Comment: This was the longest hockey column on this site for eons.  It got hard to read 'bout halfway thru, the tears from this columnist's eyes dripping onto the page were smearing the words....

Of all the teams in the playoffs, Cal was the only 1 that had a losing record in reg, meaning they relied on extra time, loser pts, to get in.  They were pretenders all the way.

Their goal diff was barely to the good, barely, another stat that told us quite a bit.

And, Ana was an awful draw for them.  So, add it all up, and you get Ana winning a short series, which is what happened.

They played in a 14-team conference, in which 4 of the teams were god-awful, meaning they only had to be better than 2 of their 9 opponents.  There were better teams in the East that did not make the playoffs than Cal.

Let's move on.