Is there any way for Dubas and Keefe to redeem themselves here for you guys or have they lost you even if they had a long playoff run?
I've been slowly losing faith in the nerd for roughly 18 months now, I just fundamentally disagree with this low skill gritensity shit being the optimal way to win. Adding some of it that can play hockey is a nice element to add to a team but when I look at the majority of cup winners over the last 10 years or so I see a whole lot of 6'0 190 pound guys in depth roles that are some combination of fast, hard to play against, and chip in offensively making up the bulk of the supporting cast. Shaw, Bolland, Frolik, Kruger, Saad, 34 yr old Richards, Teravainen, Versteeg. In Pittsburgh it was Bonino, Sheary, Rust, Kunitz, Hagelin, Hornqvist, Cullen. Tampa a similar gang as well.
The only real deviations are Washington and St Louis, and I'd argue that those were the two most luck driven cup runs of the batch. Everyone else seemed to focus on having skill in their depth that could do a bit of everything, but had high motors/compete level. I just don't see Kerfoot, Jarnkrok, Acciari, Lafferty, ZAR being even close to similar in quality as those groups above. Either some skill coupled with being baby backed bitches or hard to play against with 4th line skill.
But it really seems that this is exactly what we want, this stupid 6/6 setup where all of the offence is expected out of the top 6 and the bottom 6 is just supposed to not get caved in and be "hard to play against".