Leetchie...I respect ya bud...I do, but you and your comments symbolize alot our brothers in here Negative Nancy tunnel vision type of thinking. No we are not the '76 Canadians nor are we the '94 Rangers. And we are not the 2010 Black Hawks.
That said, our fwds score enough goals to win most games....yes?.
Our backend is infinitesimally better than last year's horrid group....yes?. Our goaltending is withought question MUCH better than last year's version....yes?
Why is it smoke and mirrors that we are winning hockey games? Sorry bud but I'm vexed. So unlike 90% of the rest of the teams in the NHL who win games, if we win games because our goalie played great, it's deemed a negative thing?
We don't have a McDavid or a Crosby or a Kucherov? We don't have a generational player on our roster....just the way the cards are. We have been too good over the past decade to draft players like that. So we are what we are....the collective whole makes us what we are and despite the fact we never for most part have top 10 or so draft picks, we sill have been one of the best teams in the NHL over the past 10-12 years and this year looks to be nothing different.
I truly believe you and others in here take for granted how good we've been. Now maybe it's because I'm older than most of y'all as I've been a fan since 1971 and have seen some truly dreadful times for this organization of ours but we all should really take stock that in the fact that only 1 team wins a Cup each year and trust me when I say this but there are probably 95% of the fanbases in the NHL would would gladly trade places with all of us in a NY minute.
Bottom line, warts and all, relying on Hank and all, we have as good a shot at representing the Eastern Conference than anyone seeing IMO, there is no on who we couldn't beat in a 7 game series and that include the Lightening which I stated in an earlier post and that would likely need to occur in the ECF.....