It was an interesting comment from Marchand - "we're starting to understand how we need to play to win". A lot of us here knew what that was going to have to be before the very first puck even dropped in Florida, and I don't think it required any sort of exceptional insight to work it out. How Monty either couldn't figure it out, refused to or simply didn't know how to get there, and to what extent the players were likewise baffled by the task for well over a month, will probably never really be answered. But it happened, and it's taken removing Jim to finally see the light start to dawn and any sort of serious progress to commence.
The team has a long way to go, but Sacco at least has the basic template starting to fall into place, he's getting buy in from the roster at last, and now it's a case of the team continuing to work towards fully taking on the identity and style of play that's been set for them and which has the best chance of allowing them to be effective. It's not pretty, nor the most entertaining, and it's probably not going to generate a lot of scoring, but it's what needs to be done. Lock down the defense first, bring that harder, meaner edge, be prepared to play simple, north-south, zero ego hockey, and build from there. Because those are the most important and also the comparatively easy and achievable parts. Sorting out this offense, which continues to over-handle the puck and generally look disjointed, is going to take longer.
Nonetheless, the schedule is favorable for about another 2 weeks, which will hopefully give the team time to settle into the new regime and ideally start to generate some momentum and string together some positive results while the going is a bit easier. In that sense the timing of the coaching and tactical changes is good. But after the first week of December things start to get more difficult and I think that's when we'll really start to see just what this roster is or isn't capable of even with a new man in charge. But one step at a time. At least there is some life.