Best Stanley Cup Playoff Games/Series?

Although the Avs swept the Panthers, you make an argument (a weak one, maybe) that the Beezer should have won the Conn Smythe.

 

If Sakic hadn't gone batshit crazy with 34 points in those playoffs ... and considering the immortal Dave Lowry was the Rats' points leader that postseason ... uhh, yeah. Beezer's an easy call for the Conn Smythe.

 

Believe it or not this is serious.

I see a lot of mentions of what I consider to be Hockey's most recent "golden era" from around 1989 until the strike of 1995 and at that time hockey was really gaining in popularity in the U.S. with mainstream fans to the point of where expansion in the Southeast was happening at a rapid pace.

Well I know the TV deal with ESPN had a good bit to do with that but for the mainstream fans, the casual fans I'm wondering if EA Sports great line of hockey games for the Sega Genesis had a good bit to do with the popularity. A lot of kids, younger adults, college kids, etc. owned those great games and it gave them familiarity with a lot of the players, especially guys like Steve Yzerman who was one of the best players in the game.

It sounds strange that a video game would boost the popularity of a sport but I have a feeling that, in this case, those hockey games really helped the sport during that period of time.

 

Kings fan? Not sure I've met one since Gretzky left. Do they even exist?

and "No Goal" in the same post, buck? Keep talking like that, and you'll never have to buy a beer in Buffalo.

 

The 1993-94 Wales Conference Finals between the Rangers and Devils was the greatest playoff series I've ever seen. In any sport.

 

Sakic deserved the Conn Smythe. His point total during the playoffs, pressure performance during the playoffs and his leadership during the finals are reasons alone he deserved it ten times more than Beezer. Sakic has arguably the best wrist shot in the game.

 

8,000 games of NHLPA '93 on Sega later, I'd have to agree with you.

 

Breakfast, shmreakfast. Look at the score, for Christ's sake. It's only the second period and I'm up 12 to 2. Breakfasts come and go, Rene, but Hartford, "the Whale," they only beat Vancouver once, maybe twice in a lifetime.

 

Great point. I thought NHL 92 and 93 were the greatest video games I'd seen to that point. As great as Blades Of Steel was, those games were light years ahead of that.

 

NHL '93 was the first hockey video game I ever owned (was fortunate enough to get it for Christmas in sixth grade), and that sparked an interest in the sport that remains to this day. Who remembers the hilarious fighting feature that the two players would get sent to the box and the one who got his ass kicked would wobble to his box? Great stuff.

 

I'm glad Huggy mentioned Blades of Steel because it was always funny that the only fighting penalty would go to the guy who got his clock cleaned. It should have been "five minutes for being a speedbag."

 

My seven-year-old discovered the NHL 94 game that came with NHL 06. He loved playing it but the few times I did it drove me nuts (mostly because my pateneted moves wouldn't work anymore). But man, did I waste many, many hours playing it when it came out.