I can't recall who made the point, but it's a good one: the mandate to 'just make the playoffs' may have had more to do with getting an arena deal than we realized.
By keeping the quality of the on-ice product high, fans remained engaged enough to keep the Dome full on most nights, which helped keep public and media sentiment in favour of a new building.
Now that a deal is in place, there may be more flexibility to let the on-ice results dip a bit
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