Interesting that he put all of the onus on the first round exit on the players execution. No mention of having an inferior team.
“Again, we knew this going in and breaking down the series in pre-scouting. You’re talking about teams that finished one and two expected goals wise. Two very, very defensively oriented teams that were going to be stingy. It was going to come down to the execution piece, which give them credit, they executed just a little bit more than we did at certain times in crucial games and situations. Discipline, we took too many penalties in this series, takes away – it’s not just that we might have on the surface won a power play, where our power play percentage was a little better than penalty killing wise. They were a very good penalty killing team all year as well. We knew that was going to be a challenge. That being said, it takes away momentum of your own 5-on-5 play when you have to take a lot of energy to kill those extra couple minors here and there. That’s on us for some of those situations. And then getting to the 5-on-5 and the areas of the ice, they used the up top really well, their D found some seams that generally don’t happen in our system so shame on us for the breakdowns overall and we didn’t execute to the same degree. Whether that’s the tip of a whether that’s a key moment of games that I talk about being able to elevate and finish a 2-on-1 versus not because you know there’s just not a lot of trade chance opportunities in the course of the games. The way the games played out, when you got a lead it was difficult to come back. I think six of those games, it spells exactly that way. Game 7, you know the margins are even smaller - you’re entering the series knowing the margins are even smaller and in Game 7 they probably get even smaller. Really, the opportunities just weren’t there. They executed just a little bit better than we did that’s why I describe it as I think we left something on the table.”
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