Quote:
Originally Posted by PepsiFree
You don’t really have to be convinced. Teams are as good as they’re playing in the moment and they’ll do that regardless of what anybody thinks.
You look at it like they needed help to squeak into the final spot in the playoffs. But every team gets help. It might not happen at the same time, but Florida deserves credit for putting themselves in a position to benefit from that help in the first place.
Again, though, the Ullmark thing is just kind of… meaningless, isn’t it? Ullmark said there was a difference between being hurt and being injured, and he was the former. The only one reporting otherwise was “insiderrrrr” Kevin Weekes (lol). But that’s beside the fact that we absolutely saw that an “unfortunate injury” (or whatever the excuse is for Ullmark’s play) was the difference between Boston being a “great” team and a team that goes out in the first round. How can you say otherwise? We saw it. We also just saw it in Calgary. Take away part of what makes a great team great and… you guessed it, they’re not great anymore!
You can pretend that Florida is a meh-team just lucking their way to the finals. But that just ignores too many fundamental truths about hockey, imo. If luck is what brought Florida here, you better believe it’s what led Boston to the regular season record and led McDavid to his ridiculous totals. The difference between great teams and average teams might only be how ready and able they are to capitalize on good luck when they have it.
Florida seems to be really, really good in that department. Regardless of how many people stay doubters and haters. They don’t seem to have any issue proving people wrong. Good for them.
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It's the NHL. Pretty much every team is always ready to capitalize on good luck when they get it. It's just a matter of whether they get the luck or not. Sure, some teams are incompetently run and don't take advantage of luck as much as they could. But luck plays a much larger role in determining how far teams get in the playoffs than you seem willing to admit.
It's pretty clear that Ullmark was hampered with some sort of physical issue (if you want to call it being "hurt" rather than "injured", fine, it doesn't really detract from the point being made) which greatly impared his ability to be effective in game 6, and resulted in him not playing in game 7. To me, this doesn't take away from the greatness of the Bruins as was shown over the course of a record-setting 82 game season.
Bob & Chucky are playing extraordinarily well right now, and are carrying their team to the SC Finals. But two players does not a team make. Two players getting scorching hot at the right time does not mean the team they play for is suddenly great.