I think it is very cute that everybody is continuing down the tank train now that we have fired our experienced head coach. How can we possibly compete without Mike Sullivan??? Answer: easily.
I just do not believe for a second that this team cannot make the playoffs, sorry. You look at the 18 best teams in the league, including the two best teams that did not make it (Calgary and Columbus). Tell me that our core is so much worse than theirs. Tell me that our roster is so much worse than theirs. Stop looking at false narratives and think for yourselves and think with your eyes and brains. Do you honestly believe that a team with Sidney Crosby as captain, producing 90 points, should be 11 points behind the Montreal frickin' Canadiens? You're nuts if you think so, no offense.
Now, if Kyle Dubas decides to continue to purge the roster, then yeah...we have no chance. You cannot replace an Erik Karlsson or a Rickard Rakell and expect to make the playoffs. Not at this stage in the rest of the core's careers, and not at this stage in the prospects' development. BUT, if you keep the core six together (2 C, 2 D, 2 W), then all bets are off. I will also say that IF he and the management team decide that what is best for the organization is to strip it down completely, I will buy in. Because now you can do whatever you want with this team. You don't have a rather large, mediocre anchor preventing you from doing anything. But I don't think Dubas is going to go down that path.
Look, removing Sullivan is a massive addition by subtraction. Who knows how much that is going to be worth. Every team with a new coach usually gets a bump, but this? This is more like a head-on collision of two 18-wheelers! We have suffered through mediocre-to-horrific coaching for seven straight seasons. And by the end, he was the worst coach in the league. Is he the worst coach in the NHL? It is up to him to prove it elsewhere (thankfully) that he is not but he sure as hell was with this group! And you know when he became the absolute worst head coach in the league? When he could not get this team up for game #81 of the 2022-23 campaign. All we had to do was defeat the worst team in the NHL on home ice to qualify for the playoffs. A team in Chicago that DID NOT WANT TO WIN, people. They wanted Connor Bedard and they were acting like most of the people on this board right now. Tank! Tank! Tank! But Andreas Athanasiou turned into Wayne Gretzky for one night, and this team bowed out (and Florida got in by the skin of their teeth). Mike Sullivan changed NHL history on one night because his give-a-shit meter had been turned up to 11.
I am sure he will be (slightly) more motivated in his new employ, but who cares. Our guys should be more motivated now. The kids should be REALLY motivated to show what they can do sans any preconceived biases by the man behind the bench. The core? Well, that is where Dubas comes in. He obviously has to sell Crosby (especially) and the core that this was the ONLY move possible at this time. But why can't coach X turn things around? Why can't he do for us what Dean Evason did for CBJ? What Ryan Huska did for Cgy? What Spencer Carberry did for Wsh? What Martin St. Louis did for Mtl? Players see what young, or inexperienced, or retreads have done elsewhere. It can happen here, too.
So let's see what Dubas decides to do. He has three options, all far more easily attainable now that the stain on the organization is gone:
- burn it to the ground as so many of you want, which will cost us the captain almost certainly (but might be worth it in the end)
- keep doing what he has been doing, hopefully with fewer bad contracts acquired for future assets. Keep trying to win with the core, but with eyes mostly on the future.
- take one last shot at making the playoffs and going on a run (before burning it to the ground). That would mean adding someone like a Mitch Marner, probably. I don't see a path to multiple-round playoff success without a guy like him, but maybe there is another path.
And maybe Marner now becomes more of a possibility, too. When Dubas talked about NOT acquiring 27-32 year olds this off-season, was he speaking to us (the fans)? The media? Or was he telling his now ex-coach that we are going YOUNG no matter what this time? Was that the last straw.
Honestly, now Dubas can go in any direction. The boat can sail on now, since the anchor has been lifted.
