Nobody's arguing against Drury's picks. Why even bring it up? It's the rest of his work that has been a huge mess starting immediately with his first summer.
Who gives a shit about the President's Trophy? I ridiculed it last season because we were playing shit hockey then too despite the winning record.
Malcontents are a result of Drury's continuous mismanagement. You can say they have no right to be malcontent, but that's not how human beings work. If people find the management above them and their immediate bosses toxic assholes, it will always be hard to do your best.
Counter questions:
Why does Lavi lose his teams over and over?
What exactly makes Drury a highly successful GM? Going deep in the playoffs but failing to win the cup? That is failure, not success. Solid drafting? That's to be expected as the minimum standard.
The expectations of this board are legitimately insane.
Drury is a failure because he hasn't won a cup.
Ok so then there are what 5 GM's who aren't failures?
Thats an insane benchmark.
The rangers the past 3 years were one of the youngest teams to make the playoffs (as opposed to the hank years where they were the oldest). And yet somehow they've managed to get to the ECF TWICE!
"The malcontents are a result of Drury's mismanagement" - Lets rephrase that "The locker room wasn't happy because goodrow was moved via waivers and now trouba was moved via waivers"
Both moves WE LOVED because they were both dragging the team down for well more than their cap space.
JFC if the board is siding with the players on two actually good move.
Your counter question is flawed - ALL COACHES Lose the room. Paul maurice very famously QUIT on a team because he lost the room, and guess what, they're looking pretty solid now.
Coaches lose the room. It happens.
In this case? I'm on Lavi's side, because he's the first coach we've actually had, who's even slightly developed kids. The problem is the vets.
I dont see how anyone sides with any of the players at the moment.
Also note, Lavi can't healthy scratch all the vets. We need them moved, but unless drury knows he's safe for another 2 years, he can't pull that trigger.
This board is still harping on the Buch trade. Drury is an average to above average GM.
He does a good job drafting.
He does a solid job of mid season trades.
He's hired coaches with a mindset of developing youth for long term success.
His Free agent signings have been mixed with some very good positives and some mediocre signings that he's managed to get out consequence free from.
He moved Buch and this board will never forgive him. So he's clearly a failure.
This team needs a short term reset. Firing Drury and/or Lavi is not the answer. They have a direction they want to take the team, that is the right direction. Skill + grit.
The Board seems to think there's magically a different coach who's going to somehow turn Mika into 2019 Ryan O' Reilly.
The problem is the players. Not the coach. Not the GM.
The GM who's loudly said, play better or be gone.
The exact F'ing message we're screaming.
and yet drury is the problem.