This is going to sound silly, but I absolutely love the swagger the team has compared to even last season. The whole "pesky sens" and "sickos" phase kinda rubbed me the wrong way. It implied that we didn't belong, and that we were lucky to scrape together wins against good teams.
Everything about this season screams swagger. The big gold chain for player of the game. All the big players having rap songs for their 3 star selection songs. I think it's definitely intentional. We're here to dominate. We are the good team that other teams wish they can scrape together a lucky win against.
Jay Onrait still called us pesky today on SportsCenter but I don't mind running under the radar a little while longer while we accumulate a larger sample size of stellar play.
The only thing worse than being chronically underestimated is going around telling everyone how great you are after 6 games.
Reputations take a little time to shift. If we keep it up, everyone will notice eventually.
In any event, you're talking about the players and the locker room and I don't mind that at all. As Dorion said, the "rebuild is over" and it's time to start playing like you expect to win every night.
Beating Dallas at home was a pretty big step in that they were a disciplined and structured opponent and we had to be patient before cracking the game wide open. With Arizona it just seemed more inevitable.
The next big milestone for me is putting together a really good road trip.