doubtful. Playoff games are rarely blow outs. Especially with top notch goaltending and a good Pk/PP.
You can always count on the refs making some phantom/tickey tack calls to keeps teams in and keep the games close for the ratings.
It’s highly likely we win a round or 2 and that’s it, however If a couple of our guys on offense get hot and Drury makes 1-2 solid depth adds at the TDL, I’d give us a bit more then a punchers chance to do some damage in the postseason.
I think NYR can play with anyone in the East. Not a shot the Pens Roll over us.
The 2 biggest worries imo would be facing Tampa/Carolina and odds are we’d only see 1 of them.
Same in the west. Colorado/Vegas etc. if we get that face to face 1 of them in the final, the season is a massive success.
NYR can absolutely win a 7 GM series against Pitt/Boston/WSH imo
Please take my comment re: getting lit up as intended. I mean in terms of team hockey. I didn’t mean shesty, and I didn’t mean in terms of score. But I doubt we win more than 1 round with our current roster. Still a success, and more coming. But the whole point of this thread is to fantasize about ways to be better.
I still argue we should fill top down, not bottom up. We have plenty of 4th liners. Some who could probably move up to 3rd and at least be effective. But we have a rookie Dman at 3LD, and a tremendously talented but still learning 2 LD in Miller. Throw in Schneider, and teams have 2 pairings to score on us against. That’s going to be the part that holds us back.
Also the 5-5 play. That’s why I’d love to see a 2C trade, giving us the option to play Strome at 2RW where his defensive issues don’t hurt as much, or to slide him down(less likely). A trade like that slides Laffy or Kakko down to 3rd line.
We do these two moves, and fill in with some complementary pieces and we can come very close. Experience might hold us back this year, but we’d be a favorite every year coming for the next while.