I love Lindy as much as the next person, but the way Adams and Terry have garnered 99% of the criticism doesn't really line up with what we're seeing
Some players are struggling immensely, and weren't last year. It's not just roster construction
And ironically half the people will blame the search for not being thorough while the other half will say it was a good coaching hire, they were just too cheap to get new assistants. Despite these conflicting views, all that matters is that it is kevyn and Terry's fault.
while I'm happy to acknowledge it ultimately falls on them, I wish there was more discussion on the massive underperformance beyond "the roster sucks" and "sell the team"
I was critical of the Lindy hire, but I'm not the type to post the same thing over and over.
But what the hell, I've got nothing better to do, here's a mini rant about Lindy and the other issues we've been yelling about for years:
- Coaching:
- Lindy is a good story, and he's an actual NHL level coach, which isn't something we've had here since... well Lindy. However, he has a history of mismanaging his goalies, mishandling youth, and not getting the most out certain players (see Meier, Timo). So far to my eyes, he just looks a step closer to retirement.
- The assistants. For f***s sake, the assistants. Has Marty Wilford ever been any good anywhere? We know that he coached Anaheim's stacked defense to their worst career years, and they were all in their primes. Why is he still here?
- Roster Construction:
- This core/leadership group gets a lot of heat for being mentally soft, but the problem remains that they're too young. Of course there's going to be struggles with confidence, consistency, and commitment to system play. Almost all kids struggle with these issues until their late twenties. So we should hurry up and trade more of these kids before they turn 25
. In all seriousness, there are too many kids, our top 6 has four players that are 23 or younger. FOUR! If we have any desire to win now, we need to swap out two from Cozens, Peterka, Quinn, and Benson for actual skilled, veteran top 6 forwards.
- A little expansion on the above point: Quinn and Cozens make up a third of our top 6. They have been dogshit. They haven't just underachieved, on most nights they've been our worst players, absolute black holes. That's the biggest problem with this year's team performance. In the past couple years, the kid line thing worked for a few weeks and then they'd go silent for several more, so everyone was hoping that another year would lead to more consistency (myself included). Except somehow, Quinn turned into Nic Deslauriers without the speed and physicality. I'm not a fan of trading guys under 25 that have flashed the way that Cozens and Quinn have in the past, but Adams needs to figure out this bullshit fast. These two impact roster building plans for the next decade.
- The defense is constructed like shit. And this year the pairings haven't made any sense either. Ruff continually put together Clifton and Samuelsson. Ok, they can be a pain in the ass to play against, which is good, but once they separate someone from the puck neither one of them can make a good outlet pass to save his life. And if they manage to get into the offensive zone, then what?!? That's on Lindy. As for the rest, Dahlin is awesome, he stays forever (and I've been super critical this year). I didn't like the Power draft pick, didn't like him in college, and I still don't see it. He started off with serious signs of improvement, but the same issues keep cropping up and it's been killing us. Oh, and Byram is a completely redundant skillset. Get rid of him or Power, bring in something else that helps (I used to dream about Ekholm, now it's been Weegar for the past few years).
I've been complaining about the coaching for a decade since they got rid of Ruff the first time. Anyone pointing out that it must be the players because we've had multiple coaches, I can't get there. Everyone we've hired is terrible, most won't even sniff another head coaching job. The one that has gotten another chance (Bylsma), is busy driving the Kraken into mediocrity (he'll be out of the league in a year). Besides, players that "aren't good enough here" or "only know how to lose" continue to go to other places and play better and contribute to winning teams.
Honestly, I'm at a loss. I have no idea how to fix it. Ignoring coaching and just looking at the roster issues - I looked at the standings and some rosters, with so much parity I can't imagine anyone is looking to get rid of the type of player we could use.
Could we pry Troy Terry out of Anaheim? The Ducks look dead in the water so I'd kick those tires.
I mentioned Weegar already, but is Calgary looking to make a move?
Can we convince St Louis to do blockbuster type shakeup that would bring two of Thomas/Neighbours/Buchnevich over? I highly doubt it...
