Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Random
To win more, you have to try again, and to try again, you have to be there. The '89 Flames began to be dismantled the moment they won the Cup. Loob, Ramage, and McDonald never played for the team again. Mullen, McCrimmon, Peplinski, Hrdina, and Murzyn were all gone by the midpoint of the 1990-91 season. Almost none of the players who replaced them were of the same quality.
The fact that a substantially different Flames team did not win the Cup in 1990 or 1991 should not take anything away from the 1989 team.
|
Not to mention, here's what 80-90 looked like:
Cup Finals
1980: Islanders over Flyers
1981: Islanders over North Stars
1982: Islanders over Canucks
1983: Islanders over Oilers
1984: Oilers over Islanders
1985: Oilers over Flyers
1986: Canadiens over Flames
1987: Oilers over Flyers
1988: Oilers over Bruins
1989: Flames over Canadiens
1990: Oilers over Bruins
Looking at Finals appearances between 1980-1990, you can clearly see that the league was dominated by only a handful of teams:
Oilers x6
Isles x5
Flyers x3
Bruins x2
Habs x2
Flames x2
Canucks x1
N. Stars x1
In fact, just because I'm extra bored, here's a chart I did up to demonstrate that not only were the Finals between 80-90 dominated by 6-8 teams, but the playoffs in general were too.
