The problem is people don't recognize what the long run really is. It can in many cases take hundreds of games before results are likely to stabilize to something approaching a reasonable result. Hockey isn't basketball. It's a low scoring game with evenly matched rosters which by its nature leads to a wide variation in outcomes.
Regarding certain teams having "it": how is this not a prime example of confirmation bias? They didn't have "it" until they won. And then in the following season they suddenly didn't have "it" any more. The Bruins had "it" in 2011, returned most of the roster (most in their primes) and coaching staff the following season, and flamed out in 2012 against the team that never has "it" in the Capitals. Did the Bruins suddenly lose "it"? Did the Capitals temporarily have "it", then lose "it" in Round 2?
Seems like no one really knows what "it" is other than whoever won must have had it. That doesn't sound very useful. Skill, tactics, and random chance seem to explain mostly everything without having to refer to nebulous concepts.
Its not nebulous to anyone who isn't mired in dualistic thinking that either things are quantifiable digits or they're crap.
Yes, it's possible to have "it" for a while and then lose it. Absolutely. That's the nature of it. "It" is generally a combination of synergistic and complementary traits, habits, skills, mentalities, and motivations that can propel an individual or a team to great achievements. It can come from the existing personalities in the room as combined in a different way around a specific cause. It can just be a burning desire to win that combines harmoniously with the ability to do the right things at the right times. "It" is a blend of champion qualities that can wax or wane because they are so elusive. "It" comes mostly from the mind.
You may not want to hear this, but the human body is linked to the human mind, and the human mind is a vastly complex function of only partially understood neurological functions. Much of what we do is possible because we have basic tasks stored in deeper parts of the brain, which allow us to perform higher level tasks without having to recount the exact steps of all the pedantic little components. We learn to tie our shoes when we're young and we never really think about the steps later. Where did that awkwardness and conscious manipulation of fingers and strings go? It became what people inaccurately call "muscle memory", which is really just storage of automatic processes in deeper parts of our brain so that we can concentrate on other things. The more we practice and heap new skills on top of others the better we become at even the most complex tasks. We cut neural pathways like water creating a channel down the side of a mountain. That is how mastery is achieved, usually through directed and intense practice over a long period of time. And that is also how choking becomes ingrained...when we learn bad habits and mentalities and imprint them in our minds through repetition and intensity (intense emotion aids imprinting).
It's not magic but it can appear that way when a master is at work. A classical pianist does not have to think about playing the notes. A basketball player simply reacts to the flow of the game, and the basket. Kobe Bryant has described the zone in excellent terms, including how everything just became "one noise". Old time athletes used to call it "the trance", or "going unconscious" or "lights out". It's really just "getting out of your own way" and letting those channels in the mountain flow.
The reason this is important is because having "it" often means getting to a stage where you simply TRUST your abilities and let them loose without a shred of conscious direction. There is no sense of doubt or "I don't know what to do". There is only flow and being in the moment. Everyone does this during the day,
but not everyone can call on it when it matters or under pressure.
When a person can turn on this ability during clutch moments he has "it". When a team can inspire and push each other into these flow states, especially at the end of a game 7, they have "it".
Teams that don't have "it" lose those game 7s time and time again. And they blame "nebulous" **** like luck.
Performance psychology is not nebulous, it's real. Every single high level athlete will tell you about it, if you ever meet one. You won't find it in your stat sheets but it's the most important thing in all of sports, and it's why sports psychology trumps analytics. Without the former you can't have the latter, and if someone can improve his mental game he can buck his statistical trends. It's also why a player can put up numbers in one environment and not another, which makes the value of some statistics suspect.
So yeah, those teams found "it" for a time. It doesn't mean you have "it" forever. It takes work like any other skill.
