What is the pressure for that Vegas team? They already managed to do literally the impossible...Yeah look at Vegas this year. There's no pressure in the playoffs and they're killing their opponents. You make a lot of sense.
Chucky had his highest point per game two seasons ago to start the year, before he got injured. It had nothing to do with no pressure.
And last year, the main reasons they did better after the deadline had nothing to do with pressure, they were out of the playoffs long before that. After the deadline they got rid of old slow players and brought in young players Juulse, Reilly, Mete, and Alzner split from Petry, Shaw was moved out of the top 9, Scherbak was called up, and of course Plekanec being traded was a huge addition by subtraction. Then we started to suck again at the end of the season, when Pacioretty, Danault, Mete and others went down with injury. It showed how Pacioretty was still important to this team.
I'd rather we tank, but if we go with youth and speed from the start of the season, and play our forwards in the proper positions, I could definitely see us pushing for the playoffs IF our young players like Scherbak, Drouin, Galchenyuk, Hudon, Lehkonen, Juulsen, Mete, Reilly, and say Zadian are ready to step up.
That team was not built to compete for the Stanley Cup! Even GMGM would probably tell you that.
They're overachieving like crazy.