When an award is salt in an open sore.... And when he's inducted into the Hall of Fame, you can hear it... "While he never won a Stanley Cup...."
That was a game for legendary players to do legendary things. And....crickets.
At some point all that ice time is going to catch up to even the most fit. especially when skating with a target. Even with their lives on the line in the last 5 minutes, there was no reserve to draw upon no matter the adrenaline. The will was there, but not the body.
McJesus had a playoffs for the ages, and the Kraut had a great playoff run - and they still couldn't get it done. Lack of depth, too many brain farts on the blueline and average-to-good goaltending - the story of McJesus' tenure in Edmonton - did them in. For a team constructed to win around their two mega-stars, this may have been their best shot. Their playoff performance this year may have been their ceiling; how much more is Edmonton going to get out of McJesus and Kraut - or even Hyman for that matter? Is anyone going to reasonably say that there's room for significant improvement in-house with that roster? Even with the league starting to move past the flat cap era, there's not much scope to bring in significant improvement unless they ship out one of their mega-stars, and would that not be a case of one step forward, two steps back?
They'll say they're window is still wide open. I wouldn't say it's closed, but it's not near as open as some would like to think. This warms my heart, regardless the state of the Canucks.