The disturbing thing about last night is, while they may not have a stellar record with Ovie out, they've typically at least looked like a motivated team punching up when their captain has been gone.
That performance vs FLA was one of the worst in a big game I've seen since Ovechkin brought them back from the league dregs in his early days. We looked like a rebuild team, but with less snarl from a few lunks like Doig or whoever, and no GOAT goalscorer in the making to provide some level of hope or entertainment.
Yeah, the game 7 playoff chokejobs and other playoff collapses were disappointing and lame, but you felt those were a symptom of self-sabotage by a team that just couldn't allow itself to be successful.
Last night's effort was simply disjointed and awful, and Lavi looked like Hanlon or Oates on the bench...utterly confounded and confused by what he was seeing, and unable to figure out why it was happening.
That game was the gut check...the litmus test...for how valuable and resilient the guys left standing really are. The answer is not encouraging and does little to make the case for most of them to be on the team next year, or even next month.
Sell.