The Series
This was the first appearance in the Cup Finals for the Hurricanes (formerly the Hartford Whalers), who made an unlikely run to the Cup. While they were seeded third as a division winner, in actuality they had the second-lowest point total (91) for a playoff team not only in the Eastern Conference, but also the whole NHL. In their whole NHL history, they had only won one playoff series prior to this season (as the Whalers), and had streaks of 5 and 6 seasons in which they did not make the playoffs. With the Red Wings having won the Presidents' Trophy with 116 points, the 25 point was the largest point differential between two teams in a Stanley Cup Finals since 1994 (27 points between New York Rangers (112) and the Canucks (85)).
The Hurricanes stunned the Red Wings in Game 1 of the Finals on the strength of Ron Francis's overtime goal. That would be Carolina's only win in the series as the Red Wings won four straight including a triple overtime win in game three that proved to be the turning point in the series. The Cup win would be the first for many veterans on the team including goaltender Dominik Hasek, forward Luc Robitaille, as well as defensemen Steve Duchesne and Fredrik Olausson. It also marked the second Cup win for Chris Chelios, 16 years after he first won the Cup as a member of the Montreal Canadiens in 1986.
Read more about this topic: 2002 Stanley Cup Finals
Famous quotes containing the word series:
“Life ... is not simply a series of exciting new ventures. The future is not always a whole new ball game. There tends to be unfinished business. One trails all sorts of things around with one, things that simply won’t be got rid of.”
—Anita Brookner (b. 1928)
“The woman’s world ... is shown as a series of limited spaces, with the woman struggling to get free of them. The struggle is what the film is about; what is struggled against is the limited space itself. Consequently, to make its point, the film has to deny itself and suggest it was the struggle that was wrong, not the space.”
—Jeanine Basinger (b. 1936)