Most popular, memorable and beloved non title teams from your city?

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Soldier

not redeemed with gold but with His Blood
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premier58 said:
1999 Buffalo Sabres..i used to love watching that scrappy team!! Dominik Hasek was at his apexz coming off a Gold Medal in 98, I believe. Stuffing Shanny in the shootout to defeat Canada. Michael Peca was a Selke guy, Miroslav Satan would score timely goals. Was heartbroken when they lost in OT of Game 6 of the SCF. The infamous Brett Hull goal which changed the crease rules.
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broller said:
Yeah that shouldn't have been a goal. That was a tough 7 months for Buffalo fans. That goal and the Music City Miracle
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premier58 said:
Excellent point. Thanks for the reminder. Just pure heartache and devastation. Both teams had special defenses, too.
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www.hockey-reference.com

1999 NHL Eastern Conference Finals: BUF vs. TOR | Hockey-Reference.com

1999 NHL Eastern Conference Finals: BUF vs. TOR
www.hockey-reference.com www.hockey-reference.com



They beat my Leafs in the 1999 ECF so I have no nostalgic sympathy for them. They were a tough and frustrating team to play against.

Toronto missed a wonderful opportunity to win the series as Hasek missed the first two games of the series in Toronto because of injuries. But Curtis Joseph really wasn’t his usual solid self against Buffalo. The Sabres a team with anemic offense, managed to score 21 goals against him. That means He allowed on average 4.2 goals per game in that series. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the NHL had arguably the worst offensive drought of its history with the dead puck era. It was hard for teams during that era to generate offense and score goals. Defenses and goaltenders ruled the league back then.

The Leafs scored 4 goals on Dwayne Roloson ( Dominik Hasek’s backup) but Cujo allowed 5 goals in his net, so it wasn’t enough for Toronto to win the game . They lost game 1 5-4 because Curtis Joseph didn’t play well. But they redeemed themselves in game 2 by winning the game 6-3 to even the series. They should’ve taken a 2-0 lead because the sabres were nearly perfect at home during the 1999 playoffs. They were 6-0 at home in the Eastern playoffs, 2-0 against Ottawa in round 1( they swept the Senators) , 3-0 against Boston ( 4-2 series win over the Bruins) and then 2-0 against Toronto( 4-1 series win over the Maple Leafs) Their only two losses at home that postseason were to the Stars in game 3 and game 6(Brett Hull controversial no goal in triple overtime that allowed Dallas to win the cup ) they lost the Stanley cup final series 4-2 to the Stars.


Remember, the 1996/97-2004 period of NHL history was the dead puck era. The 1990s Expansion to the non-traditional hockey markets like California, Arizona, Tennessee and Florida that diluted the talent pool in the league and shaky individual franchise economics allowed the emergence of the dead puck era too. It was cheaper and easier for most teams, especially financially struggling franchises located in less than desirable cities to build a team full of talentless but hard working defensive players than build a team with high end talent. It’s hard to find, draft, develop and financially retain talented offensive players for any team anyway, doubly so for poor teams in undesirable free agent destinations like Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary etc.

The defensive-minded New Jersey Devils winning the stanley cup in 1995 and especially the low-skilled/offensively challenged Florida panthers making a Cinderella cup run to the finals in 1996 also helped to make the trap and defensive-oriented hockey trendy.

Referees didnt call obvious penalties like obstruction, hooking, interference as much as before etc. Didn’t help that a vocal set of people among the nhl thought the referees should let the players play without calling everything in the book.

As a result of all these things, hooking/obstruction/interference/holding/grabbing increased and scoring dried up big time after 1997. Goaltenders dominated the league back then (Dominik Hasek was easily the most dominant player in hockey during that time, between 1993 and 2002, he won straight 2 Hart MVP trophies in 1998 and 1999, 6 Vézina trophies as best goaltender of the year, 1 Olympic gold medal in 1998 Nagano, and 1 Stanley cup with Detroit in 2002. )Teams with strong enough Defense and elite goaltending could succeed by grinding and trapping opposing teams to death. The official gameplan for most teams back then was : wait for their opponents to make mistakes and take advantage of them. Rope a dope counter attack tactics. Pack as many players in the neutral zone and patiently wait for the other teams to turn the puck over. The more aggressive teams would put pressure on the opposing puck carriers. A very slow and boring but effective brand of hockey to win. Only a few teams in the league- for example Colorado under Bob Hartley and Toronto under Pat Quinn played a open-ice, quick, free-wheeling offense-first style of hockey. Of course even these teams had elite goalies to bail them out when they took too many risks(cujo/belfour and patrick roy) The other teams used the neutral zone trap and were defense first.


In those days, during far too many games in that era, if a team both had a two-goal or three goal lead and a great goaltender, you weren’t scoring a goal anymore, and you weren’t going to win the game. Team Comebacks were hard to make, it was hard to come from behind in a game.
 
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