What do you think should happen with Derek Lalonde?

What do you think should happen with Lalonde?


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stillwater

cellar door
Mar 17, 2011
1,006
835
How many of you were expecting this team to be as good or better than last years team?

Personally, when I look at the roster, it was pretty clear to me that we should all be expecting to see a step back.

With that in mind, I find it hard to pin this on the coach. Would a change help? Maybe, but the off-season roster turnover was mostly downgrades across the board.

Ghost -> Gustavsson
Perron -> tarasenko
Sprong -> berggren
Fabbri -> Kasper
Walman -> Holl

Some of these are good long term moves (kasper) but otherwise this team is just worse and I’m not sure Lalonde should be the one to pay the price for that.
Perron has zero points with Ottawa.
Sprong has already been cut loose for nothing from Vancouver.
Fabbri has done nothing in Anaheim and Kasper is part of the long-term makeup of this team.

Ghost is better than Gustavsson for sure, but was ragged on by this board for 95% of the season last year. His effort during the late playoff run seems a bit of a stretch for nostalgia.

As far as Walman goes, Simon Edvinsson has effectively taken his place, not Holl.
 

Euro Twins

Healthy Scratch
Mar 19, 2016
900
784
I thought a regression was very possible this season. A lot of unlikely comeback wins last season, a lot of unsustainable production from a mediocre D, too many defensive issues and not enough appropriate new help added. But this is a collapse, not a regression, despite less roster turnover than last year. When you get solid veteran character types like Copp and Compher making negative public comments or simply not putting in enough effort on a backcheck like last night, it's just another sign of a huge problem in the coach-player dynamic, if more evidence was even needed.

SY had this problem in TB, missing the playoffs two years in a row after reaching Game 7 of the Conference final, and fired Boucher 31 games into the second of those two seasons. There were only 17 games left that year and he was replaced by interim co-head coaches who didn't have any solutions either. It might be tempting to go the same route this season, interim replacement(s) and take what comes out of it. The way they've drafted in the first round, a higher Draft pick than expected could be interesting. NJ lucked into Jack Hughes by dropping 25 points from the previous year.

Well Cooper was hired to replace Boucher for those last 17 games. We know how that ended up, it was not an interim coach though.
 

Realgud

Not good enough for SKA
Nov 4, 2013
5,557
6,878
realguddraftsimulator.com
Perron has zero points with Ottawa.
Sprong has already been cut loose for nothing from Vancouver.
Fabbri has done nothing in Anaheim and Kasper is part of the long-term makeup of this team.

Ghost is better than Gustavsson for sure, but was ragged on by this board for 95% of the season last year. His effort during the late playoff run seems a bit of a stretch for nostalgia.

As far as Walman goes, Simon Edvinsson has effectively taken his place, not Holl.
Good post. Hard to argue with any of this. I think we look back fondly on these players because of where the team ended up at the end of the year but it just so happen that they were firing on all cylinders for most of the season before the big collapse. I don't think they would come close to replicating that type of offense if they were still on the team right now. The way they were scoring wasn't sustainable in any way. That said, I don't think Yzerman did a proper job replacing or improving the players at these positions, and I think that's where most of the complaints can realistically come from. I think he did well getting Talbot and giving kids more opportunities, but having Chiarot-Petry on the second pair is inexcusable.
 

Michael Brand Eggs

Knee Guard
Jul 30, 2005
17,856
4,839
I mean, what is location, really
I thought this was a good read:


It's interesting to note how much they seem to be missing Perron. I wonder if the Wings could honestly just trade for him. Ottawa would probably pay you to take him. Put him on the 4th line, let him motivate. Hire him as an assistant coach after this year.

This is the first take I've seen that suggests there are locker room problems. Like not drama or conflict, but just... nothing. They don't have "the guy" who gets them hyped. Sure, coaches should do that, but you need players to do it, too.
 
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DoMakc

Registered User
Jun 28, 2006
1,555
691
Given state of D and PK - areas of responsibility for Boughner, I'm not sure he should not be fired into the sun first
 

WingedWheel1987

Registered User
Jan 11, 2011
13,362
946
GPP Michigan
Unless the coach is Lidstrom and he plans to be a player coach, it won't really matter who coaches this roster.

Get more talent or we can expect to see another thread in 2-3 years blaming the next coach.

And to clarify, when I say, "get more talent." I don't mean borderline 2nd/3rd line forwards and "technically" second pair defenseman.
 

Squirrel in the Hole

Be the best squirrel in the hole
Feb 18, 2004
1,787
323
Sydney
I thought this was a good read:


It's interesting to note how much they seem to be missing Perron. I wonder if the Wings could honestly just trade for him. Ottawa would probably pay you to take him. Put him on the 4th line, let him motivate. Hire him as an assistant coach after this year.

This is the first take I've seen that suggests there are locker room problems. Like not drama or conflict, but just... nothing. They don't have "the guy" who gets them hyped. Sure, coaches should do that, but you need players to do it, too.
Why isn't Kane "the guy"?
 

SirloinUB

Registered User
Aug 20, 2010
4,950
2,514
Canada
Perron has zero points with Ottawa.
Sprong has already been cut loose for nothing from Vancouver.
Fabbri has done nothing in Anaheim and Kasper is part of the long-term makeup of this team.

Ghost is better than Gustavsson for sure, but was ragged on by this board for 95% of the season last year. His effort during the late playoff run seems a bit of a stretch for nostalgia.

As far as Walman goes, Simon Edvinsson has effectively taken his place, not Holl.

And yet, the guys we brought in are contributing less than what the guys we let go provided last year.

Letting go of most, if not all of those guys, was probably the right call but at this point in time, what we have is worse than what we had.

Kasper will be better than Fabbri. He might already be better than Fabbri. But Fabbri was better last year than what Kasper is now. Fabbri was a half point per game/20 goal guy. Kasper isn't that yet.

Sprong put up 18 goals and over a half point per game. Berggren isn't there yet.

Perron put up 17 goals and nearly 50 points while being a significant leader. Tarasenko is contributing less than that.

As far as walman/edvinsson/holl my point was that holl was a 7th D who played less than half of our games. This year he has played 66% of games.

To be clear, I'm glad Yzerman took the long term view and subsequent actions to support that view. Im not arguing Fabbri should be on the roster over Kasper. At the same time, as of Nov 19 2024, the roster is worse than it was last year.

Take one step back, to take two steps forward as it were.
 
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SantosHalper

Get off my lawn
Mar 21, 2012
2,782
3,463
somewhere around nothing
Just rent McDavid to yell at everyone.
animal-beaver.gif
 

OldnotDeadWings

Registered User
Sep 18, 2013
567
704
Well Cooper was hired to replace Boucher for those last 17 games. We know how that ended up, it was not an interim coach though.

Thanks for the correction. Cooper wasn't named the new head coach right away and my memory had him showing up after the season.
 

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