Have you considered that the candidates that you would approve of wanted to wait until the offseason when more options become available and they improve their own leverage? There are two parties involved in every hire, typically the top candidates can be patient, maybe if we were a team viewed as a condender right off the bat, we might be able to draw in a top option midseason, but that wasn't the cards we were played.
We aren't Edmonton, we don't have McDavid, and we weren't seen as a cup favourite, it's a lot easier for that team to convince a coach to sign now rather than wait until more options become available. Even then, a hire of Knaublach likely would have resulted in even more criticism for getting another budget hire with no experience,
