I wasn't confident that we would sail into the playoffs anyway. They have been too bipolar this season. Winning streaks followed by losing streaks. Don't have room for that in a tight West race.
What is the cause of this? Is it coaching? Players not playing the system and focused too much on scoring than team defense? Something needs to be done to fix some of this in the off-season because our roster next season is likely to be very similar to this season and we are not going to 'surprise' teams anymore.
An interesting thing against Dallays was brought up by EmeraldCityHockey's Podcast.
The Stars actually brought in a forward to help them deal with our dump ins and we couldn't really cope with it that much.
We also lost the adjustment battle last night against the Stars and DeBoer again.
Overall I think we've got to be a bit realistic here.
It's still a team that everyone pointed and laughed at until the start of the season and everyone doubted to be in this position for at least the first half of the season.
We still have quite a few holes in this team and just played a team with a guy like Heiskanen at the backend.
As much as I like Dunn's progression or Larsson's solid play, there's just nothing like that on this team.
etc.
The PK taking a step back is also a concern, though I guess that would fall within the defensive decline parameters.
Whether we make the playoffs or not, I am curious what Francis does this off-season. At this point, I don't know if adding a UFA D-man makes that much of a difference since the main issue is consistency.
It keeps going back to coaching in mind.
I think the biggest decision on defense will be what kind of a deal Francis is comfortable with handing to Dunn.
Is it a longterm high cap hit deal and he's going all in?
Or is it more of a bridge deal cause he's only had this one great season.
After that I doubt much happens on defense besides Megna becoming the 6th/7th defenseman and Ryker Evans deciding if we need to sign another guy or not.
Looking at free agency there just isn't much worth bringing in this summer, IMO.
BTW: Coaching certainly plays a role(and I don't mean just Hakstol) but I also think young guys coming in and improving the quality is at least as important.
Also, Beniers playing his second full year should help cause I think you can clearly see a rooking slump since about after the All-Star Game/Myers hit.
