There are Stanley Cup Playoffs series that come and go with little fanfare. They happened, but the occurrences were so ordinary, so routine — even for the Stanley Cup Playoffs — that they fade away from memory and are only known as a series of numbers and statistics at the Hockey Reference website.
The narrative was obvious from the instant the matchup was set. With the Red Wings moving on to the Eastern Conference for the following season, this was going to be the last time the two teams could meet in a non-Stanley Cup Final matchup.