Great thread, we need one of these every year... it sucks us all in
Here are my reasons for optimism, some of which have been stated, (so I'm agreeing with some of you, not plagiarizing)
1) SMITH --> Smith is a highly competitive, highly outspoken guy. He's a vet in this league and I think he's going to bring some negativity to our defensive self-criticism. You can't have all the bitchign coming from the coach, someone on the back end needs to create the type of "honest shaming" of team-mates that leads to responsibility. I think he'll get away with it for one year before people tune him out... I just hope he plays reasonably well enough that guys actually take his criticism at face-value rather than "herp-derp, our goalie sucks". I mean, don't get me wrong, a Ryan Miller or Luongo vet goalie would be better, but it's been a REALLY long time since we had any vet experience at all back there and I think it will help. They say teams need storming before norming, so I'm hopeful on that basis.
2) Tippett --> a new voice, a new system, and I'm sure plenty of the same lessons... hoping they sink in this time
3) Lucic gone --> Like Smith above, he was a good influence on this team for a year and then his own struggles became a bigger distraction. I speculate that him pulling the team in the dumps is actually testimony that he was a more important leader than he gives himself credit for. His leading by example started out as intensity and then became moping & frustration. You can't have a guy in a leadership position struggling the way that he did for as long as he did.
4) Competition at forward: Holland has quietly put 60% of our forward roster on alert for their livelihood. There are at least 3-4 guys that may be NHL level (now or in the recent past) that will not be in the lineup on a given night. Good job Holland!
5) Space for 1-2 young-ins on the back end: and we have such a stable, it's finally hard to imagine we can't get some decent games out of Persson, Jones, Bear, Laggesson, Bouchard, etc. I'd have preferred to have kept Sekera, but Russell will be a fine tutor. He's going to teach safe and self-sacrifice, which are important for rooks. You can't (and he especially can't) teach talent anyway, but he's going to give them the lessons on how to stay in the lineup and how to get themselves out of situational trouble... which is what they need at this stage.