Habs in 6. This is why…
Carolina had 111 points and have gone 8-0 in playoffs. Seems dominating. Let’s look closer. Canes had a 0.769 win percentage vs teams from Metropolitan division. 42 points (26 games) and a 0.542 win percentage vs Atlantic for 28 points (24 games). We all know what division is tougher. Almost the same amount of games. Montreal had a 0.615 win percentage vs Atlantic teams (26 games).
This tells me that our 106 points vs Tampa, Boston, Buffalo, Detroit, Ottawa were much harder than NYI, NYR, Philly, Pittsburgh, CLJ, Washington. Metro had 3 playoff teams, Atlantic 5. Atlantic had 4 teams reach 100 points. Only Carolina hit 100.
I feel Montreal would have gained an additional 3 wins if we were in the Metro and would have been ahead of Carolina in the standings. Just my opinion tho. We also went 3-0 head to head vs them.
That’s regular season. How about playoffs? We just finished 2 series vs high caliber teams in Tampa 106 points, Buffalo 109 points. Both from the Atlantic which I just broke down. Hard, fast styles. Top goaltending in Vassy, Norris finalist in Dahlin, 2 Jack Adams coaches. Carolina played Philly and Ottawa. No where near the same level. Great that they swept them. We have battle scars, we know the pace, we have felt the brink of elimination.
Goalies. Anderson’s numbers through 8 are insane. Not sustainable either and tbh, a very small sample size. He has not faced our fire power, our depth, our speed, Lane Hutson is an X factor all on his own. Dobeš has been awesome in his own right. Faced Kuch, Hagel, Point, Raddysh, Tage, Dahlin, Tuch, Benson etc… much harder games. Anderson is not all world and never has been. I’m expecting a change in his numbers. Lyon came into the series ahead of Dobeš in numbers and left sitting on the bench.
Tired? We are the youngest team. We have stamina, we are now used to this pace and Carolina have not played in 12 days. Yes they’re rested but also cold. They don’t know the same pace and will be surprised and will need to get up to speed. Again my opinion. We are faster. I feel in being out hustled they will take penalties and we will capitalize.
Our top line has not found their game fully 5v5 yet. So we still have this. I think it will happen. We have Demidov getting comfortable with the playoffs and was dynamic. Newhook was a hero as a depth scorer, Bolduc knows his role, Andy is a playoff beast, Ghule is so underrated, Matheson is playing all situations, Dobson is back.
I have FULL CONFIDENCE that we are the better team, we have the right pieces such as Danault, Evans for key points of the game- penalty kills, face offs etc… MSL is a therapist to get these guys through the mental roller coaster. I feel we will be celebrating a SC finals berth within 2 weeks.
What are your thoughts???