Daniel Alfredsson: 17 games, 3 goals. Damian Strohmeyer/SI

If misery loves company, Turco runs with a fast crowd. With the playoffs starting next week, several elite players are at a juncture at which another inconsequential postseason might define their careers. Those on the hot seat are hardly ingenues. They are old enough (in their late 20s or 30s), playoff-tested enough and significant enough that they should be able to carry a team for a week, a series, maybe even two months. "Expectations are so high," Turco says, referring to himself and the other top players under scrutiny, "but obviously there's a reason people expect a lot."

Along with Turco, here are the other NHL stars with their reputations at stake this postseason.

Daniel Alfredsson

The right wing's 79 playoff games constitute every one in Ottawa's ill-fated postseason history. If the Senators had had competent goaltending, they might have won multiple Cups, but the 34-year-old Alfredsson, the captain and longest-serving Senator, has been the scapegoat. Since Ottawa lost Game 7 at home to the New Jersey Devils in the 2003 Eastern Conference finals, Alfredsson has scored three times in 17 postseason games, despite averaging 34 goals over the last three seasons. Last year Alfredsson was playing the point on the power play when the Buffalo Sabres' Jason Pominville waltzed around him in Game 5 to score the short-handed goal that ended the second-round series. He didn't try to impede Pominville because he didn't want to take a penalty, a laissez-faire play that belies Alfredsson's typical playoff attitude. "I remember watching him before I took the job here, and my observation to Daniel was, 'You internalize everything,'" says Bryan Murray, in his second season behind the Senators' bench. "'You do everything for everybody instead of just playing the way you play. You overhandle the puck. You over-backcheck.' Last year against Buffalo he tried to do everything for the team and be the perfect captain, and he let it affect his overall game. He tries so damn hard that it exhausts him by the end of a series."

Pavel Datsyuk

The will to slog through an eight-week Stanley Cup campaign isn't an issue for the Red Wings' Russian-born center who was weaned on the Olympics. When Detroit won in 2002, his rookie year, Datsyuk likened the experience to watching a beautiful sunrise. Sunrise. Sunset. After netting three goals in 21 playoff games that year, he has not scored in his last 21, despite assuming a more central regular-season role and developing into, roughly, a point-per-game scorer. Datsyuk had a note from his doctor for last year's shocking first-round loss to the Edmonton Oilers -- he had missed nearly three weeks because of a severe charley horse before returning for Game 2 -- but he thinks it's his approach that needs rehabbing. "I try to pass too much," says Datsyuk, 28, who through Sunday led the Wings with 84 points this season. "Maybe this year in the playoffs I'll shoot more and go harder to the net." Says coach Mike Babcock, "In my opinion he's a dominant player. But you've got to go through [the playoffs] a few times and maybe not have much success [before] you're prepared mentally and physically."