The Greatest Goalie Playoff Run I've Ever Seen

 

In 2003, I was in the process of graduating high school and beginning the long journey that is life. What a wild trip it’s been. Ups and downs, victories in defeat, and defeat in victory. That’s how life is.

It is also very reminiscent of what the 2003 National Hockey League Stanley Cup Playoffs were for Jean-Sebastien Giguere.

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The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim were an inconsistent team within a heavily talented Western Conference. With rookie head coach Mike Babcock at the helm and Brian Murray transferring from coach to General Manager, the Ducks were eager to show their mettle, especially after their disappointing 2001-2002 campaign.

Behind lifelong Duck Captain Paul Kariya, Steve Rucchin, and the great Adam Oates, Murray made trades throughout the season to make the Ducks gritter for a possible playoff run. 

Prior to the season (in fact, eight days after the last game of the 2002 Stanley Cup Finals), the Ducks traded for right winger Petr Sykora from the New Jersey Devils. On January 30, 2003, defenseman Sandis Ozolinsh came over from the Florida Panthers. And on the trade deadline on March 11, the Ducks were aggressive, getting defenseman Rob Niedermeyer from the Calgary Flames and veteran Steve Thomas from the Chicago Blackhawks.

The Ducks finished with a 40-27-9 record, progressively 11 wins better than the season before. Carried in scoring by Sykora, Rucchin, and Kariya, the Ducks played hard hockey, which Coach Babcock promised during his inaugural press conference. Hard defense from Ruslan Salei, Niedermeyer, and alternate captain Keith Carney helped propel the Ducks’ new philosophy, especially through the second half of the season.

However, it cannot be understated on the importance of its goaltender.

In his second full season as the Ducks starting goalie, J.S. Giguere was absolutely stellar in goal, garnering a 34-22-6 record between the pipes, racking up a 2.30 GAA, .920 save percentage, and eight shoutouts. He was the NHL’s Player of the Week of December 16, 2002, and had slowly begun gaining momentum as a future star of the league.

If Kariya was the Ducks’ heart, then “Jiggy” was its soul. Giguere was a crucial piece to the puzzle, and the fans in Anaheim began to love his style of goaltending.

By the start of the 2003 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim were the seventh seed with 95 points. They were matched up against the defending Stanley Cup Champions, the second seed Detroit Red Wings, who were heavily favored to repeat.

By the end of the series, the Red Wings were not only eliminated from the playoffs; they were swept!

In what was a massive upset, the Ducks swept Detroit in four games, propelled off of Giguere’s fantastic goaltending. In Game 1, Giguere, in his playoff debut, stopped 63 shots in a triple-overtime thriller, with Anaheim winning 4-3 off of a Paul Kariya game-winner. The Ducks won the next two games, and, in Game 4, Steve Rucchin scored in overtime to clinch the series and go onto the next round.

The hockey world was stunned. The Red Wings were only the second team in NHL history to be swept in four games the following year in a first round series. All eyes were on the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.

Most importantly, it brought mainstream media attention to Jean-Sebastien Giguere. Carrying the Ducks on his back through four spectacular games, including 165 saves from 171 shots on net, he went from relative obscurity from the eyes of casual sports fans to absolute superstar status.

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It is ironic that the Walt Disney Company owned both the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and ESPN, the Worldwide Leader in Sports on television. Also possessing the rights to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which would air on ESPN and ABC, also owned by Disney, the great games the Ducks were having were gaining momentum in a massive way. It was the first time I had ever seen synergy like that on television.

Giguere was the great beneficiary of all of that. His phenomenal first round led to a tougher, but even more impressive Western Conference Semifinal Ducks series win over the Dallas Stars in six games. In the Western Conference Finals, the Ducks played against the Minnesota Wild, only in its third year of existence. Giguere amassed a shutout streak of 217 minutes and 54 seconds through the first three games of the WCF. In turn, Giguere gave up only ONE goal against 123 shots taken by Minnesota through the four game sweep of the Wild.

“Jiggy” put the exclamation point on his breakout run throughout the playoffs with one of the greatest saves in NHL history. 

During Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, Giguere was on the left side of the net, attempting to save a shot from left winger Andrew Brunette. The puck ricocheted to future NHL superstar Marian Gaborik, who had a wide-open look at the goal. Gaborik shot, and at first glance, it looked like he shanked it off the post, which play-by-play man Gary Thorne called as well. However, on instant replay, Giguere dove, and with his paddle barely on the ice, stopped the puck from going in.

When you have John Davidson, legendary color analyst and former goaltender in his own right, giving out multiple “Oh Baby!”’s on the air, you know it was great.

Giguere became a phenomenon once the Ducks reached the Stanley Cup Finals. ESPN was having a field day, hyping every game, with him as the centerpiece. Pressure was never more immense.

Despite those pressures of his white-hot rise to superstardom, Giguere kept his team going, pushing them to a grueling seven game series with the Eastern Conference champion Devils. Ultimately the Ducks lost the Finals four games to three, ending their season on June 9, 2003.

The Cinderella story was over.

However, in one of the most surprising moments in sports history, Giguere, despite being on the losing side of the Stanley Cup Finals, won the Conn Smythe Trophy for being the Most Valuable Player of the entire playoffs. This was the first time a player on the losing team won the Conn Smythe since 1987 with Ron Hextall, and subsequently, as of November 1, 2023, the last.

Many people say Martin Brodeur, the stellar goalie of the Devils, was snubbed of the Conn Smythe. I am in the minority. The right call was made. Jean-Sebastien Giguere was the standout star of the 2003 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

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It has been more than twenty years, and in spite of falling out and falling back in love with hockey during that time, I have never forgotten the greatness of Jean-Sebastien Giguere in the 2003 Stanley Cup Playoffs. To me, it is the greatest goalie playoff run I have ever seen. More importantly, it might very well be one of the most legendary performances in the history of modern sports. Not many have been able to follow it.

Multiple times over this year, I have gone back and forth on the idea of analyzing this entire saga. It will be an arduous process, but I’ve decided to take on the challenge of doing a deep dive, not just into the career of “Jiggy”, but the history of the 2002-2003 Mighty Ducks of Anaheim season, the mainstream publicity behind Giguere’s run, and much more.

I might even discuss him winning the Best NHL Player ESPY Award.

I will outright say that this will not be updated as fast as I would like it to be, but I am going to be investing a lot of time into watching old 2003 playoff games, and doing as great of an analysis as I can discussing this. This will be a challenge, but something I am really looking to sink my teeth into. I’m thrilled to do this.

I hope you take a seat, and enjoy this look back into the 2003 Stanley Cup Playoff run of Jean-Sebastien Giguere.

It’s time to get jiggy with it.

#BANKONIT

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