This is what happens when you have the same team for 3 years and they're mentally checked out until the playoffs start because there's otherwise no pressure or expectations otherwise throughout the season. The team is lazy as hell, prone to slumps and feels sorry for itself after a while. I'm becoming startled by these developments because adversity is nothing new for this Lightning team and it always brought out the best in us. Sadly we've had adversity and have not made such a response and I fear it's because we've become conditioned to a "don't worry we've got this" mentality because of how well we had done previously in the absence of Stamkos and Stralman.
We've known this dark truths for years now and it's not going to change any time soon. It's a very... VERY good team. But it's like a prodigy going through a mental block who is in need of "inspiration." But sadly the "inspiration" (i.e trades) likely has to wait. We're pretty much stuck with this outfit due to salary constraints until we get the rest of the core re-signed (i.e Johnson, Drouin, Palat etc) and after that we may see some moves.
We have a heck of job ahead of us to even keep the bulk of this team together and once we clear that hurdle we can do whatever we want with it. The addition of guys like Adam Wilcox, Dom Masin and Nikita Gusev are not that far away and it might be the swift kick in the rear this team needs to get over itself.
