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Originally Posted by Pumpy Tudors
A hockey team in Florida? How soon we forget. Eight years ago, the Florida Panthers were in the Stanley Cup Finals. Uwe Krupp took the wind out of them that year, and the Panthers haven't been the same since.
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In fairness, Uwe Krupp isn't the reason they haven't been the same.
They rode a hot goaltender and a strong defense to the Eastern Conference championship that year. They had no offense to speak of (didn't all four games go to OT that year?), and when they hit Colorado, they hit a team that had not only a solid defense + a hot goaltender, but an actual offense to boot.
They weren't able to recapture that lightning in a bottle in subsequent seasons, and Vanbiesbrouck eventually said "Fuck you guys, I want outta here." when he felt that his stats were suffering because the defensemen weren't playing hard enough in front of the net...or so he claimed, at least.
Kinda like Roy with the 8-0 loss to Detroit that ended his stay in Montreal, except without the whole "Coach WANTED me to fail" accusations.