Been waiting a little bit to kinda collect my thoughts before posting. This team should have went farther than it did and they had a legitimate shot at winning the cup. Not having Galiev really hurt the production and chemistry of the top line, which killed the Bears. In terms of production, Hershey's veterans were outmatched by Hartford's veterans, but Hershey's young guys outmatched Hartford's. You aren't going to win a series when defenseman are outscoring members of the top line.
The future is bright for the Bears. The prospects took a big step in terms of development and it is exciting to possibly have Burakovsky (longshot), Vrana, Chris Brown, Stephenson, Galiev, Carrick, Copley, Mitchell, Liam O'Brien, Caleb Herbet, Nathan Walker, Travis Boyd, Madison Bowey, Djoos, and a few more guys in the chocolate and white next season.
Yingst and Mann need to go out and evaluate and recruit the right veterans to mix in with the young guns and this team could be very good once again. Guys like Tim Kennedy and Chris Conner are great regular season players, but they clearly could not keep up with the physicality against a Hartford team that had big defenseman. Bringing in bigger, stronger guys is going to be beneficial moving forward. I look forward to next season and I'm excited to watch Washington's prospects develop.
On a side note, Hershey announced today that Dustin Gazely and Erik Burgdoerfer are already signed for next season.