in 2010. Pronger will never recover from it, and then Holmgren traded for Versteeg who probably had residual effects from the Finals, and the majority of people (me formerly being one of them) here think a traffic cone is better that Matt Carle, so the recipe simply was not there considering the goaltending was terrible.
They did as well as could be expected considering it was never going to be 'their year.'
