I don’t think anyone expected us to be in the Finals this year, but it isn’t a total surprise. We’ve had a team good enough to appear as a dark horse at least for several years now. A run over the course of our window was probably expected at some point, just hard to predict which year specifically.
The style and make-up of our team really benefitted from the long break, so once we got our game going, this slowly became more and more of a possibility. This is the team that for 80% of the year was neck and neck with Tampa for the best record in the NHL. In that sense it isn’t particularly surprising.
Predictable? Probably not. Surprising? Not super.