Moral aspects of this aside, for which I think Quenneville is truly reprehensible, he’s simply just not worth the circus that’ll follow. If the Rangers want to use the plausible deniability excuse because the league will technically have to reinstate him first, giving them the green light to hire him, fine. Congratulations on exploiting the loophole with it. What’s obvious to anyone that follows the NHL is that them hiring him would put them under a constant microscope all season long and leave them prone to nonstop criticism. They’d essentially become the 2023-24 version of the Canucks in hockey media, which made the players lives a living hell and made it just an unbearable situation. It culminated with them trading their captain and a fan favorite, who then proceeded to embarrass them in a post-game interview. You think thin-skinned, pissbaby Dolan is going to handle that much negativity surrounding of his teams? Not a chance that he’ll be able to tolerate it all season. Why even bother risking bringing that much additional noise here?
That brings me to the over-inflated water balloon that is Peter Laviolette. Who the f*** in their right mind that has watched the Capitals these last 3 years could come to the conclusion that he’s what we’d need here? I’m hoping all of that smoke is coming from his agent trying to get his client hired, but he’d be an absolute disaster here. Three consecutive years of playoff failures where he can’t get his vets to buy into his “structure” (it’s a neutral zone trap and zone defense, really brilliant work there my guy) and find ways to integrate young guys into the lineup. Their defense sucked but he couldn’t find a way to use Jonas Siegenthaler who’s now a top-4 dman in Jersey. Hiring him would be great if you want to waste Igor’s last two cheap years while failing to do anything in the playoffs, leaving us stuck in mediocrity and on the verge of another rebuild. If that’s the case, just nuke it now and start it over, but actually try committing to a process.
If Drury wants to find himself unemployed in a year or two, then by all means, hire one of those guys or another fossil like Bob Hartley. Stop trying to cut corners and just commit to a process that puts your young talent in a position to succeed and transition the core for the next 5 or so years. They may even take another step back next year, but that would be fine if they actually had direction. Gorton’s impatience and Dolan’s stupidity is why they are where they are now anyways. Don’t make the same mistakes.
