Tocchet had the worst possible conditions to walk into as a head coach maybe ever. I don't think he's a great coach by any means, but the ridiculous month long Boudreau firing process gave everyone from the fans to the players right on down to build a pre-conceived perception of what he was. There was no surprise, no jolt of energy that might get the players to buy in immediately, etc. Everyone had a full month to develop whatever pre-conceived notion they had of him good or bad, but I would wager most of it would have probably been bad. I've been part of organizations that have had major change at the top, and its human nature for everyone to try and convince themselves why it's a bad thing if they have the time to before it starts.
I was saying to people before he was even officially hired that if I were Tocchet I would reverse course and turn the job down. He was straight up set up to fail and he might have "lost the room" before he even had a chance to walk into it.
