Brunette has been a head coach for what like 60 games for the Panthers when he was the interim coach ? Nashville is retooling , so Brunette is going to have to work some wonders to get them back into the playoffs. The Panthers made the Cup Final last year but got owned by Tampa the year prior with an even better roster. They were the President's Trophy winner and scored the most goals in the league too. The Lightning swept them and held the Panthers to only 3 goals in 4 games. That's probably a big reason Brunette wasn't brought back...Everyone was scratching their heads thinking Florida was stupid for brining in Maurice and trading for Tkachuk (myself included). I'm interested to see how Nashville does this year.
Look at some of the rosters Travis Green had to work with in Vancouver. Alot of their star players played fine under him but the overall roster was pretty weak. Their group of defensemen were amongst the bottom tier in the NHL. I think the only thing they had was some good goaltending with Markstrom and Demko. They aren't elite goalies though and without a high powered offense (which they didn't have) you can't really expect them to be that good. They had a nice run under Boudreau but we have seen that with alot of teams bringing in a new coach. He barely lasted there. I would blame their GM more so than the coaching staff. Regardless , Green will have a lighter load here and hopefully he can help make this team better. I just think that saying Brunette is better without having much experience as a head coach is a little premature.