Quote:
Originally Posted by Pointman
I love Iginla, but the myth of 2004 squad being trash is a myth. Beyond the best RW, the best G and elite top pairing they still had solid players. Gelinas surely had a solid career with Cup ring, deep runs and 30 goals season to his name. Lydman went on two runs to ECF, leading the Sabres in TOI in one of them. Conroy was widely regarded as excellent defensive center and was nominated for Selke twice. Warrener went to the Cup finals twice before 2004 run. Chris Simon scored 29 goals once in the "old" NHL and Chris Clark scored 30 in the "new" one. Reinprecht, though injured in playoffs, won the cup in top-six role with Avs. Hell, even 'doors went on to have a solid careers. It was a really deep team. And they had some amazing speed throughout the whole line-up. And yes, Iginla was great.
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There is some serious seeing what you want to see in that team. Here's the truth on that team:
- Best RW and debatably the best player in the game in 2004 in Iginla
- Best goalie in the game at that time in Kipper
After that it's pretty weak sauce:
- Conroy, a passable 2nd line center, but as you point out an excellent defensive but best suited as 3rd line shut down center.
- There was nothing elite about our top D pair. Reghre at that time was probably a legit 1st pair shut down guy, although the bulk of his career he was likely best suited for the 2nd pair. Even if you find that thought debatable, there is not debating Leopold was at best a #4 D-man.
After that, you go on and state some nice things about other players on the team, none in-accurate, but they don't mean a lot. Most of them are nice team stats or cherry picked career bests for players.
Not hard to take a scan of that roster and realize it wasn't that good:
- Conroy, was our best center.............
- Niemen, Donovan and Neilson (Marcus) was our 2nd line.
- The Doors played almost the entire playoffs for us, neither at that point were NHL regulars.
Iginla, Kipper and D.Sutter carried that team well beyond expectation, they shouldn't have been anywhere near the final.