Think back to November, when the Los Angeles Kings held one of the best win percentages in hockey and were scoring goals at will.
All four lines were producing and the idea of building a team based on depth seemed like a stroke of genius from the front office.
Unfortunately for the Kings, that did not last. Five months later, when it matters most, that depth has completely disappeared.
It's a major factor in the Kings' 3-1 deficit in their series against the Edmonton Oilers.
Jim Hiller has shuffled his line a bit in this series but the most common bottom six has done nothing this series.
Kevin Fiala, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Alex Laferriere, Trevor Lewis, Blake Lizotte and Carl Grundstrom make up this group.
Between them, they have just three points, a goal each from Dubois and Fiala and an assist for Laferriere.
This group is also a combined -5. For a team that lacks the elite talent to blow teams away, like the Oilers have, the Kings' depth players disappearing is a disaster.
In theory, the plan to have your top two lines match Edmonton's and shut them down, with a third line that can feast with high-powered offensive weapons made sense.
In practice, it hasn't worked out that way at all.
The main culprits here are Dubois and Fiala. They're spent the majority of their minutes together and produced next to nothing against Edmonton's bottom six.
They tried splitting them up in Game Four, putting Fiala with Lizotte and Lewis and Dubois with Laferriere and Grundstrom but that had minimal impact.
There's been a lot of talk about poor usage regarding those two, and there's some truth in those claims.
However, at a certain point it's on those two to produce regardless and we're well behind that point.
Add in the Kings' special teams woes, and it's hard to see a path to victory for the Kings.
Rob Blake spent most of this season spreading the message that their depth would prove the difference in the playoffs.
The important of being three centers deep and the fact that they're happy with the team they've built.
All nice messages, but none of them have proved true.
Few teams could survive their second and third-highest paid forwards disappearing in the postseason and the Kings are no different.
The Kings had a plan, but as it turned out, that plan wasn't a very good one.