Pound for pound, I'd say this team is plenty tough. You have to say who isn't, because I'm not seeing any soft hockey out there. Brutes, tough guys and fighters? No. But the hits, blocks and checking all over is very much a part of who they are and how they're doing this.

Scoring and scorers concern me. If Schwartz can keep his play up it will go a long way towards pushing the whole team forward. As you say, it's about the intensity of the team and whether they can keep it up and make it work against adjusting teams. A tall order.

Mike Yeo had a more "skilled" team in Minny yet he lacked the other horses needed and ran into disputes with a few of his star players and ended up getting fired. I think he's learned a lot since and made some adjustments of his own. Love his in game approach and the players are listening. He had other choices when he came here but chose a goofy deal with the Blues for good reasons, including a really good depth chart of youth in waiting which is coming in handy motivating a lot of this team.

We'll see. We'll see how they handle a string of losses and other problems too. But I still say we haven't seen a Blues team win THIS WAY that I can remember. Just hoping that's a good thing and not another mirage.