Do you see any way he is the coach of the next cycle for the Blues? The guy to develop the young players coming in for a few years (maybe being replaced when the team is a contender, maybe not)?
I just see no way that's how it plays out. And I think Berube is actually a really good developmental coach. But I think coaches DO have a shelf life and he appears to have lost the thread in strategy. The defensive system last year was a wreck. Special teams were both terrible. What did the Blues do well? I know we can always upgrade players, but the coaching bears some responsibility there.
I wouldn't bet on it as the most likely outcome, but yes I absolutely see paths to that.
If the next cycle is gutting the team and developing a bunch of young guys on the NHL roster, I see an argument to keep him around for that. And frankly, him reaching his shelf life with the current roster doesn't impact that much. If we're moving on from the current roster organizationally, then that gives him the green light to start benching well paid players and going all in with the "I don't care if we lose the game, minutes will be purely based on effort for everyone" hard-assery. While I don't think he is effectively doing that so far this year, I think he is also still trying to win games and I could see him pivoting to the full hard-ass "build a culture" coach if the front office communicates that it wants that.
I'm also still just completely unwilling to say this season is fully lost at the 9 game mark. The West still sucks and I'm not buying any team in the Central besides Colorado and Dallas. For as bad as this team has looked in a lot of games, we are 2 points out of a playoff spot with a game in hand and 3 points out of the C3 spot with a game in hand. I won't be remotely surprised if teams 3-8 in the Central all hover right around a .500 points percentage pace all season with the C3 and maybe even the WC2 spot both going to whatever deeply flawed team happens to go on a 12 game heater at some point. We have a bunch of streaky forwards and it wouldn't surprise me at all if we happen to get hot for a month offensively and rattle of a nice win streak. The D system is still looking coherent and a large improvement over last season. The way we are winning and losing is very different from last year's team.
Again, would I bet on this at even odds? Absolutely not. But I wouldn't be stunned if it happened. This conference absolutely sucks and I could absolutely see Berube being retained for another retooling year with more youngsters in 2024/25 if we show progress and sneak into the playoffs.
