Moving this in here because the post-game thread will be closed today.
We aren't missing your point. We understand your point and disagree with you.
I don't think anyone has a problem holding the team and the coach accountable, but the question is: what are the standards we should be holding them to? Your stance seems to be based in the idea that the main standard is performance in terms of wins. A lot of us don't agree with that at this time and believe that, for now, there are other standards to be looking at. Particularly what sort of progress we're seeing from the youth.
You don't have to convince me about the value of coaching. I've had debate upon debate around here on the things that AV brought to the team and the reason Quinn is playing certain players over others. I just don't think you have a realistic view of the extent to which coaching can overcome roster. Particularly in this case, when the focus of the coaching staff is on player development more than anything else. Tortorella is getting more out of that roster than their talent level, just as he did here in 2010-11. Even so, they're a much more talented team than the Rangers and a much more veteran team than the Rangers... with quality players to fill many of the roles you need filled. Sure, they've had injuries too and that depletes that depth. But, for example, they have actual 4th liners playing on the 4th line where we have 13F types. And their team has a slew of defensively responsible forwards. They're much more situated to be able to put up wins because of coaching than we are.
I think your opinion on structure is really flawed as well. Quinn is ALL about structure, but to this point he hasn't had the players with the ability to execute it. That makes it difficult to tell what it is, but nothing has changed about the structure in the last few weeks where we've been seeing improvements. What has changed is that players are starting to execute the structure more competently. Quinn didn't roll over January 1st and say "you know what? This team has no structure. I should implement one."
I gave Quinn some credit for the recent improvement in defense in a different post I made, but I won’t just give a blanket passes for the past year of virtually no defensive structure. Furthermore, games vs the Islanders and Columbus, two very defensive minded and structured teams who tend to be lacking in the offensive area are not worth stating “defense issues fixed.” I was at the Columbus game— they played New Jersey Devils era trap hockey for the entirety of the game and used the passive forecheck system to the max. Lets balence it out over the course of the season.( Side note— I was actually impressed with how the Rangers broke the trap, they used all the right techniques and were able to get the puck through it pretty well.)
