It's happening already.
The regular season has not even begun and the Ottawa Senators are already answering questions about whether or not they've got the offence to compete.
For a team that scored the second-fewest goals in the NHL last season and is currently in the midst of its first true rebuilding phase in franchise history, the Senators know this year may be a rough ride.
The young Senators have found mixed success thus far in the preseason, putting up a 3-3-1 record mostly against divisional foes like Montreal, Boston and Toronto.
However, the team is yet to score more than three goals in any game, meaning the team may have to lean on their less experienced young core.
But a lack of experience doesn't necessarily mean there'll be a lack of goals.
"We feel like we've got a lot of players who are new to the league and still can prove to people what they can do," said last season's leading scorer Jason Spezza.
Spezza, whose 57-point seasons last year and in 2009-10 were well short of the success he enjoyed in the first four seasons after the lockout, foresees a more balanced effort than the one-line dominance the Senators had come to rely on during their dominant years.
"I think goal-scoring by committee will be our approach this year," he said. "We've done nothing to prove we can't score goals yet. We feel like everybody can chip in and we can win hockey games."
Young talent, thankfully, is something the Senators have in spades.
With the exodus of much of the team's veteran core last season, the door has been opened for a lot of recent draftees, farmhands and acquisitions to step in and earn an everyday role.
Nikita Filatov, Bobby Butler, Stephane Da Costa, David Rundblad and even 2011 sixth-overall pick Mika Zibanejad all have the opportunity to grab top minutes with the team in 2011-12.
Zibanejad is up to the challenge.
"There's a difference between preseason and the regular season for sure," he said. "We'll see now that every team has their best [line-up] and you've got to take your game to the next level."
Butler, too, sees the team's young core coming together. After a 36-game audition with the club in 2010-11, he's seen both sides of the transition the club has undertaken and is not worried about a lack of offence.
"I think if everyone just works on buying into our system, I think goals will come," Butler said. "If every guy thinks that way, there won't be as much pressure for everyone."
One area where the Sens are much improved from this time last year is between the pipes.
After an off-and-on season from the likes of Brian Elliott, Pascal Leclaire and Curtis McElhinney last season, the team has shored up its last line of defence by inking trade-deadline acquisition Craig Anderson to a four-year contract extension.
And if Ottawa fans were worried about Anderson growing restless due to a lack of support, he quickly put any of those concerns to rest.
"Throughout my entire career I've played on low-scoring teams," Anderson said of his time in Florida, Colorado and the pre-Jonathan Toews Chicago Blackhawks. "It's nothing new to me."
For Anderson, he's more concerned with getting a solid defensive effort.
"You start off with one point at the start of the game and if you play solid defensively and take away their chances you still give yourself that opportunity to get [the extra] point at the end of the night."
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