Last season we saw them come flying out to a huge lead then coast into the playoffs. Their best players all went to the Olympics to waste even more energy. Then they cruised through 2 playoff rounds and hit a wall. This season they have no international waste-on-waste (how do you take a tourney with 3 on 3 OT seriously?) to worry about. Makar’s workload is about 3 minutes per game less than last year. All this to say I firmly believe they’re cruising as much as their competitive natures will allow them to cruise. That’s how you get such uninspired play on Eastern Conference road back-to-backs. That’s how you get these lackluster starts. All things equal, I prefer not to have to play game 7 of the first round series in Dallas but overall I’m interested to see if they can ratchet this up after New Year.

As long as they’re hanging around I’m all for letting Hughes get the top PP minutes and maintaining a killer PP2 crew. Mix and match the D pairs and let Wedgewood play out of his slump. Give the whole top 9 a chance to play in every combination. Just please try to string together 2 passes that actually connect even if you have to put silver tape on all the sticks so they look like the skates that they seem so intent on hitting with their outlets. That’s the one thing they’re doing that drives me nuts.