This is an excerpt from The Buzzer, which is CBC Sports' daily email newsletter. Stay up to speed on what's happening in sports by subscribing here. The Stanley Cup champions are gone.
The best* regular-season team in history is gone. The Leafs won a series for the first time in a generation. And the odds of a Canadian team hoisting the Cup for the first time in three decades suddenly look quite a bit better.
Let's untangle it all after a completely bonkers weekend in the NHL playoffs: The Kraken slayed the Stanley Cup champs. With the dynamite young trio of Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Mikko Rantanen leading the way, the Avalanche looked like a dynasty in the making as they buried everyone in their path to the Cup last year.
The Avs lost some key supporting players in free agency and battled injuries throughout an unimpressive regular season, by their standards.