I feel like it’s premature to call Fox’s demise after a few “weak” games against Carolina. He still had a few good games in the series and he had a slow start after returning from his injury in the regular season. He has been the best defenseman in the league in aggregate the past 4 years - don’t care what they say about Makar.
The reality is we can move the goalposts to make anyone look better or worse. Panarin outscored the leading scorer in Florida by 26 points. By that logic he’s easily the best forward in this series. If we want to switch it to playoff Panarin than we can’t use Barkov’s body of work for his career as the benchmark, etc.
It comes out in the wash in the end.
I don’t think we’re out skilled by Florida. I don’t think Carolina is either really.
Edit: meant to quote you and another poster but this website is a disaster on a cellphone. You catch my drift.