Decade of darkness has nothing to do with anything, what the f*** are you guys even talking about.
This is a team that just went to game 7 of the Finals and has the best player in the modern history of the sport.
Our D improvement is because of Knoblaugh, stop with the bullshit that we had some superstar D corps last season, we didn't. We had one great pairing and then a bunch of interchangable pieces, Knoblaugh + Coffey is the reason we broke through and made the Finals.
Somebody said we had a superstar D corps last year? Are they in the room with us right now? Did you take your meds today bro?
Our D was good before Knoblauch, it actually improved right around the time we graduated Desharnais to the NHL. Our D was terribly floundering and we were at risk of falling out of the playoffs before we brought in Woodcroft and he brought up Desharnais to play the PK for us. It was only like 2 years ago. Where were you? Ekholm also was a major stabilizing presence on the left side, and suddenly we could ice a solid handful of players that we could trust in the defensive zone.
The Best Player in the modern history of the sport missed the playoffs on this team, and was at risk of doing it again when we had shit defence. He also got off to a TERRIBLE start last year when Ekholm was injured for a few days.
We’re one Ekholm flu away from getting smashed on defence. We don’t have a superstar goalie. Connor McDavid can’t play goalie and defence. He can’t win alone. That is THOROUGHLY proven.
Our D was top 10 last year. Thats not great, but it’s enough to win with McDavid if you get some breaks.
It’s top 20 now. Is that enough? Probably not. Never was good enough in the past.