I don't agree. Extremely disappointing yes, catastrophic no. Even up 2-0 after the first 2 games I never thought it was a slam dunk because Jersey was such a good road team and was a little uneasy about that. I always said home ice meant nothing in this series. What I define as catastrophic is Boston losing the way they did with their expectations. Now that's catastrophic. This was their year and were huge favorites and to lose a series to a team that finished 43 points behind you after leading the series 3-1 is bad. They are also older, have no 1st or 2nd rounders for the next 2 years, and a limited prospect pool.
Of course this was a disaster. You cannot say anything else really when the supposed "Panarin" or "Igor" window slammed shut punching the Rangers face in. The organization now faces major work to put the pieces back together again.
The Devils are a young team whose window opened this very season and they simply blew us out of the water in the games where they had their system in place. Our team didn't even compete in the final crucial game on top of completely failing to close the series out in games 3 and 4.
We have talented individuals through out the squad but we never had a functional
team throughout the season (a handful of games apart maybe for the nitpickers).
We regressed in many aspects from the previous season when we should have taken a clear and obvious step up in progression towards becoming a leading cup contender.
This team failed and failed in a spectacular fashion. For all it's individual talent this team is flawed, poorly led and constructed. The team fell apart under pressure, as many of us suspected they might watching the many odd and weak performances,
especially against a certain type of opposition during the regular season, reasonable points total notwithstanding.
This season the players in the room lost something important, and that was apparent from the very beginning of the season (.500 hockey - helmet toss etc). They lost
belief for whatever reason.
Imo it was because they realized they were years behind other teams playing modern speed based hockey and their system was tactically inept.