It's weird though.
Everything they said in every interview seemed to indicate that their evaluation was on point. And Jim Rutherford is not someone who has had a reputation for being afraid to make moves, far from it.
So what the hell happened?
With Benning, it was quite clear that he was just incompetent. He would walk up to the mic, say "I am about to do something very stupid," then he would do something very stupid.
With this group, I don't know what's going on.
I don't understand how months of interviews downplaying the success of the team last year, not wanting to give Boudreau an extension, not buying into the hype, saying that the defense is bad and they rely on the goalie too much etc. etc. and then just ... no action.
Like you said, you'd have to believe that Aquilini wouldn't have just shut them down at this early juncture. And yet...? I don't know. I really don't get it.
It's been a weird year so far in general. Theres a lot that I think goes into the current position of affairs:
1. Poor market in the offseason
Pretty obvious. While plenty of us would, currently, happily take Lundkvist and a 1st for Miller with how he's been playing with his shiny new retirement contract; that's totally a hindsight evaluation. If he went on to play brilliantly for NYR with the hot start they're having (keep in mind his attitude would be faring way better there than it is here at the moment), management would have been flayed alive for that decision. This is just what happens in a cap league tight on money with a previous GM that capped the team out in the first place. It was, genuinely, a difficult decision, in part due to the temperament of Miller, which goes into point #2...
2. The psychology of the team
The team got off to a bad start. It happens. But they are just a mentally destroyed group. It's really bad, and it's obvious to anyone watching. If they had just straight up lost those first 2 games, instead of blowing the 3rd period leads, I don't think we'd be here. They are shattered and you can tell.
This is the consequence of sucking. Keep that in mind. The team has no real confidence, poor culture, and a loser mentality. They constantly beat themselves, have poor effort levels out of habit from hopeless seasons of crap hockey, and just do not have the necessary discipline to win games instilled and internalized like Carolina or Pittsburgh does.
I think Miller is part of the problem; I dont like the guy and his attitude and when things go poorly, I can imagine he's a f***ing awful guy to have in the locker room. Hence the on-ice arguments and the early players only meeting. It's just bad. They're going to dig themselves out of this hole, and it's going to be rough. The team investing in some sports psychologists would be a f***ing dream come true, and it's savvy housekeeping choices like that which make me miss Gillis more than anything else.
3. Injuries/The Defense
I mean, yeah. It's an excuse. And management should have done better to address this weakness. But regardless of whether or not the excuse is valid, the injuries to both important defensive forwards (Mikhayev) and thinning out our already paltry defensive group (Myers, Hughes, Dermott, Stillman, Poolman) leave things worse than they already are for a Demko who's having a slow start to the season. It's pretty bad luck, and that's all there is to it.
That being said, the defense has actually not been our main problem, I feel, as others have also pointed out. We've gotten either average or above average play from most of the group, and Burroughs has really stepped up. It's been the forward group who's really fighting it. So, just a mess, really.
I also haven't mentioned it yet, but our special teams coaching is absolutely unacceptable and I cannot believe it hasn't been addressed. Why are these people still employed? It makes our course of action pretty obvious, I think:
-Fire Jason King. Please. Wtf is this dude still doing here. The PP looks f***ing awful. The PK is obviously horrendous but I don't know who to even blame for it, lmao. It's just depressing to see games decided by how incompetent we are when we're not 5v5.
-Dont make too many changes to the group until the deadline. If players like Boeser and Horvat just can't get back to an acceptable level, get rid of them, and any other wingers that don't fit in.
-Make some further investments into cleaning up the locker room's psychology. It does seem that the team has... some staff? For therapy and psychological consultation, but idk how you can look at stuff like these third period meltdowns, on-ice confrontations, or even Petey's apathy from last year and think that whatever is going on is either sufficient or effective. Figure it out.
If the team sucks this year, they suck. Whatever. I've only been on this website for voidgazing years, and I can gaze into it again. Best case scenario it's one of those inexplicable speedbump years where everything goes wrong and they bounce back next year.
Either way, making dumb panic moves with player value at its lowest doesn't improve our situation at all. Either these players continue to play poorly, keep us low in the standings for a good prospect in the draft, and give us certainty that we should move on from them; or they recover their play, and we can either keep them or move them for better return. This is just a challenge that this core has to overcome. They are better than this record. If they're not, we'll know what to do with them.