AuroraBorealis
Back-to-back hater
Look at the rosters on Vegas and St. Louis during their Cups.No that's fine, sorry if I came off too harsh. I think we just have different philosophies towards rebuilding a team.
It's a team sport. You win through the collective strength of the team. Marchessault and O'Reilly were the MVP's of those campaigns, not hall of fame legends.
It is very possible to orchestrate a rebuild to construct a team like this. But it requires care, patience and most of all, intelligence. Those are things Dubas has.
The Oilers fail because their collective strength isn't enough. They leave glaring weaknesses at vital positions in order to prioritize their attack.
McDavid and Draisaitl may end up top-10 all-time players who have been brilliant in the playoffs, yet it hasn't been enough.
You're only looking at examples of the Pens and their history. Look deeper. Those things happened a long time ago. Decades.
It's 2024. There's multiple ways to approach this.
If a 1st line is lacking a few goals overall during a playoff run, then you simply compensate for that with a few more goals from the 2nd line or bottom-six, or blue line. Or you focus on lockdown defense.