I agree about Crawford. They won that Cup in spite of him. And the reality is for all of Murray's heroics, the team in front of him is way more responsible for his success. I don't want to say they win in spite of him too, because he does steal them some games. He is much like Crawford in that he has a bad glove and average puck control, and causes a lot of problems that he then bails himself out of, making him look spectacular. But he allows too many soft goals. If you look at their shot totals and charts, you'll see how little work he actually has to do. In 2016, the Pens held their opponents to 25 shots or under in 11 of the 22 games Murray played. The Sharks didn't record 30 in any game, with their high being 26. The Bolts recorded 30 or more twice (30,37), but were also held to 20 or under twice, including 17 in Game 7. And all of that was despite two games in each series going to OT, which increased the shot totals. In fact, in the two final elimination games, the Bolts and Sharks were held under 20 shots (17 and 19 respectively). Both were shut outs.
The crux of the argument here is in the bullet points. I believe the first should read "Top tier defensive systems and defensemen are generally a must to win", with the rest holding true. You could make the third "Average defenses can potentially get it done if their goaltending is out of this world". But the problem is that we haven't seen that second one since Thomas in 2011 or maybe Quick in 2012 (his defense was better than average imo). We've seen a lot of teams riding the hot or elite goalie only to lose to the better defensive team though. It's just a difference of opinion.