Quoting: TrueCanuck
LOL
You've listed nothing of the same variety. You mention losing a captain, that's the only thing that was similar in your statement. Tavares is far more important to Toronto than Stamkos is to Tampa (not saying who's better, saying who's more important). It's about importance to a team. & when Tampa is loaded with depth (again they moved Stamkos to the wing for that playoffs and had 3 other centres play over Stamkos - those were Point, Cirelli, and Gourde). So yes, if a team has 2 top 6 calibre centres playing in their bottom 6 already, they might be able to sustain overcoming that big of an injury.
You want a comparable from Tampa in terms of importance to their team? Look at what happened when they lost Hedman to injury the year before after being the best team in league history.. they got swept. That's how important some players are to teams and that's the level of Tavares' importance to the team.
Tavares is not anywhere close to Hedman. Tavares plays 2C with 2C minutes. If you have Matthews and Marner combing for 1 goal what does that have to do with Tavares, he doesn't even play on the same line with them. And on the PP, it was already stagnant for most of the year with Tavares on it. These excuses will keep Toronto from succeeding and when they feed us this excuse, which they will, if the fans just eat it again, they're going to continue. Dubas screwed up this team by signing 4 forwards for half the cap, and now its a flat cap. He didn't know it was going to happen, but since no other team in the league has done that, it's on him.