Rozner: Did Chicago Blackhawks miss chance, or is this new reality?

There's been a changing of the guard in the Western Conference.

That will be the narrative in September when NHL teams begin preparing for another regular season.

An overreaction to a single postseason? Perhaps, but you can't look at what's occurred the last six weeks and pretend it doesn't feel like the landscape has been altered.

Maybe things would have been different if the Chicago Blackhawks had arrived on time when the series began with Nashville, but the favorites to win it all in June never showed up in April.

Once the Hawks had lost a pair in Chicago, a Preds team that didn't know if it could beat the Hawks began to believe, and that was pretty much all they needed.

The Hawks entered the playoffs as the oldest team in the league and looked the part, unable to skate with a faster team that was hungry to get past the three-time champs.

The Hawks never displayed that same urgency until it was too late.

Nashville's defense has put the Preds in the Stanley Cup Final, continuing to carry the team just as it did against the Hawks.

It doesn't hurt that Pekka Rinne rediscovered his world-class play and puck-handling ability that has frustrated all three teams the Preds have taken out.

Meanwhile, the Ducks' most expensive forwards are getting older, and they will not soon get over the fact that they've never had an easier path to the fourth round.

At least Anaheim is young and loaded on defense.

Would the series have been different if Anaheim hadn't lost goaltender John Gibson after one period of Game 5, when the series was tied at 2-2 and the Ducks were at home?

Would their chances have been better with Patrick Eaves and Rickard Rakell, their two top goal scorers, in the lineup?

Of course, but injuries are part of the process, and the Preds have suffered some devastating injuries as well.

There's Minnesota, which has to win in spite of its coach. St. Louis is in transition. San Jose lost in the first round. Los Angeles missed the playoffs and fired its GM and coach - one of the NHL's finest ever - after the best six-year run in the history of the franchise that included two Stanley Cups.

And the Hawks, the standard by which all teams this decade are judged, have gone out in the first round in consecutive seasons.

Yeah, it feels different, especially given that Edmonton - which beat the Sharks - might have been the best, fastest and most talented team in the playoffs.

The young Oilers lost to the Ducks in the second round after blowing a 3-goal lead in the final 3:16 of Game 5, before losing in double overtime.

Now, they have the experience of winning a series and losing in seven games, after making the playoffs for the first time since 2006.

They will be a popular pick to win it all next season, while Nashville will obviously be in the conversation again.

Age does not preclude a deep run in the postseason. Pittsburgh and Ottawa were among the four oldest teams in the league heading into the playoffs, and Pittsburgh just won a Cup last year, seven years after they won their first with Sidney Crosby.

It's the way the Hawks looked old that was so disturbing. You win in the playoffs with great defense. It stops the opposition offense and it starts your own offense.

It's about sorting the rush, gaps, puck retrieval and transition, and when the Hawks were at their best, they also had the best transition in the game.

Against Nashville, they were painfully bad below the circles at both ends of the ice.

The team that was so good in February and March and led the West in points did not play that way in four games against Nashville.

It's probably not a good enough reason to fold the franchise, but it does raise questions, and answers are tough to find when you're always up against the cap and drafting late in the first round.

At the same time, those who have been bad get the pick of the best and have money to spend, which allows the worst time to catch up to the best.

That's a cap world. That's parity. And it's happening now.

brozner@dailyherald.com

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