if you look at the past 50 years, you see 2 things. Rapid ascension and rapid falls.
Just focusing on the last 10 years:
Tampa Bay.. 5-6 year struggle, instant success under Cooper
Colorado.. 5-6 year struggle, instant success under Bodnar (in year 2)
Detroit Red Wings.. almost 30 years of continuous success.. collapse in Blashill's second year
Chicago Blackhawks.. Dynastical run for 6 years.. Collapse in Quinville's second to last year
and two we hate:
Maple Leafs..joke for 10 years. instant success in Babcock's second year
Edmonton Oilers; joke for 10 years... instant success in Mcllenan's second year
Young teams can suddenly figure it out, get it together and post good results seemingly overnight.
Collapses are often just as drastic.
Both Phenominas are in play in the Atlantic and the East as a whole.
It should be noted: coaching changes did occur in the up!!! Down often resulted in a coaching change.
Tampa and Colorado are great examples of teams that struggled and struggled HARD for many years before they became great.
Even when Tampa became a great team, it still took things like getting swept by CBJ in the first round before they finally won a cup.
The honest to God truth is that we may still be 5+ years away from a real cup win. Of course we would have to be contenders for several years before that happens, and I'm not saying that this team will struggle to make the playoffs for another half a decade.
But look at every single cup winner in the last 20 years...aside from maybe that first Blackhawks team, or Crosby's first cup winning Penguins, I really can't think of another team that was carried by a group of very young star players.
All of them are fueled primarily on the backs of veteran (25+ yr old) stars that have been around the block, and most have tasted defeat and been on the losing end of an upset before they finally won it all.
Yeah we have also seen teams like Boston or Anahiem that had young future stars playing big secondary roles in their wins with Bergy/Marchand and Getz/Perry.
But again if we are being realistic, that was never going to be in the cards for Tim, Brady and Jake....And if the Sens are going to win a cup, it's when those guys and the rest of the battle tested core are peaking as veteran stars that this Sens team is gonna win. It's their backs that are going to have to carry the team, if it's ever going to happen at all.
And in 3 or 4 years we could have super stars in 24yr old Timmy and Jake along with a mean and bruising 26yr old Brady, who could quite possibly be the most intimidating elite player in the league by then.
Point being is that we are really not built to win "now" imo. Not close. And that's not a bad thing at all, it's just being realistic about our window.
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