Curious Hair wrote:
good dolphin wrote:
The game is all pretty much just a big series of lucky breaks. There are almost no clean goals. The all seem to bounce off both friendly and opposing players in a way no one could have entirely intended. You play well and get no results and then some chance occurrence happens and the other team is winning.
I think that's true more in the playoffs than in the regular season due to a decline in ice quality and a tendency for more risk-averse play, though bad ice and more risk-averse play are becoming scourges of the regular season more and more as well. There are still plenty of pretty goals, though.
To follow up on this, as many lucky/unlucky breaks as there may be, it seems like they all even out in the end (as so many things do in this world) and leave you with a fairly clear picture of who's good and who isn't over the long run. Here are the final four from the last seven years, arranged by West Finalist, West Champion, East Champion, East Finalist:
2008: Dallas, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia
2009: Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Carolina
2010: San Jose, Chicago, Philadelphia, Montreal
2011: San Jose, Vancouver, Boston, Tampa Bay
2012: Phoenix, Los Angeles, New Jersey, New York
2013: Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh
2014: Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Montreal
Or,
4: Chicago**
3: Los Angeles*(presumptive*), Pittsburgh*
2: Boston*, Detroit*, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, San Jose
1: Carolina, Dallas, New Jersey, Phoenix, Tampa Bay, Vancouver
That's fifteen teams (or half the league) across 28 slots, with eleven of those teams having more than one appearance and none of the teams with one appearance having won the Stanley Cup. Looking at the teams with just one appearance in the final four, you have the last gasp of the old Dallas Stars, the one year that everything clicked for the Canucks, and the rest are Cinderella runs. But for all the lucky breaks in hockey, it's clear where it's the residue of design.
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Molly Lambert wrote:
The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.