Steve Valliquette

Really good NHL teams struggle on the defensive side of the puck, specifically protecting their goalies off the rush against, and then rectifying that, and then being really good the next year and winning a Stanley Cup.

There's a really good list here that I have of teams doing that, where...

Tampa Bay, when they were one of the league's best teams in 2019 and they got swept by Columbus, they went from 19th in rush defense to figuring it out the next year and going to first and winning back-to-back Stanley Cups.

I have to imagine at that time the players were fed up with trying to do it their way and they decided to defend.

Colorado went from 12th to 2nd in the same stat, rush defense, when they won in 2022 after being a very rush-heavy team in 21 and not worrying about what was going against them.

Vegas did the same thing going from 20th in rush defense to winning in 23 at 4th.

St.

Louis, you could go all the way back to 2019 with St.

Louis and Florida famously went from a president's trophy winning team with the best rush in the league with a negative rush against.

But then, of course, rectified that and won twice.

So, again, the Carolina Hurricanes.

I mean, they gave up the most breakaways against this regular season.

They were 32nd in rush defense.

So they completely smashed whatever I've been looking at for the last 10 years.

That's why I never thought they were going to win because it was going to catch up to them.

It never did.

Why didn't it?

I don't want to say the opponents weren't enough for them to handle and it was too easy for them.

That's not fair.

But let's just say they weren't challenged the way that we've seen the Stanley Cup playoffs over the last few years.