ok which one of you is Mike Bartner? He gave Chicago the best grade out of all teams missing the playoffs
Well I'm not Mike Bartner but I don't disagree with him. Yeah we were disappointing in the standings but I'm overall very happy with how the season went when you look at what really matters. If anything, I'm happy with the results as we're in line to pick 2nd overall. Some may roll their eyes at that but the expected improvement this season was supposed to be led by the influx of vets and that just didn't happen. I mean would we really be that much happier if we finished with 70 points, an 18 point improvement over last season, but the kids didn't do much?
I'd much rather take the results of the season with promising development from Nazar, Levshunov, Rinzel, Moore, Korchinski, Kaiser, Del Mastro, Crevier, Allan, and Dach plus what we saw from Kantserov, Lardis, Boisvert, Pridham, Spellacy, Greene, etc is very encouraging.
Yeah Bedard struggled this year but I'm not at all discouraged at what he can become with some real talent around him. I think I'm about ready to close the book on Reichel and whatever I thought Kurashev might be able to become, yeah that ain't happening.
But if we're asking ourselves if we're as close to the next cup now as we thought we'd be when the season opened, I'd still say yes. But as I look at who is in the playoffs, that cup is not all that close.