Not saying he wasn't at fault but the previous admnistration was just like "No. Bad Dog!" and smacked him of the nose with a news paper when things went wrong. It's still his actions but its also how it is handled.
The current management is taking a better approach to training the proper behavior. and rewarding good behavior. People seem to react better and differently to these approaches.
I've said this and felt this all along but I always had the impression Jarmo, Larsen and PV led with a fear mentality. "You do what I say or you won't play." In my mind that makes people afraid to make mistakes because of the fear of punishment even though they tried to be "player's coaches" and it didn't apply equally to the locker room.
Evason seems to come more from a building up mentality. I think he's been quoted understanding people will make mistakes and that's ok if we learn from them. Previous management would have chastised him and probably not let him play last night because he got angry after allowing a goal. So far Elvis seems to be learning and propering from the fresh start under this mentality. We'll see if it lasts.
Blame goes both ways on how a situation is handled and addressed and I like how there seems to be accountability coming from the coaching staff but they are actually teaching and empowering the players to succeed.
You clearly aren't a fan of him and have bad taste in your mouth from the past but I believe the new management is a fresh start and you see many players, not just Elvis, starting to prosper early on because of the mentality DW and the coaching staff approached the season with. The past is the past for me on this and I'm looking at now and the future just like they seem to be.
You make good points.
The way I look at it with the prevoius group was that they made the choice to make Elvis the number 1, and gave him a nice contract to go with it. I had no problem with that as I always wanted them to choose a guy because, in my opinion, I think it is better to have a clear 1 and 2 goalie. It didn't matter to me who they chose because I didn't feel there was a huge difference between him and Korpisalo. Just pick one and move on.
I get the Kivlenieks death played on him, but his first season after that was decent. Its just the last 2 weren't, and I think his act wore thin because more was expected for the money they gave him. They changed goalie coaches, and one of the first thing he did when there was early improvement, was throw the new coach under the bus.
All that, plus the attitude the front office was having came to a head when they started playing Tarasov over him. I can't believe they were happy on the return they were getting from his contract.
Maybe this regime can straighten him out, but even if they do, it may be too late contract wise. They could help him just in time for him to bolt when he becomes a free agent. I don't think Columbus will give him more money per year after how this contract worked out.
I may not be a fan of his, but I would rather see it work out for him here and see the team succeed. I don't know how much time you give him though. I kind of think if something materializes in a trade, the Jackets take it.
