Somehow the season ticket holders and Fronts experts on this board all point the fingers at the players on this team as to what they do wrong or why we aren't a contending team.
On paper the Fronts are a very good team, so why is it that we are currently a .500 team ???
When Luca Caputi was let go on October 24 of last year, a Saviour of a coach was hired who was going to turn this team around and use his wealth of AHL experience to propel this team and organization into a contender.
Well it's been 1 year and I still stand by the points I've listed on here countless times.
Troy Mann is not getting the job done.
Kory Kooper is not getting the job done.
The scouting staff is not getting the job done.
I've heard that Uncle Troy will not trade the 3rd player suggested even though he's not well liked and Saginaw needed to unload him to hoist the Memorial Cup.
This ownership group and head coach is an extension of minor hockey where favours still exist.
IMO it’s not a case of them being bad or us pointing fingers- If they had this team last year with this pick situation last year they may have made the finals had they utilized those picks. And any long time kingston fan would be pleased with that outcome championship or not- believe them and sarnia are the only 2 teams left in the OHL to not make it that far.
Unfortunately the east was wide open 1-6 last year no real big threats to London or Saginaw and obviously that wasn’t the case. This year is the strongest year in the east in a long time and with Kingston there isn’t much of a point in going all in this year just to lose the first round.
Think about it- 2 of Brantford, Brampton, Barrie, Oshawa, Kingston and Sudbury will lose in the first round. Kingston and Sudbury have picks sure but is it probably a smart choice to offload all those picks and screw the future just to go out in the first round? The way things are shaping up I can’t see them beating any of 3 B’s or Oshawa, Sudbury they could absolutely beat but they’re not gonna be a top 4 team. So Kingston and Sudbury will joust it out for 5th/6th place and the honours to face one of those 4 teams and go out in the first round.
I don’t know if it’s Troy’s fault as he just gets the players given to him- if anything I’d blame cooper. Let’s go through some of what’s happened since he became GM.
2021-2022 Wrights draft year- great offence not very great defence, wisdom came back and we had some assets to burn- didn’t burn any and we lost round 1.
2022-2023 Rebuilding year traded arcuri for a good package, traded wright for Miedema(hasn’t progressed much if any since acquiring him), McCarthy (didn’t report) only 1 2nd, 3rd- 2 4ths, a 5th and a 6th I believe was the package. REALLY messed that one up. Only 1 2nd and a 3rd for arguably the best or one of the best players in the league? Horrible move. Also failed Mem cup bid (but imo they never were going to get that with Saginaw having misa and Parekh and the best team by far out of the 4 bidders, American or not)
2023-2024 horrible trade with Sudbury, wasted lots of picks on Chromiak and that experiment didn’t work out at all. Traded lots for Roman Schmidt, he was great but didn’t work out for fronts as we lost round 1. Traded for Jax Dubois which (inadvertently) pushed Gabe Frasca out of the organization. Also didn’t trade Ludwinski at the deadline which would’ve brought in potentially a 16 year old or atleast a decent 17 year old and picks giving us a brighter future
2024-2025 drafted malholtra who didn’t report, got rid of talent (that didn’t want to be here but still) that could’ve been here for the next 2 years, and now we are caught like a deer in headlights- not good enough to go all in but if we don’t fans will be pissed off so this may force their hand to lose in round 1 even when the obvious thing to do right now is trade guys like burns, Miedema, McNamara and get the most value and push the run year to 2026-2027 when the OHL has the mem cup again because next year we are losing 10 players including our 2 star imports