I think Ned is as close to Elite as we are going to see here for a while. He's also still basically a rookie, and has room to improve his game. He's more than capable of stealing a series and absolutely distanced himself on our own internal depth chart from Mrazek and Reimer this year. He's earned the playing time he's received in these playoffs, and we'll be better off with him over the long haul.
Last game he let in one borderline bad goal. It happens. We are going to need our offense to get more than 1 past Vasi on any game if we hope to win. Especially when we dominate play like we did.
I think the biggest issue with our team in these playoffs is that our best players just are nowhere to be found. Outside of Game 6 against Nashville (to be fair, a pretty key moment to show up), Dougie and Aho have been absent these playoffs. Svech, Turbo, and Trocheck have apparently completely ghosted on the team this postseason, and don't really appear to care to show up. Like, we are already going to have our hands full with a team like Tampa, but without any of those guys showing up, we'll be cooked before it gets going.
Tonight is a must win. We go to Tampa down 0-2, we get swept. Our biggest game of the year so far.
