Quoting: Leafsfan98
Yes, I was and no, it didn't... LA went away from what made them good... The 1-3-1 trap, they were aggressive, undisciplined and lazy without the puck and that cost them
Hintz and Tanev were very obviously not themselves with Tanev going to the room and Hintz not being able to go for multiple games, that's concerning, especially concidering what guys like Tkachuk went through in the SCF
You mean the 3rd string with a .898 save percentage (Only 0.03 save percentage off of Ilya Samsonov), are you really telling me that Thatcher Demko wouldn't do much better than that... And Elias Peterson was hurt, knee injury...
Edmonton didn't have a hard road to the finals, they were just lucky the 3 behemoths of the West beat up on each other... Florida, meanwhile, had to face Tampa, the New York Rangers and Boston, all three of those teams would beat any of the 3 teams EDM faced at the time EDM faced them...
LA went away from it cause it wasn't working, it was a great system during the season against most teams but really hasn't worked well vs EDM.
Also EDM massively changed their system this series and it killed the offence of LA, neither of these discredit LA as being a good opponent but was the easiest matchup.
Silov's played incredible aside from game 1, I would make a genuine argument that he was Van's best player or at least top 3. I don't know why everyone is throwing him under the bus, I also don't know if Demko would've done better as Silov's played absolutely beautifully for a first time goalie (that isn't me discrediting Demko, but to discredit Silovs efforts is low). EP has a lingering leg issue since January, wouldn't say it's an injury as numerous players have those things come out after elimination (there are 5 players rumoured as injured in EDM rn).
Hintz wasn't, though he still played well at times but was insanely limited. Tanev played well the whole series, there wasn't a drop off after the ankle/foot issue.
Things can be said about Florida's path too, Vassy played poorly and Sergachev wasn't ready in TB, Marchant missed games and McAvoy dealt with a lingering upper body issue, NYR had Fox, Lindgren and Trouba with issues (Lindgren was seriously injured); It doesn't discredit a difficult path.
Neither one of the Panthers or Oilers had an easy path, LA > VAN > DAL and TB > BOS > NYR are both difficult, if you look for ways to discredit one then put an equal effort into discrediting the other otherwise it just looks like you're salty that a team you don't like made it.