We aren’t moving any core players, that would be really dumb when coaching has been identified as the issue.
We don’t have prima-donnas and pouters, that’s just fan fiction porn. What we have are a ton of young players who lack experience who have had their confidence seriously shaken, and the only coach most have known fired.
They have the effort and desire, but are struggling making all of the changes that need to be made to their games all at once. You can see the effort and you can see that they are second guessing and over thinking while they play.
Attitude isn’t all of a sudden an issue, and I don’t get a sense that the room is filled with bros who don’t care about doing what’s necessary to win.
I see a team that has finally come to grips with the fact that they don’t play a style that wins games at the NHL level, and are trying to learn a new style halfway through the season. Its not about simply playing D, it’s team defence that is lacking, and doing it effectively takes time and practice, not simply trying harder and making sure you’re in the D zone.
We lack patience for good reason, but moving a core player for the sake of it would be a terrible move, and more akin to the previous management group than the current one. This group preaches stability, patience, and best in class. To me this means that the next major move will be to bring in a top notch coach and staff to work with all the talent we currently have.
Not one of the guys whose names are bandied around should be traded. Bath is already insane value for his deal, Chabot is better than Chychrun and is better at parts of the game than Sandy at the moment, and would be a huge blow to our defence to lose. Norris is our 2 C, has great scoring potential and has already shown 2-way centre potential, and Joseph has arguably been one of our best players this year on a cheap deal with term.
We don’t need cap space coming up, and we don’t need a massive roster shake up right now. We need to let the massive coaching and management shake up dust settle and see what we have on the ice.
God, can we just make the patient smart play this time? Play the long game? Some of the moves I see proposed look very similar to trading Zib, and yet we all know how the fanbase views that panic move.
Thankfully the owner and management team seem just the type to be up to the task. Finally. I have always leaned hard into the hope side of things, but now I’m super duper hopeful!
