That's the thing, sure Blake gets a bit of a pass for inheriting the mess Lombardi left him, but it's time for him to start being held accountable for how Stevens worked out and for how it looks the WD hire is heading. Outside of college UFA signings, Blake hasn't done a whole lot to inspire confidence at this point.
What exactly did you want him to do?
You realize that their job is to win hockey games right? They came off a year where they were the #1 defensive team in the league, and their offense started out great, but fizzled, disappeared by playoffs etc, so when they are evaluating last season, they are looking at things through their lens of, we are a #1 defensive team, but we need offense, we are getting older, so we don't really want to trade our younger prospects or picks, but hey, there's a top offensive FA out there, let's go talk to him,...they sign him, and he works because Stevens forgot to tell the team they had to play defense, that #1 defensive team, turned into a #31 defensive team over the summer, no one knows what happened etc.
What was it, 12-13 games in they fire the coach because of the start....and everyone agreed that it had to be done.....but instead of RUSHING into a hiring a new PERMANENT coach...they hire an interim coach.....who asked Kovalchuk to play defense...I know..that' was a brutal ask, wasn't it?
Now all of a sudden Blake can't hire coaches??
You guys don't get to sim to the next season here.....doesn't work like that...