Rozner: Are Cubs next up to repeat as champs?
The Los Angeles Kings just had the most successful six-year stretch in the history of the franchise.
They averaged 96 points in non-lockout years and won two Stanley Cups with three straight trips to the conference finals.
So, naturally, they fired GM Dean Lombardi and coach Darryl Sutter, the 11th-winningest coach of all time who may be headed for the Hall of Fame, or is perhaps one more successful coaching stint from getting there.
But NHL boss Gary Bettman doesn't want teams to win consistently, something Sutter talked about a year ago, after the Kings lost in the first round.
"When you're a good team and you lose a good player or two, they're hard to replace," Sutter said. "When you win Cups, or you're near the top of the league year after year, you pick late (in the draft) and you don't have kids you can just plug in and take that spot.
"That's just how it's set up. Not much room for error."
That's why it's been 20 years since an NHL team went back-to-back.
Since the advent of the cap, when Bettman wiped out the 2004-05 season with a lockout, only three teams have reached the Stanley Cup Final in consecutive seasons, the Penguins and Red Wings in 2008-09 and the Penguins right now.
It's a tribute to Sidney Crosby that the Penguins have done it, and now we'll see if they can repeat against a younger and faster Nashville team.
So Pittsburgh has a chance and so do the Cleveland Cavaliers, though they are a huge underdog against the loaded Golden State Warriors.
It's been a long time for a repeat champ in the NHL, MLB and NFL, but it happens all the time in the NBA, where Miami just did it a few years ago.
It is the easiest league to do it because it's a star-driven league where the team with the best players wins most seasons.
The same can't be said of the other leagues.
It hasn't happened in baseball since the Yankees' dynasty ended with Arizona's dramatic ninth-inning comeback in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series.
It hasn't happened in the NFL since the Patriots in 2005, and now New England has another chance this year.
But you wonder if can really happen in a league where cap-era attrition is so brutal.
As for baseball, the Cubs and Indians are off to decidedly mediocre starts, hardly a surprise giving the taxing nature of long postseason runs and the stress it puts on a pitching staff.
Both teams have plenty of time to get it together, but it's a long and debilitating run and they have much work to do before they can think about getting back to the Fall Classic.
The Patriots are more than three months away from even starting their season.
But the Penguins and Cavs need only 4 victories to repeat, as the question arises daily about which team in which sport will be the next to go back-to-back.
So who has the best chance?
Well, Cleveland's task feels overwhelming, given how strong Golden State looks through a few easy rounds of the postseason, and the way in which the Warriors have destroyed opponents.
Of course, it felt that way at 3-1 a year ago, and no team with LeBron James can ever be counted out. He is a franchise unto himself.
Pittsburgh, on the other hand, is heavily favored against Nashville, which seems like a surprise considering how beat up the Penguins are at the moment.
Do they have enough on defense to compete with Nashville's speed?
Nashville is also plenty beat up at the moment, which is also not a surprise. Surviving three rounds of NHL playoffs is merely that, survival.
Forced to pick, the selections here are Golden State and Nashville, which would leave it up to the Cubs and Patriots as the next teams to have a chance.
It just feels like such a long way away for both, and so much has to go right for them to have another opportunity at the big prize.
Daunting indeed.
brozner@dailyherald.com
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