The complete opposite of our 2014-15 season. Instead of getting completely dominated game in and game out and relying on incredible luck to win games, we're having a season in which we're the team dominating most nights but aren't getting any puck luck.
Revisionist history. That team didn't rely on "incredible luck" to win games. They had plenty of games where **** went the other way. Why, during they 8 game losing streak they had a game in Toronto where Jonathan Bernier may as well have been Hasek, and then they lost to Joonas Enroth. They lost a lot of cross-conference games, and were completely dominated by Hitchcock's blues with no hope of beating them.
What that team did have, though:
It had injuries that allowed depth players to get into a groove early in the season. With Stajan, Raymond, Jones, Colborne, and Backlund all injured early on, the minutes and confidence building were there for guys like Monahan, Jooris, Bouma, and Granlund to get on a role. Sometimes ice time with skilled linemates tips the scale. Just ask Brouwer, he was having another terrible season until he got to play with Tkachuk and Backlund, and now he looks like a servicable 4th liner.
It had one of the speediest and determined role players ever in Paul Byron.
It had one of the highest career SH% players to ever lace em up in Jiri Hudler who, inspired by Gaudreau's talent, played with dogged determination in front of the net and took a beating doing so.
It had a ton of offensive creativity and skill on the back-end being used to perfection, where Gio and Brodie and Wideman and Russell just made things happen.
It had a coach who not only got that team a reputation as the hardest working team, but also exploited matchups as well as anybody with how he basically had Ferland-Stajan-Jones go out there against the Canucks' lower lineups with the intent of causing chaos on the forecheck, among other more subtle things. A coach who willed teams to win.
It played at the brisk tempo that Jay Feaster envisioned - gone in 60 milliseconds.
It had a very good first PP unit. Better than any we've had since. The second PP unit tanked their overall numbers as Jones and Raymond were not even NHlers, but Russell/Gio-Gaudreau-Monahan-Hudler-Wideman/Brodie were simply poetic and actually scored organically rather than in the confines of a poorly fitting structure.
And it had the best penalty differential in the NHL. That last part allowed them to have a very good season - in 1-1 games their speed and discipline gave them power plays that ended up being the difference, and then they used their counter-punch style to add some empty-netters and desperation goals. Not to be confused with "being outplayed" though. That team rarely got "outplayed" aside from when that disastrous Smid-Engelland third pairing were on the ice. Which again the coach managed.
Compared to that, especially the penalty differential the current team is at the mercy of luck. Hamilton's good for a penalty a game.
TL;DR version - Feaster had a vision, and that 2014-15 team was halfway there. Then Treliving waived Paul Byron. The Curse of the Spulll is upon us.
