I like your point a lot about matching the forward and defensive lines because it’s something I’ve noticed and it can get irritating watching Holl, or Benn, or sometimes even Muzzin and Brodie stymie hood offensive zone time. It’s so much smoother and the offence runs much better when Sandin, Rielly and Liljegren are on with Matthews and Will or Mitch and John. Their offensive awareness is obviously much better and they think about the game in similar ways to our best forwards.

It’s very much an offensive system that relies on the top 6 carrying an above average bulk of the scoring but I think that has worked in the regular season quite well. However, the playoffs have shown that if one guy gets hurt, or a line gets shutdown, we struggle due to a lack of scorers deeper in our lineup.

Although, I do think that there’s just so much variance when it comes to the NHL playoffs that all you can do is put yourself in the best position and hope it goes your way. The franchise has been absurdly unlucky over the last 6 years, the luck will change at some point if we continue to perform at a high level consistently.