The lack of energy is from the lack of winners. Williams, Quick, Brown, Richards, Mitchell, Scuderi, Gaborik, Regehr. All winners. All men who wouldn’t repeatedly lay down and get tooled.
Who are Blake’s big chess pieces? Danault, guy was a 24 year old rookie. Arvidsson was a guy lucky to make the NHL. Moore was undrafted and waiver wire fodder. Lizotte, again undrafted and a guy who wouldn’t play on any other playoff team.
The one guy who is a stud is Kempe and Blake did his best to screw that up before the bottom fell out and he was busy trying to spin the situation into a fake ass rebuild.