I don’t wanna say [the Core 4] handcuffed us because of needing to pay them; what handcuffed us was the salary cap being flat.
We basically used the template of what a lot of other teams had done that had the fortune of having high picks, and we added John [Tavares] in 2018; then that first year with all the extensions, then COVID trying to keep the league rolling, and they worked to keep things flat.
That’s life. No one could have predicted it and we just had to adapt. I think in some cases we adapted poorly…We took a lot of shots in 2020, 2021 that weren’t as successful and we adapted from that.
We didn’t get to where we wanted to be but that’s not on them, it’s on us to make the right decisions around that group of players.
I think everyone wishes those players who have performed better as a group and individually in the playoffs, and I don’t point to one situation but we didn’t get it done.