It’s not a load of crap nor surprising in any way, that DQ is looking for Lias to play faster.
OTOH, what you can question is which aspects of the game that is “non-negotiable”. I am not at all sure that AV or Torts — for different reasons — for example wouldn’t feel the opposite with Howden vs Lias. Torts wasn’t at all into his center carrying the puck and AV was very much into smart decision making by his forwards.
DQ is really found about his centers curving very deep to build up speed and then get the puck higher up ice creating a tempo change.
Ultimately, I’ve not been on the fence about DQs treatment of Lias because I do think he should get down to HFD and play a ton of minutes, I said it in the summer and I say it now. I think Lias had a very solid camp for sure, but camp is camp and the NHL is the NHL. And when his role was diminished — it wasn’t much he could have done.
But I also don’t buy the complete trashing of Lias. If AV was still here, I definitely think the roles would be reversed between Lias and Howden. AV would be talking about Howden the way DQ is talking about Lias, and bringing up “decision making” instead of “playing with speed”. And I definitely think Lias would mix a lot more good into the meh bag so to speak if he was “handed” [sic] two non scrubs as wingers. Like Lias was pretty good to start the year with Lemieux and last year. It’s not like he needed support by some super good mega star to play well in the NHL, I like Lemieux but getting to play with someone as good as him isn’t an outrageous requirement for a player to do well.
