Surprising Performances

There's been a couple of surprising performances in the last week that I have found very shocking. First the 5-1 loss by Carolina to the hands of the Philadelphia Flyers and the 7-2 loss by Toronto to the New York Rangers. Both Carolina and Toronto need to win to make it to the playoffs, so any loss brings them on step closer to the golf course, which is what makes these games so surprising.

A desperate hockey team doesn't lose 5-1 to the worst team in the league. A desperate hockey team doesn't lose 7-2 to one of the teams they are chasing.

So the question you have to ask is do these teams really want it? Both teams have clung to the chance of making the playoffs with some strong play over that last couple of weeks, maybe it's just been too much and they had a let down. It could be that their respective coaches have run out of ways to motivate them.

For whatever reason it is, these performances just aren't acceptable by a professional hockey team at crunch time. It's games like these that people remember on why they missed the playoffs.