It’s possible.
For some physicality means face punching.
For me it’s grit and winning battles and clearing the net and going in corners and other examples in this run on sentence.
We lose the big picture when we focus on a single series as an example as to how the “game has changed.”
I can take your St Louis and Boston and raise you VGK vs Washington.
Grit matters in this tournament.
And it’s the epitome of arrogance to rally around the notion of a changed game... and Dubas saying he doesn’t “buy” the physicality argument.... when all we have are 3 first round exits to our credit.
In your last sentence you are equating our 3 eliminations to lack of toughness. The most recent exit was because of poor PK, poor PK and poor PK. I don't dispute that from a fan perspective I would like to see a little more compete and imitating physicality. I enjoy an aggressive fore check, I enjoy when we take time and space away, I love the big hit. Muzzin while a guy I wouldn't play above a #4 dman because of his defensive lapses, is a favorite of mine because he makes a habit of pasting guys into the boards but I wouldn't take his physicality over Rielly's skill.
Ideally Dubas is educated enough to understand that a team can't be a one trick pony, you need elements of skill, speed, physicality, experience, leadership, health, puck luck to win the cup.
This tournament is really about players playing way above their pay grade, Wilson, DSM did it last year for the Caps, this year Rask and Schwartz are doing it for their respective teams. If Brown had 12 goals in the playoffs we'd probably still be in this thing.
People keep looking for that secret sauce that will be the answer to how to win the cup and the truth is there really is no specific answer, its different every series, different every year. If there was that one key element that worked every year, people much smarter than us would have already figured it out.