He seems to be doing fine with Vlassic, Kaiser, and Allen no? Maybe Kurashev is too worried about getting scratched so he doesn't know what to do with the puck, but maybe he just doesn't have the NHL wherewithal to make heads up plays consistently especially when slotted into the top 6.
I don't think he's that good of a player. He's 25 years old with 272 games under his belt now. Maybe he needs to play with more talent, since there's a clear shortage of that on our crappy roster but under no circumstance should he be bumping out Teuvo as the LH RW next to Bedard.
I'm very biased on LR obviously.
Fair point on Allan. I have no gripes there...but we're just starting.
I'm torn on Kaiser because I think most of the decisions are KD with him given that roster construction, but I'm not sure. I thought Kaiser was getting the same short leash as Reichel and KK had. For his game, I thought he was not managed great but I don't know enough about Kasiser's development and KD's plan to manage the roster mess he created last year. I'll give an incomplete. Fair to suggest LR is fine with Kaiser.
'Fine' with Vlasic is fair and a case can be made there. My opinion about even wanting a different coach for Vlasic comes from a few things. For example, I think it was telling that LR put him on pp1 and never even gave him pp time at practice and he hadn't seen any in 3 years anywhere. Thought it was a bad design for Vlasic to pigeon-hole a young player with a long future into a simplified role while at the same time telling other young dmen to "eff off". It was well enough into the year to give Vlasic more to do rather than to wait for an emergency.
I guess I accidentally gave LR a compliment there too. I have to look up the injury history at the time but he could have given those pp1 shifts Tinordi and didn't.
On Kurashev, if he had any questions about him, they should have been addressed the previous 2 years or 3 coaches. There's alot of bad skating around. Seems like a really odd target to trust him with so much last year and going into this year to pull this a few game in. The contract year thing really gets to me too. I think it's a terrible message to send the players. Kurashev is more accomplished in his role than LR is in his. Not saying a ton for either.
Kurashev is a 4th line+ player on a contender imo. I don't rate him that high but he's a legit NHL talent who wouldn't clear waivers on his cap hit.