The Boston Bruins don't have the same history with the Tampa Bay Lightning as they did in their previous rounds of blood feuds in the Eastern Conference. Storylines, and mutual animosity, will develop as their conference championship series goes longer.
But for now, is there a better plotline than the Battle of the Aged Netminders?
Dwayne Roloson is 41, with a graying playoff beard and scraggily hair, looking at times like a vagrant who wandered into an NHL locker room. He's played for six teams over 566 regular-season games since 1996. The Lightning traded for him on Jan. 2. He's been their backbone ever since.
Tim Thomas is 37, with a thick handlebar mustache that's been connected to a playoff beard, looking like a retired Irish prizefighter. His only NHL team is the Boston Bruins, for whom he's played 319 regular-season games since 2002-03; but he's kicked around the bushes (Birmingham Bulls! Detroit Vipers! AIK Solna!) since 1997-98. You know the story: Vezina Trophy in 2009, benched in 2010, probable Vezina Trophy in 2011.
Roloson leads the NHL in playoff goals-against average with 2.01; Thomas is second at 2.03. Roloson leads the NHL in playoff save percentage with .941; Thomas is second at .937.
Selling a playoff series on a goaltending matchup is taboo in NHL 2.0, because the casual sports fan doesn't appreciate great defense when it's offense that gets their fists pumping.
But Thomas vs. Roloson will determine the Eastern Conference representative in the Stanley Cup Finals. And it could be a stellar duel ... especially since they're both disciples of the Dominator.
For years, there were two types of goaltenders in the NHL: Dominik Hasek and everyone else.
He represented the keeper you loved to watch: The save-at-all-costs, unorthodox netminder who would flop around like the fish at the end of the Faith No More video but, inexplicably, also shut out his opponents quite efficiently.
Thomas and Roloson share that bloodline. They're not positionally sound robo-goalies whose posture would inspire a line of instructive DVDs for young keepers. ("Timmy and Rollie's 'So You Wanna Be a Goalie!'") They're instinctive, and that traces back to Hasek.
Normally, there is more recovery time between games in the playoffs and Roloson's handful of tough outings since joining the Lightning have generally occurred when the work load piled up, about the only concession he's made thus far to the numbers on his birth certificate. But Roloson also had a pretty good role model for learning to play into his dotage - Dominik Hasek, for whom he backed up way back in the 1990s with the Buffalo Sabres, when he landed after his original NHL team, the Calgary Flames, let him go.
From Big Bad Blog, Thomas on Hasek:
"I certainly watched him when I was in college and was trying to pick things up off of him," he said. "I didn't try to emulate my style after him. I still have my own style. But I didn't see some of the things that he does that I thought I could apply to my game and probably over the years it became part of my game too.
"I'll be honest, Dominik Hasek was a hero of mine back when I was in college. A guy who played unconventional and had a ton of success. And even at college age I was already labeled as somebody with my style that I couldn't do it at the next level. And so he was an inspiration. Actually, still seeing him, knowing that he's playing, he won the Czech League, not this year, but the season before… I'm still impressed with what he's been able to accomplish."
There's also an interesting, though indirect, connection between the keepers in college. CSNNE's Joe Haggerty, in an excellent piece about the rise of Thomas and Roloson through the hockey ranks, writes that they were nearly teammates at UMass-Lowell, where Thomas thought about playing but where Roloson was an established starter.
"I don't believe I've ever had a conversation with him," Thomas said of Roloson. "But he actually had an impact on my life.
"My choice was down to Michigan Tech and Lowell when I was choosing a college. The University of Vermont didn't come into the picture until really late. I'd never even been east of Buffalo before at that point in my life. Roloson was an All-American as a junior for Lowell, and he was coming back for his senior year.
"[Bruce] Crowder was the coach, and he was upfront with me that if I went there I'd be red-shirted, or I'd play in maybe three games or something as a freshman. So I decided not to go to UMass-Lowell all those years ago because of Dwayne Roloson. That really changed everything else that has happened in my life since then."
So now that these two cagey vets are battling for the right to play for the Stanley Cup, who has the advantage? NHL Network's Kevin Weekes broke it down like this:
In watching Roloson against the Washington Capitals, two things were clear: He seems to get stronger as the games goes on, which is impressive for a geezer; and that he's their best penalty killer, for a team that's killing at a 94.4 percent clip, having given up three goals on 54 chances (and at least one of them 5-on-3).
In watching Thomas against the Philadelphia Flyers and the Montreal Canadiens, you can see why he was chatted up (and received our vote) as a Hart candidate: He's a closer. The Bruins have allowed six third-period goals in 11 games; compare that to Tampa (nine in 11) or Vancouver (11 in 13) or San Jose (12 in 12). And Boston's 5-0 when leading after the first period, too.
This is going to be a brutal physical series, a chess match between over-thinking coaches and a challenge between very good special teams (Tampa) and somewhat inept ones (Boston).
But for us, it's all about the combined 78 years on this rock between the two goalies, and which one can lead his team to within four victories of the Grail.