most disappointing loss in years for me. This was a series they really should have had.
While I agree that AV had a bad series I would not get rid of him. This team needs a star and they really dont have one. Its a team made up of all the right surrounding pieces without the player those pieces are supposed to be surrounding. But that player doesnt seem to be available this off season either so I am not sure where that leaves us.
A star would definitely help, but that's no excuse for falling short of expectations. Last season AV was not good enough either, but that was overshadowed by losing to a smoking hot Pens team that won the cup. I am confident that the Rangers would've been out in the first round vs any team last year. AV has continually mismanaged player deployment, which has been going on for seasons, but he can be forgiven if his team performs in the playoffs. He made the same mistakes in the playoffs, benched Buch for Glass, Skjei for Staal, and etc. Pittsburgh iced a bunch of AHL'ers last year and trusted them to perform and boy did they come through. Staal was on for 14 of 19 goals scored against this series, surprising at all? Nope.
Didn't they go farther than they should have? They beat the top seeded team in the Atlantic.
MTL was top seed but just 1 point better than the Rangers while playing in a weak division. MTL is also better than Ottawa. Coming into the playoffs I believe we had a 50/50 chance vs the Canadiens and 80/20 edge vs the Sens. So we did fine in the 1st round but lost a completely winnable series.
had they lost to the canadiens I would not have been as upset. But once they beat them you have to change your expectations.
Even without changing expectations, Rangers should have beaten Ottawa. They are lower ranked and give up a million goals. Their strengths were the so-called "trap" (never knew giving up 4 goals a game is effective defensive strategy) and the half injured Erik Karlsson.