They just won two games with out Matthews. On one hand, tells me you do not need 3 players earning 40% of the cap. On the other hand, might not work against better competition. Said it before, would love to keep Marner but it has to be at the right price. He will demand more than Nylander which is a show stopper for me.
you can debate price, but exiting marner and replacing him with two $5m players won’t make us a better team. The point is, we need a legit goalie. Hopefully Woll is that guy, but if not, the priority should be getting one. Samsonov giving up that game 3 goal to Frederic was inexcusable. We keep they out maybe we win the game. That’s how much this matters. Tweaking the core doesn’t change anything in goal.
Yeah they are winning scoring 2 goals a game against an offensively challenged team, not sure how this absolves the core of anything. It’s their job to score, and they are not doing it enough to beat most teams in a playoff series.
Why are they offensively challenged? Because we are making it so. Boston didn’t lose their offensive skill overnight, we’re playing a much tighter game. When you do the the offence isn’t free-flowing. But when games are played like this you can’t expect that our stars put up hat-tricks. They just need to come through when it matters, and that’s what happened.
I am not suggesting that we shouldn't aim to be more balanced in terms of cap spend, or that we cant expect more from the core. What I am saying is that while all us fans and media relentlessly focus on the core being the #1 issue holding back this team, it's becoming very clear that what helps this team the most is
solid goaltending. All those series in the past, the letdowns, all that history could be very different with solid goaltending. You don't get it, you don't go far, but if you do, you give your skill players enough time and opportunity to come through. Goaltending has been the difference in the series, and we won all our games because the core players came through in the end.