For me
@CBJWennberg10 isn’t off the mark in his assessment of the team. IMO the Jackets have a playoff team, but they don’t have a Cup contender yet. We do indeed play excellent team defense and are displaying good netminding, but we fall short on offense, primarily a center compliment to PLD and Top line left wing.
Maybe Tex will become that guy, but that gap between a Tex and a Panarin is a huge. Maybe Foudy will grow from an exciting prospect to a recognized goal-scoring threat. Bemstrom? Maybe. But that’s a lot of maybes.
I love the Jackets and go into each game and each series with optimism. And I’m not one who believes not winning a Cup is a failure. But I do believe this roster as constructed will fail to win a Cup, but not because of lack of effort.
......as for this series, we can still win it as we do have a team that can squeeze out a given win while being outplayed and rise to the occasion to frustrate and outplay the opponent in a given game.