Another One Bites the Dust

And just like that, Sidney Crosby's season is over. Hockey is a team game, but the goalie is easily the most important member of that team. As good as Crosby and Malkin are, there's only so much you can do when Marc-Andre Fleury gives up 26 goals on 153 shots in 6 games. That's 25.5 shots against per game, or roughly 1.8 less per game than they gave up during the regular season. Fleury's save percentage was .830 in the series, which is putrid. By comparison, the team's regular season save percentage was .906. Had Fleury saved 90% of the shots he faced in the each game of the series (he saved 91% in the regular season), they would have swept the Flyers. In a league with so much offensive parity, the goalie has never been more important, and in a series with two such evenly matched teams (on paper), Fleury couldn't have been more disappointing.

So the NHL's leading scorer (Evgeni Malkin) and consensus best player (Sidney Crosby) are both out. With the Boston Bruins, New York Rangers, and Vancouver Canucks all on the brink of elimination too, the league could be without its 4 odds-on-favourites to win the Stanley Cup heading into the post season.

That's remarkable for so many reasons. However, if those teams all fall in round 1, it makes for a very interesting playoffs moving forward. Will the upstart Blues win their first Stanley Cup (in defeating the Sharks, they won their first playoff series since 2002)? Will Phoenix give the city a parting gift? Will Ovechkin and Washington finally shed their choker reputation(s)? Will Nashville prove that consistency breeds success?

Despite the fact that every playoff pool I'm in is over for me (I was heavily vested in Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Vancouver), I will be glued to the television moving forward. As long as Shanahan and the referees keep the violent incidents to a minimum, fans should be in for some exciting puck over the next month or so.

Go Blues!