November 2022 we were running a defense that looked like
Sandin-Liljegren
Giordano-Holl
Benn/Hollowell/Mete
With Murray and Kallgren as the only healthy goalies, iirc Murray got injured and Kallgren was the starter at one point. We went 11-2-2 averaging 2 GAA through that stretch.
Our goalies were shit and it’s starting to look better, not going to argue there, but there’s been a lot of stretches where we got destroyed by injuries and the team showed up with a month of professional defense first hard work only to revert back to old tendencies once healthy. I might be misremembering but I’m pretty sure there as an almost identical one the year before that as well where they locked it down for a month while we had 4 or 5 injuries and then forgot how to do that once we got healthy.
Not giving Dubas any passes.
He brought in an injury plagued goalie in Murray that he should have avoided, or at least gotten for pennies.
As pitiful as that defence looks, that was pretty much what Dubas saw fit on defence for us. Who is it missing? Rielly and Brodie?
Guy gave no emphasis goalie or defence and got showed it over and over again. Instead of learning and doing something about it, he just kept doubling down on the core 4 and path of least resistance roster moves and soft losers like Holl and Kerfoot.
It honestly felt like when the decision was made to bring in guys like McCabe, Schenn, O’Reilly, and Acciari, Dubas was pushed aside and Shanahan mandated those moves.
Anyways, good riddance to that goof, as well as Keefe.
Glad we have Berube, and a team properly built from the net out and playing good, hard to play against hockey.
Still been hurt too many times by this team in the playoffs but these guys just slap different now then any previous iteration of this Core 4 team.
Hopefully we see this in the playoffs. Adding strength at 3C and let’s see what we roll into the playoffs like.