I'll probably get trashed for saying this but last night's performance was reminiscent of a phenom I noticed when I was coaching youth. Players know when they are beat. When their best isn't gonna be good enough. And they know when the coach has no real answers. So they recognize reality and tend to just play out the rest of the schedule and get the whole thing over and done with.
This wasn't evident in the 90's. But it became evident after 2000. I don't know why. Values? Character? Upbringing? 9/11? Columbine? It happened to me 2 different times during my 2000 - 2017 coaching run.
In between were some championships. But when the ship starts to take on water, and predicated on the character of the leadership, the crew (players) look to abandon ship rather than try to keep it afloat.
And they tend to blame others around them for the conditions.
A certain high visibility and well respected Avs social media commentator on this Board knows what I am describing here. He was one of the few good guys I had left...... He hung in there until the end. But surely had his doubts as well.....
You shouldn't get trashed, because it's pretty spot on. The team was already on verge on quitting and giving up and the Nuke news, coupled with Toews not being available took it right to that level of we have no chance in their heads and the guys acted like it.
It's been a tough two seasons in terms of stability and leadership and it finally came to complete breaking point last night. You can only sustain so much.
No Landy for 2 full years, you lost another leader in EJ, I think not bringing back Kadri was a big blow to guys who seemed to really like him. Then throw in the countless injuries really no one has been reliably in the lineup, the Nuke stuff, the Girard stuff to a lesser extent.
There is only so many times you can say put your head down and keep grinding. Their will to keep grinding broke last night. I really don't know if it's salvageable without some reasonable changes.
Yep. This place is about as toxic as could be expected. Glad to see we should be trading everyone.
It's not a trade everybody situation, but the team absolutely broke and quit last night. It was the worst game this core has ever played at the absolute worst time. Some changes are for sure needed.