Sober day after thoughts:
As everyone has said, nothing can happen until Johnny is decided.
If he leaves, we should re build.
If he stays, we have to try again with most of this group.
I feel different this year than the post Dallas and Colorado years. Those seasons I knew the team just wasn't good enough and the top line especially was never going to cut it.
This year is hurts because it was the Oilers, but the overall team still is much better and rarely did I feel they were actually outplayed.
The top line was mostly good to me (except Tkachuk) and it took Markstrom completely sucking and the middle 6 mostly sucking to lose this way.
If you started this series over with the same players 5 times, I don't think we'd lose the same way.
Rasmus and Noah had some crazy mental mistakes but are very young and will get much better next year. I'm not giving up on them yet.
Kylington showed his youth and lack of structure without Tanev, but that would have looked very different with Tanev healthy.
This teams wins games 2 or 4 (or both) if Markstrom is better and likely game 5 if the refs were better. Game 3 is the only one they were truly outplayed IMO.
All that while McDavid is playing at a level not seen in decades, so as much as it hurts, it's not time for the management group to react emotionally and reactively.
Leave that to us fans
