I think you're right. They're definitely focused in on one thing. Hedman saying "We have 11 games here before the fun starts" just shows it. They've been talking that talk all season. Being so close the last few seasons and going out with questionable efforts has to weigh on them. Also seeing the teams they've lost to being the ones to move on and lift the Cup has to absolutely kill them. Maybe it's one thing if you lose to Washington or PIT and they don't take the Cup, but to take them to 7 and then watch them take the Cup eventually has to sting a bit more.
Seeing them do what they've done in the second half of the season gives me so much hope for this postseason. They've definitely backed off a bit but it isn't like last year where they just totally checked out after January. Their schedule is tough the last few weeks and I think it serves as a nice tuneup
Toronto, Boston twice, Washington 3 times. Carolina, MTL and St. Louis will all play hard fighting for playoff spots or playoff positioning. Tonight and the OTT game on 4/1 are the only soft games left.
I'm hyped. Gonna be a long wait for the show to start.
Just so it's clear - I agree with the general sentiment, but I'm going to play a little devil's advocate on the bolded part.
It was clear that they lost a little something in the last 40% of the season last year. We all saw it and bitched about it. If it weren't for Florida winning on the final day of the season in Boston, we would've choked away the Atlantic #1 seed, faced a much tougher first round opponent and, if we had advanced, been dealing with the Bruins having the home-ice advantage (NJ had zero chance of beating Boston the same way they had zero chance of beating us, no need to sugarcoat that).
That being said, since we did get away with it, was that really the thing that ultimately hurt us? We went 8-2 in the first two rounds of the playoffs. If there was any hangover effect of playing garbage hockey to end the season, it didn't show up in the results at all. It's not the reason we lost against Washington; we know the reasons and I have no need to elaborate on them. So while it's been nice and good to see the Lightning continuing to churn out results and keep moving forward in a way they weren't last year, I'm not sure it really indicates much of anything at all as far as what we can expect moving forward about a month from now. And, odds are, even though Pittsburgh is less of a possibility by the day (thank goodness), we're going to have a tougher first round draw than we did last year, almost by default, because New Jersey was one of the worst playoff teams in recent memory last year; Taylor Hall won the Hart last year and he deserved it frankly because he carried that team to the playoffs almost by himself. It was comical how bad his surrounding cast was, and cute the way Devils fans talked about "3-0-0 in the regular season!" like that had any bearing at all on how a playoff matchup would play out. They never had a prayer against us or Boston. Whether it's Columbus or Carolina, they can give themselvesat least a mildly better shout this time around (Montréal, not so much, but at least their goaltending situation, unlike that of the Devils, isn't a mess).
--
I will say this much (and I hope I haven't said it before here so that I'm not repeating myself) - this regular season has been a thankful one for many reasons, not the least of which is that I haven't had to spend even a moment worrying about "will they/won't they" make the playoffs. Laugh all you want now at that idea, but we went into 2015-'16 and 2016-'17 probably the same way we entered this season and, in the former, it was a struggle for a long time, and in the latter we missed it entirely. These first 70 games have been very care-free for me, no real highs and lows knowing obviously that our season will be defined from the middle of April-onward. It's been a nice breeze thus far. So much so that, once Game 1 of the playoffs begins, it's gonna be a serious jolt, at least to me, of "oh shit, now it really matters". Can't wait for it.
(And, as an added bonus, I might be back home in Tampa Bay by the time Game 1 of the first round rolls around. Even better.)