Amy Johnson

So this group is the one that's going to be asked to carry the load as is.

At the same time, their style of play, which has worked really well in stretches during the regular season, it's going to get tested in a very different kind of environment than

as we have seen in some of these playoff-esque games in the last couple of weeks.

The mistakes get magnified.

Time and space kind of disappear.

The pace picks up.

It gets more physical.

A lot of things change.

Then you get into your lineup questions.

Like, if this team gets into the playoffs, how are they going to deploy their forwards?

What are they doing about defense pairings, particularly with the uptick in physicality as we get closer to the playoffs and into the playoffs?

How much flexibility do they have if they have to adjust something because something's not working?

On the back end, have to say there are some individual performances that are getting a lot harder to ignore, particularly when you're thinking about what playoff hockey these days demands from a defensive standpoint.

And all of that's happening against the backdrop of, as I said, very tight race in the Atlantic division and the Eastern conference, where there are multiple teams chasing the same handful of points, not much margin for error left.

Oh, and don't forget the Canadians lose just about every tiebreak scenario that there is.

So Rick, when you take a step back and look at the full picture,

It all kind of leads you down a road to a pretty straightforward but maybe uncomfortable question.

Probably not a simple one to answer.

We're going to try.

Are the Canadians built for the playoffs this year?