It's pretty obvious Jackson has assumed lead role in decision making. Two weeks in and he fires and replaces Holland's head of amateur scouting. Then when shit goes sideways installs his guy as head coach, opting for someone with no NHL head coaching experience. These are decisions for the post-Holland era. Holland is still a valuable employee with experience, league relationships that can do the legwork with trying to improve this team this season. But Jackson's clearly driving the bus to Charelli proof the organization.
I agree. As we discussed before Knoblauch is clearly Jacksons man. So (including the addition in amateur scouting) Jackson is clearly putting his stamp on the management side of things.
That makes sense with the reality of Holland retiring soon. Jackson should be putting together his Management team.
Its just not clear to me that Jackson has also removed Hollands ability to make trades.
Campbell disappearing is going to take either a David Copperfield magic act or Joe Pesce Good Fellas level force majeure. Or a boatload of picks and prospects. Easiest, fastest wishful thinking is to try to help Stella get her groove back. Sprinkle a few bucks for Campbell to have some alone time with Manny Legace to work on his game but really it is about a security blanket to get the guy's fragile mental foundation stable. Regrettably it's the huge mental foundation that goaltending is built on that comes and goes with Jack Campbell. Can tweak and sharpen technique, change equipment but if the mental game pilot light that underpins the position blows out easily and with frequency the game won't be there with the consistency required at apex NHL level ... at least on mature phase organizations expecting and under pressure to win deep playoff rounds.
Hockey Darwinism cruelly weeds out those that fall short with skill and aptitude.
Thats the thing with Campbell. You never really get the sense with his game thats its reached a point where its reliable. That he is in a position to play the next 30 games and be solid.
You never really get the sense that has slayed the beast. The mental gremlins can pop up anytime and all the momentum he had gathered could be gone in a flash. Watching him play I get the feeling like he could regress at any moment.
He just isnt trustworthy and the sooner he is gone the better.
This was such a monumental failure for Holland and this organization.
There is no excuse for putting this team in this situation at this point in time. There are times when organizations just cant afford to get something wrong. This was that time for this team and Holland failed spectacularly.
