How good do we think we are?

[Novacain]

Would you have bet on Florida or Minnesota this year? Or would you have bet Dallas and the Nucks wouldn't even make the playoffs?

If the Stanley went to the best team on paper every year.... We would have won more then 1. Tampa would be on like 3 cups in the past 3 years..... There are surprises every year.

There are upsets every year in the playoffs - even thought a 7 games series should prevent that. You don't know until you play the games.

yeah, there are upsets, but how many times in the last decade has a team upset there way to an actual Cup? Cause last I checked the “least talented” team to win the cup in the 2010’s was us. And we are less talented and older now then we did it.

Just striving for “good enough to make the playoffs and hoping you get hot” is good enough to maybe get you to the conference finals or so (15-16 Blues say hi), but I legit don’t think you can win a cup that way anymore.

 

[Celtic Note]

Would you have bet on Florida or Minnesota this year? Or would you have bet Dallas and the Nucks wouldn't even make the playoffs?

If the Stanley went to the best team on paper every year.... We would have won more then 1. Tampa would be on like 3 cups in the past 3 years..... There are surprises every year.

There are upsets every year in the playoffs - even thought a 7 games series should prevent that. You don't know until you play the games.

I guess I don’t see any of the teams mentioned as contenders. And, I agree that upsets can and do happen. But rarely do upsets happen enough times for a team to win a Cup. And buy upsets I am not talking about it in the sense of the favored team losing. Rather I am looking at upsets where you are left thinking “there is no way this team will beat that team unless the stars align”.

 

[Celtic Note]

yeah, there are upsets, but how many times in the last decade has a team upset there way to an actual Cup? Cause last I checked the “least talented” team to win the cup in the 2010’s was us. And we are less talented and older now then we did it.

Just striving for “good enough to make the playoffs and hoping you get hot” is good enough to maybe get you to the conference finals or so (15-16 Blues say hi), but I legit don’t think you can win a cup that way anymore.

This is similar to the point I am trying to make.

 

[Sgt Schultz]

My only comment is that you have to look at it a little deeper than who won the finals and whether that series qualifies as an upset.

For example, the 2014 finals matched the #5 EC seed Rangers vs. the #6 EC seed Kings. The Kings winning was either a mild upset or none at all, but those two teams matching up in the finals would have had to be considered an upset pairing by itself.

The Kings are apparently a magnet for that, because in 2012 they won as the #8 WC seed against the #6 EC seed Devils. Again, you may or may not consider the result of the finals to be an upset, but the fact that those two teams got that far had to be considered an upset.

I'm not even sure I consider our 2019 Cup anything more than maybe a minor upset. Sure, the Bruins were a higher seed, but the Blues had a better record in the period approaching the playoffs. We all know that story, they had the best record since January. It is hard to consider a team winning an upset when they were the best or among them in the last month or two before the playoffs, regardless of their seeding. In fact, my attitude approaching those playoffs was that if it was not the Blues, they would have been my pick to win it

It happens.