Well, I will toot my own horn here first. Yup, finally ye olde GeekJock has finally picked one right on the nose. The Kings in 6, which I picked last week, is a reality and the city of LA has bragging rights for a whole year.

They completely and 100% deserve it. Not only were they the lowest seed to ever win the cup, they did it with one of the most amazing playoff runs in any sport in history. They lead every series by 3-0, and simply steam rolled the competition. Sure none of this would have been possible without the God-like performance by Jonathan Quick. Quick had the 2nd best playoff GAA of 1.41 and a playoff history best .946 Save %. He is what basically got them to the playoffs and he is certainly what carried them in the playoffs. It’s long been said that not only can you basically not win the cup without good goal-tending, but a hot goalie can win you the cup nearly single handedly. Names like Brodeur, Cam Ward, Tim Thomas, JS Giguere all have had runs which helped to carry a team to the promised land.

It was in a way ironic, that the same day I had made some comments that the NHL (and that other league) seems to have 2 different sets of rules when it comes to the reg. season and the playoffs, that a penalty call is what basically won the game for the Kings. And it was the right call. The missed call right before that against the Kings is a decent arguement, but it doesn’t change the fact that Bernier deserved the 5 min major that he got. It’s a shame too, b/c it’s his job to get in there on the fore check and muck it up. It’s his job to make the man with the puck pay. But, he got caught in a bad position and boarded Scuderi and got the game changing 5 min major. One thing that I think can be discussed (and has been in the past about these boarding calls), is when a player purposely puts himself in that position, like Scuderi did, should a 5 min penalty be given? There was no real reason for him to be that far from the boards when he played the puck and he followed it up with putting himself in an even worse position to get hit fully knowing that Bernier was coming. It’s putting the responsibility on both players to put themselves in good hitting position. If you take that route to it, you might have only given him 4 mins and then the game would have only been 2-0 after the PP was over. But that’s a null argument for another day. Either way the Kings played a hell of a game and series and deserve to be the cup champs.

So what’s this all mean for the NHL? Well, unfortunately being that the Kings were the 8th seed and barely got in to the playoffs, it means more teams adopting the “just get in” theory to the playoffs. This is what I have been bitching about for years that, Rutherford and the Canes live 100% by. They strive to be 8th seed every year. It’s going to be a disaster for those teams which try this out. Why? Well b/c not every 8th seed is obviously the Kings. The Kings were a HUGE exception to the rule. They were a great team which sucked most of the year and 100% underachieved. They only got where they were b/c of Quick’s dazzling reg season. BUUUUTTTT, the talent was STILL on the team! They had the 2 lines that were awesome and a 3rd that was good enough to give you fits. That’s not the case for the garden variety 8th seed. We will see teams spending less trying for that 8th seed and FAILING miserably. I beg you Jimmy Rutherford DON’T try this at home!

So now the teams have less then two weeks to prepare for the entry draft which happens next Friday. It’s my 3rd favorite day of the year for hockey. My 2nd favorite being July 1st…A K A the 1st day of free agency, and favorite being the trade deadline. I love to see the player movement, the trades, and looking at who my teams will get. I am more often then not 10000% disappointed but I ALWAYS have hope they will do something right (like picking Skinner 14 picks earlier then the “experts” said he would go).

Word is the Canes will be dealing their 1st round pick, and potentially more this year to bring in a stud forward. They had “promised” to bring in 2 impact players/forwards in the off season via trade or free agency. Many of us are hoping around here that  the rumors of Jordan Staal coming to play with Eric becomes a reality. Who knows, within the next 4-5 years we might be able to see all 4 Staals here in Carolina. Well, I am not holding my breath for any of it to come true. Rutherford and the Canes have a knack for letting us down REAL bad in the off season. With 24 million in cap space and only a few spots needed, conventional wisdom would say they could get a couple of GOOD players. But, they won’t. We will have 2-3 lackluster signings that I will be bitching about in both 2 weeks and 2 months from now. Surprise anyone there? Didn’t think so.

So rejoice hockey fans. The 2012 NHL playoffs were exciting, and so was the finals. Hopefully the owners and Bettman can get the CBA done before the media can make a circus about it and hopefully the off season is as exciting as it can be.

See you tomorrow with more end of season grades for the Canes!

–GeekJock

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