Its about time the lucky bounces went our way for once. As Kelly said, we really have not gotten those all season. On Barbashev's goal, everyone is complimenting Thomas, and it was a nice play. However, he was intending the cross-ice pass for Sundqvist and it bounced off the goalie's blocker right to Barby. Perron's 2nd goal was a blind pass that perfectly bounced off a Panther's stick to go in. The Botuzzo bounce didn't count, but normally that would have happened to us, and would have counted for some obscure sub-section of the rule (Pucks deflected off referees directly into the net do not count as goals, except on prime numbered days of the month, in months that don't end in "y" that fall on a Tuesday).
I'm not saying all our ills are based on bad luck. We've sucked for much of the season. But it is good to see us get the bounces for once. And getting the bounces can go a long way to turning around a downward slide. Had they got the bounces instead of us, the game goes from a close 4-3 win to a blowout 5-2 loss. So now we have momentum instead of more despair. We just need to keep it going for more than a god-damn game.
As for the tank, I'd much rather play decently and start to figure out what is wrong with this team than maybe get a top 5 pick. I think in the long-run figuring out which players we need to move and what style of coach we need, and creating a winning culture that keeps Pietrangelo and Schenn here is far more important than a single high-draft pick. Also we are 9 points out with at least between 1-3 games in hand on all our competition. If we are still within striking distance with as awful as we have been, we can get back into it if we play like we can. While it is rare for teams that are out of the playoffs by Thanksgiving to end up making it, it still happens. Even if it only happens like 10% of the time (I don't know the actual stat), that would equate to at least a team or two every season. I'm not saying it will happen. But I'm glad we got some lucky bounces, got the win. And I'm interested to see what they do with it.