Thing is, I don't think I'd bet money on anyone in the Metropolitan to beat the Lighting or Leafs in a 7 game series. So the Atlantic can't be that bad.
People don't get to use the "they were so healthy last year" stuff on us now. We've basically been without the one guy we were supposed to not be able to survive without for nearly a month now (he was in the lineup in spirit for a bit, but not in body).
We're just really good.
In our last 17 we've given up 33 non EN goals, less than 2 per game. Part of that is Freddy's run of form, but as big as that's been, his absolute lack of form over the first 15 made our defence look significantly worse than it is. We play with the lead way more often than not, and have learned to close those out now apparently (12-1-0 when leading after 3).
We're just really good. I don't think we're legit elite yet, our kids aren't consistent enough for that yet. But we're really, really good.