Sure, if you want to pretend that Cale Makar isn't part of their core and Seymon Valarmov backstopped the team to glory.
Oh yeah, I won't soon forget that "contender" team that won one more game then they lost that year before getting dumped by the Mighty New York Islanders in Qualifying Round.
So, just to be clear, you think it's a feather in Ovechkin's cap that he had made the playoffs five times by year seven? I guess we're just supposed to pretend that Nick Suzuki wasn't the first line centre on a team that went to the Cup Final in his second year? It took Ovechkin six years to play as many playoff games as Suzuki did it two. You might want to re-think this one.
Nick Suzuki, by year two, had a SCF loss and two PO appearances out of 2. Again, do you want to re-think this one?
Heading into broken record territory here. In Pietrangelo's first seven seasons, he had played a grand total of 28 playoff games. Suzuki played 32 in his first two seasons.
Before winning that Cup, year 7, Kopitar had 6 playoff games on his resume. In six years.
So you want to pretend the rebuild started years before it actually began, and then, simultaneously, you want to complain about how long the rebuilding is taking?
