Sports Americains

Labor strife begat the salary cap, and the salary cap begat parity, and you have to admit that parity begat widespread excitement and entertainment. Excellence? Depends on if you equate excellence with dominance. There are no dynasties anymore, for better and for worse. There are more good teams and fewer great teams, making it even harder to win the Cup.

No one has repeated since the Detroit Red Wings won the Cup in 1997 and ’98, and only two have come close to back-to-back Cups in the salary-cap era – the Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins, who split Cup final appearances in 2008 and ’09. Seven different teams have won the Cup in seven years since the cap arrived. Nine have won it in nine if you go back a little further.

It is deceiving that the Kings became the first to win the Cup as an eighth seed last season. They underachieved in the regular season more than they overachieved in the playoffs. Only one other bottom-four seed has won the Cup since the league started seeding one through eight in each conference in 1993-94, and that was a fifth seed, the 1995 New Jersey Devils. It is still unclear whether the Kings started or reflect a trend.

But the feeling that anything can happen is as strong as ever before, if not stronger, and good luck guessing what will happen.

Think the Chicago Blackhawks and Penguins are heavy favorites? The Vancouver Canucks won the Presidents’ Trophy last season and lost in the first round, and the Penguins were highly touted and lost in the first round, too. One type of each seed won in the first round – a first, a second, a third and so on – and not one but two bottom-four seeds went to the final. The Kings beat the Devils, a sixth seed.

There seems to be a divide between the old guard and the new this year -- and not just because all of the Original Six are in the field. The Wings extended the longest playoff streak in pro sports (22 seasons) while the Maple Leafs snapped the longest drought in the league (seven seasons). The last six Cup winners are all back, while five of the last seven teams in last season’s league standings have made the playoffs. (The Anaheim Ducks fit both categories.)

Yet there really is no playoff juggernaut to intimidate anyone. Two of last year's conference finalists (the Cup runner-up Devils and Phoenix Coyotes) didn't make the playoffs. The other two conference finalists from last year (the champion Kings and New York Rangers) are bottom-four seeds. As writer Sean McIndoe (a.k.a. Down Goes Brown) pointed out, only one team in the field has won in the first round each of the past two years, and that team is the Washington Capitals, those perennial disappointments, who never escaped the second round and are on their third coach and third approach in three playoffs.

Whom do you think will win? Who will?