The reason why discussions are advancing so slowly on this particular subject is that you and a few other fans have a total religious faith and certainty that "we are not good enough for anything" and cannot imagine for one second being wrong.
I totally, totally understand this point of view because I shared it not long ago. Before training camp, I thought the team would be lucky to win five games by the end of November and that Julien would be fired. I believed the GM when he declared that Domi was going to play left wing and so I thought trading Galchenyuk for "a 4-goal scoring winger" was a franchise-destroying move. I thought that the pressure to dump Pacioretty at any cost was going to result in a terrible deal that would further poison the room. I thought that Weber would have a very rough time recovering and that it would probably be February before he came back, limping through the rest of the year like Karlsson did after his last surgery. I thought after the rookie tournament that picking Kotkaniemi at #3 was a huge mistake. I thought Joel Armia might be another Brian Flynn, that Andrew Shaw was done for life, that Paul Byron wold miss a ton of games and that Carey Price could not stop a beach ball. Most of all, I thought no one would play for the coach (again!) and the GM would screw up every single move monumentally, based on his terrible track record and questionable attitude.
In short, I was convinced that we are not good enough for anything. I truly believed we would finish dead last and would be picking between first and fourth at the next draft.
Until the games started.
First it was a couple of exhibition games, then it was more, then we ended up with a winning record in them.
Then Byron and Shaw both started the season, Weber hung around the team with his silly fur coat, and the guys were playing with passion.
The cap dump we got from Vegas was hustling and creating chances every night, the rookie who looked bad with other rookies looked like an NHL player when matched with and against NHL players, the 4-goal scoring winger grabbed the middle of the ice by the collar and willed himself to a leadership position, the "lazy bugger" who was handed a 6 year $5.5M deal before he earned it started to show why he was a #3 overall pick, and slowly but surely even the once-elite goalie started to improve. And then the new captain returned and played better than I thought he would.
Today, I know that things were not as bad as I so confidently thought. Today I think instead that the pace may not be sustainable and that ultimately we will end up with 85-90 points.
But Jiminy Crickets, I have to admit the possibility that maybe I am still wrong. I would be nuts not to say that time will tell.
So that is what I have chosen to do. Cheer the team on and see what happens. If the guys can keep up the pace and make the playoffs, then they are better than I thought. If they win a round starting on the road against Tampa, Toronto or Washington, then they are REALLY better than I thought. And if they can do this without sacrificing picks at the deadline to get short-term help, and with all the cap space the team has, it would obviously be very possible to improve the following years.
Not a sure thing.
But very possible.
More likely than not.
For all the talk from the naysayers that "you have to be realistic", I say I AM being realistic, the key word being "real". If the team finishes 12th in the Conference with 86 points, reality will have spoken. But if the team finishes let's say 7th with 97 points, then AGAIN reality will have spoken. I need to be humble enough to admit that I was dead wrong in September and still slightly wrong today.
It's ok to be wrong. But more than that, what I realized is that if I am wrong, it is actually a good thing. I see others starting to realize this last point, but it is taking time for the idea to spread. Human nature and all that.
Meanwhile let's enjoy the games and see what happens.