Come on dude, look at your team! If you don't win, it is because something internal went wrong.
Same could have been said about last years team. Same could be said for many of the teams that were “favorites” but didn’t win. I know consensus is that we are “heavy” favorites and majority expects us to win, including our own fans, but I also understand how different the playoffs are from the regular season and just how difficult it is to win a cup. I don’t want to sound like I’m making excuses if we lose, the reality is that in the playoffs anything can happen. They don’t just say “get into the tournament and anything can happen” just to say it. It’s because this truly is a tournament and rather a game where anything can happen.
The game is different in the playoffs than it is in the regular season. I’ve seen it so many times where a team lost all the games in the regular season to a team but then turned around in the playoffs look a lot better against them and win the series. Dominate it even in some cases. Fans from opposing teams are all fired up because they played well against them in the regular season only to get worked by said team in the playoffs. Team tighten up in the playoffs. Every bounce, every shot, every pass, every decision and coaching decision matters. So there is a fair amount of luck and momentum that needs to go your way. There’s so many things that go into winning a cup that it’s not always the best team from the regular season winning in the playoffs.
We have had great runs and have come so close so many times now but we have fallen short and anything less than a cup this year will just feel like all the other years but this one would hurt for us because SY leaving. We all want to win one with him still a part of the team because he’s done so much for us. Would really be a shame if we couldn’t do it while he was here. So that’s why I feel all in for this one and would be really upset if we didn’t win it but at the same time I understand just how hard it is to win it. To full on expect that cup is just not realistic and I feel is something that is more so saved for the sports talk that we all like to have. As we are doing now.
I don’t know if it’s the right attitude to have but I feel these years have been amazing as a Lightning fan and it would be really shitty if this core never won a cup but I’d rather have had all these really great times than not at all. People like to rag on the favorites that don’t win it but at the same time these fans have just gone on a great ride and most fans didn’t really get to take it. So this era I see right now with Tb is something we may never see here again. It’s fun while it’s lasting. Hope this team wins this year as this core has worked really hard all these years to win it and have gotten so close. I can only imagine the way they would feel if they pulled it off.