The 3rd seed Flyers were able to easily dispose the 6th seed New Jersey Devils in 5 games, causing all of the New York area teams to be eliminated in the 1st round.

Meanwhile in the rest of the Eastern Conference the 7th seeded Montreal Canadiens scored a huge upset in 6 games as they beat their hated rivals the 2nd seeded Boston Bruins. Game 6 in Long Island was an exciting affair as the Lightning got the 5-3 win and advanced to the second round, leaving the Islanders in Long Island for the offseason. Back in Tampa Bay the Lightning got a great performance out of Nikolai Khabibulin as the Bulin Wall got a shutout in Game 5 to move the Bolts up 3-2 in the series. Game 4 was notable for a Dave Andreychuk hat trick in a 7-4 win. However, they were able to put themselves back together on Long Island and won games 3 & 4 there to even the series at 2 games a piece. The Bolts had a rough start at home and went down 2 games to none putting themselves in danger of being eliminated in the first round. Like in real life, the Bolts played the Islanders to open the 2004 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Without further adieu, here are the results of my simulation/play through. I obviously played as the Lightning while all the other games and teams were simulated. I was bored during my college winter break and since I was inspired by Marty's then upcoming jersey retirement ceremony, I used the playoffs mode in NHL 04 to go through the 2004 Stanley Cup Playoffs, placing the exact same teams in the exact same seeds as in real life. Since there's no hockey for a few days due to the All-Star break, here's a shitpost I cooked up earlier.

Nhl 2004 rebuilt 2017