What Happened?

What started as a promising season slowly but surely drifted into a desperate run just to make the playoffs. And now the "Forever Proud" are one loss away from losing to the Bruins in the playoffs for only the eighth time ever.

While it was somewhat of a relief that our first-round opponents would be the Bruins (24-7!) it was quite evident that the series would be tough. You can talk about tradition and the Forum Ghosts, but the fact of the matter is that Boston had built an amazing team, with the likes of Savard and Kessel up front, Chara on the blue line, and the great story of Tim Thomas in net.

So what happened? Could we have won if Schneider and Markov stayed healthy? What was the impact of losing Robert Lang for so long? Gainey did get Schneider shortly before the trade deadline, but was there a missing piece of the puzzle that could have been picked up?

In this humble writer's opinion, it all started at LAST YEAR'S trade deadline. While the trading of Huet made sense, we should have also gotten a veteran goalie. Basically Gainey rolled the dice on Price, and while he is obviously a great goalie, there was just too much pressure on him. Maybe Gainey was hoping for tradition, remembering rookies such as Ken Dryden, Steve Penney, and Patrick Roy. Perhaps a backup such as Cujo would have been good insurance. But instead Price was thrown into the Colosseum to face the lions. We managed to win Round 1, but it looked like the pressure got to Price.

This year Gainey had the chance to do the same thing again. Would Denis have been a better backup in the playoffs? The unfortunate thing is now Price has lost his confidence. Hopefully he can get it back next year.

Jason Feng