Better team won. Nothing else can be said about this series. An organization that understands the assignment versus an organization that doesn't.
Like, they tried. I really do believe that. They had no business going 7. This is just how bad they are.
You look at the failure of all the high picks. The way they play overall just isn't right. Panarin was not this bad until he got here. People say "oh we develop defense tho." Do we? I see a talented kid in Miller and a high pick in Schneider both becoming clueless board-chippers. Even Trouba used to have a decent first pass.
There's a massive stank in this organization, particularly in regard to skill and speed.
We've changed coaches. We've gone through a few cores now where the talent either just isn't there or it's there on paper but they play weird.
The smell is coming from upstairs.
Since Sather joined the organization 23 years ago, this team has been legitimately good at playing real (mostly 5v5) hockey three times - 2008, 2014, and 2015. The other 20 years have ranged from bad to "this literally isn't hockey."
They even tried to do a rebuild and it led them to the same type of team because the same people ran it.
The legitimately good players feel like accidents. They don't value skilled, fast players or develop those skills within their players. The ones that they acquire see huge portions of their game fall apart. The organization's understanding of NHL offense is broken. No move or set of moves will move the needle until the culture changes.
The Devils sucked for a long time and they changed things. We haven't meaningfully changed things in a long time.
NOTE: Please remember that the list of Machinehead is active in the summer.
