you definitely spilled a lot of ink shitting on sites that had the panthers with favorable odds to make the playoffs
Oh well, I own it. They shouldn't have even been as bad as they were for most of the year. I'm gonna chalk that up to coaching change, combined with maybe the defense got a little worse? Combined with Bobrovsky DEFINITELY worse and they were shooting pretty weak for most of the year, which I attributed to not having as strong of a rush game after Brunette was removed and replaced with Maurice. Too many people were citing trading 29 year old Huberdeau for 24 year old Tkachuk, as if that was some kind of a downgrade? Really? What is Huberdeau at being a winner or something? That was so dumb that anybody would even go there. I'm no Tkachuk fan, but it's funny to see that and think about that now.
I certainly thought they'd be in the playoffs before the season began, but definitely thought they'd justttttttt miss out in the end back in January-March. I also thought the Islanders would miss as well a couple of months ago, if not just because Barzal has been out a while and still hasn't come back.
I figured Pittsburgh would get in, up until two weeks ago. I thought it would be the Penguins and the Islanders two weeks ago. Islanders just because of Sorokin. Penguins just because the leg up on Florida and the softer schedule.
One other thing with the Panthers second half surge is they had a lot of home games in the second half and not as many on the road. I think it was something like in their last 32 games they only had 12 on the road. I wonder if a lot of the models projecting them to get in were also taking that into consideration.
My expertise is goalies though, which I'm undefeated on those!