Because they struggled badly vs Toronto with those guys in the lineup, they were actually outplayed for the most part but just got some extremely fortunate bounces in their favor.
This is true but you could draw a different conclusion as well. Another way to look at it is they didn't play very well against Toronto and still managed to be competitive and win the series in the end, even without one of their key strengths in goaltending as Vasilevskiy was quite pedestrian until very late in the series. Tampa's stars also didn't take over the series as they did in the past or later in the playoffs, so if you replay the series it's not a given the other players struggle as much or that all of Toronto's big-name players have a good series at the same time either.
The obvious counter-argument would be that the things Toronto did are what made Tampa look like they weren't at their best and I certainly think that's true to some degree, but I don't think it's the entire explanation and some of it is just Tampa flatly struggling of their own accord early in that series. Toronto gave them a really hard series, but Tampa was also just sluggish to start, I think both things can be true.
Now we replay that series without McDonagh and Palat and it's not close.
Maybe, but either Matt Murray or Ilya Samsonov are now in net at the other end of the ice, Toronto's depth is worse than it was in May, Muzzin was very good in the playoffs and is a question mark going forward based on his health, and I wouldn't count on a sub-.900 performance from Vasilevskiy repeating.
Now you lose an anchor on D and your #1LW, that's gonna have a huge impact.
Yeah, it's going to be a big impact, but I think they should be fine to go with Hedman + some guy, and then a Sergachev-Cernak pair for now and address the defensive issues at the deadline if needed, or they can find a cheap defensive caddy for Sergachev and just move Cernak up to the top pair. It's just a lot easier to address these problems when you have a unicorn as your #1D like Hedman, you don't really need much of a player to partner with him and form an elite top pair with Hedman.
As for Palat he's a tough loss for Tampa, but adding Hagel should help bridge the gap and Killorn produced more in a bigger role last year. They also lost Point in round 1 last year and getting him back will have a huge impact too. Ross Colton had 40 points last year, he probably can produce more in a higher role, Perry can take some 3rd line shifts, etc, they have the freedom to move Stamkos around the lineup, and they even brought back Namestnikov who they've successfully used as a third wheel before. They have options and I think they can replace him in the aggregate, at least for the regular season.
Kase was irrelevant for Toronto all year he was injured and a non-impact player. Blackwell wasn't anything special, 4th line guy played with energy but didn't produce. Mikheyev was a bigger loss, he played the bottom 6 well, forechecked hard and played the PK, that we are going to miss.
I agree that Mikheyev is the only major difference maker they lost, but there's some death by 1000 cuts stuff here. Kase and Blackwell weren't special players but I think it's a downgrade to replace them with Jarnkrok and Aube-Kubel, it's a huge downgrade to lose Spezza and replace him with Gaudette, and Mikheyev's absence puts Simmonds in the Leafs lineup full-time at least to start the year. That bottom six looks pretty dire right now.
There's a chance that Robertson breaks out this year or that Knies can be a missing piece on the 3rd line to end the year for Toronto but that's a risky proposition for improving what's currently pretty dicey bottom-six depth.
I think people are really downplaying how important McDonagh and Palat were to the Bolts success. They're not just average guys, or bottom 6 guys, those are legitimate studs. McDonagh is a top pairing guy, Palat is a top 6 forward on every team in the league.
I'm not really downplaying them, it's just that I'm still not convinced we should permanently downgrade their standing when none of their close competitors besides Carolina actually got better on paper. It's a big loss but I think they have the forward depth to absorb losing Palat, and Hedman gives them a big margin of safety to address their defence at the deadline if needed and to shake things around midseason if needed.
