My biggest question is what if they lose with him in the lineup. Do people start seeing him as a potential issue to their success. Like yeah he can score goals in the regular season but what about when the tire meets the pavement?

I think the biggest issue when he is in the lineup is everyone is so hyper focused on getting him the puck, that it's easy for teams to defend against them. That to me falls on coaching and game prep. If you know they're over defending Auston, that opens someone else up, so start utilizing your other players better. When Tampa was elite, they did this all the time. As soon as one of Stamkos or Kucherov was being over defended, they'd switch to the other guy for shots, or go to Point. Teams do this every playoffs to the Leafs, yet the coaching staff never seems to address this.

The team wasn't prepared for the playoffs, they should have focus on learning playoff style hockey or resting their best players but instead they allowed their goalies to get shell shocked and focused on personal player achievements (Matthews for 70 goals and Nylander to 100 points and funny how both of those players are burnt out right now, gee I wonder>?) rather than team achievements during the last 2 weeks of the regular season.

That's why this team has such a bad team culture.

#firekeefe/Shananhan