I see people saying they're just conditioned to expect the worst happening at some point given how rough the last decade has been, but I'll just parrot something I said earlier comparing this season with watching the Mets win 101 this past season after a bumpy stretch of time, as well: I'm not worried about anything falling apart, the team has simply conditioned me to expect better of them so it sticks out worse when they have a clunker or play bad for a stretch.
As of now the Devils are playing like a championship caliber club, and while this team is young enough to have multiple cracks at winning a Cup I obviously want them to take this level of play as far as they possibly can this season. Honestly, even most of their losses this year I haven't felt too badly; yeah, there was ugly stuff against the Isles, but like I said in the game thread I haven't gotten "last season" vibes or anything most of the time in the bad games. But yeah, if I get frustrated it's more out of my brain saying something like "you can't do shit like that if you're deep in the playoffs!", not "oh my God, they're going to choke and miss entirely!", because barring utter injury catastrophe the latter is getting nearly impossible to envision.
