Here’s my take:
It’s not about the lack of experience. Everyone’s a first time HC at some point, and he’s been an assistant for several years.
It’s not about being a hometown favorite - in the grand scheme of things that doesn’t really matter.
It’s about the fact that all the evidence points to the fact that Brind’Amour wasn’t even good at his assistant coaching job. Every year there’s a few assistants and AHL coaches whose names get tossed around. Take Housley last year. However much you think he played a part, his defense in Nashville was spectacular. And his name was tossed around all offseason as a future HC for any number of teams. Same with Muller a few years back.
No one was talking about Rod, because no one thinks he was all that good. In fact, most on these boards (as little visibility as we have into these matters) wanted him “re-positioned” a la Francis. The PP sucked, the forwards sucked.
Now I’m going to give it a chance, solely because as NHL fans it is extraordinarily difficult to determine who’s a good coach and who’s not (Peters? Vignieault? No one knows). Maybe Brind’Amour is fantastic, and simply was held back by Peters, who really knows? This seems like a bad move, but it’s based on a few shreds of evidence in an area that’s difficult to judge in the first place.
Tl;dr I think this is a bad move, but I’ll withhold judgment bc what the hell do I know?