With the dust having settled SLIGHTLY (though the pain hasn't abated in the slightest), I have come to believe that this result was both healthy and necessary. Last year we kind of failed upwards. We were getting dominated by Crosby before Trouba took him out. We were kind of a bad matchup for the Canes I guess, but we got as far as we did with shitty 5 on 5 play, decent special teams, and superb goaltending. We caught a rusty Tampa team, but as soon as they warmed up, we basically got swept. Those latter 4 games weren't remotely competitive. Neither was this series after the Devils shook off the jitters.
This team is a bit of fool's gold. Regular season heroes with disappearing acts when it matters. And Drury fell for the same shit we used to and got stars in his eyes. Last year we made strategic adds in Copp and Vatrano and made it 2 games away from the SCFs. This year we chased star power that we didn't even really need and paid for it.
This is this team's second trip to the post season after a five year drought. Getting to the ECFs last year was kind of miraculous, and again, required Crosby getting knocked out. We couldn't knock out Hughes and the better team won. Two years ago Panarin got his head bashed into the ice and we reacted by firing our GM and President and adding toughness. This year we added two scoring wingers for...what reason, exactly? In 94 we traded a young Tony Amonte for Matteau and look how that panned out.
This needed to happen if this core was ever going to win anything. They're just not good. They don't want it bad enough. I hope they're embarrassed, sad, and enraged, and I hope this forces Drury to make some adjustments. Hopefully, this lights a fire the way only an embarrassing first round exit to your biggest rival after dominating the first two games can.
We were exposed. NJ deserved it, every bit of it. They hounded us for every single puck and we had NO answer. They skated circles around us and we let them. They adjusted their PK and we did nothing. Flat out, the better team won.
For me, it's better that it happened now than when we invariably run into NJ again in the next five years in the semis or conference finals. Learn from it. Be ashamed by it. And be better.