Drag0nDan

What about that swedish guy gronberg for next season? I know everyone wants experienced coach at this point - but I just want someone who isn't a rigid system guy.

If I were the owner I wouldn't hire anyone permanent in the interim either. This is already a financial loss of a season, why pay someone mid-season when the ship sank? I'd just let an assistant run it, or just have adams as the "head coach".

I agree - he went 3 months without a win last year. The wheels basically came off after the hot start last year, hes 7-26 since and his sv% since 10/22/2019 is .879. Which puts him in easily the bottom 3-5 of all goalies in the NHL - starters or backups.

Yeah - I don't really understand it either. Football they have to disclose why a player misses a practice, or wears a non-contact jersey. If a team hides an injury they can get fined. In hockey its this great mystery, and even when they are hurt they just say upper or lower body. Players in all sports play hurt, in hockey they just feel the need to hide it across the board.

With ullmark out it's hard to see them beating anyone but the rangers and devils. They can't score and are good to give up like 3+ every game.

Right - that happens all the time. Look at the thornton, seguin, kessel trades. You aren't getting a war chest - he has one of the highest cap hits in the NHL and is performing well below. This also hamstrings them with 3 players making more than 10 million - insanely top heavy. The trade has to include someone expensive - Probably Carter, maybe quick as well (if ullmark is healthy). 1 top prospect (probably 1 of turcotte and vilardi - not both, and since they're in the hunt it'd likely be turcotte), and 1 lesser prospect/fringier roster player - probably a defenseman. 1 1st round pick, probably 2022 non-protected. Any overpay would likely come from draft pick compensation - 2 2nds, or another 1st. Maybe you bring in more here if you package ullmark in there as well.

Nobody wanted montour when their teams were healthy. I think this is a large reason they considered non-tendering him. Almost 4 million for a bottom pair defenseman is a lot. They could possibly trade him now to a team in need of help on the blue line, but his value is pretty minimal at this point on an expiring contract. Miller has another year at almost 4 million so we'll likely see him blasting slapshots from the wall til at least the offseason. The team was bad with Ullmark, but they're a LOT worse without him. I would've liked to see another goalie brought in as well, but Hall was supposed to help the offense and hasn't. Honestly I think hutton somehow got worse.

Very true. Ullmark would qualify as a "barely" as well, since he only played under him in 2017 (and he was an assistant in 2015). But i wouldn't give him credit for "developing" Ullmark either. Also saved some scratch and ended up with the better player.

I mean not hiring say - boudreau mid-season without speaking with other candidates. But I hear ya... they have the meddlesome owner stink on them now. The only way to get rid of it is to... stop being meddlesome. I don't think a hockey president needs to be much more than a layer away from ownership. They even tried it and screwed that up (not that i felt like Lafontaine was going to lead this team to the promised land). At the same time, people talk - murray, housley, bylsma, botterill etc. Fact is - Lafontaine was hired to be hockey ops - and he quit. Black was fired for russ brandon. Brandon wasn't replaced. So atop the organization they have no hockey ops president, or just... president. Its all ownership. While they operate the same way for the Bills, the GM Beane is essentially the bills president of operations. He also has put together a solid group below him with Schoen, Boyd, Morgan etc. Usually you promote the GM to keep one of those by promoting them to GM, asst. etc. It put them on the map though!

Helps when they have an actual goalie tandem. Our forwards don't buy into the theory that a backcheck can result in offense either. Loose pucks always find the other team because of how they play in their own end.

And we replaced him on the wing with never-playoffs skinner 😞

GM and coach in lockstep though. They moved off the "talent" that they had in watkins, dareus, darby, glenn, etc. But the timeline for rookie contribution is so much faster than in the nhl draft. You'd have to trade them for high level prospects you thought just needed a chance. I'm surprised the team hasn't done more prospect swapping in general. I think having 0 identity and no idea what identity you want to have is what makes it challenging.

If you fire him and promote his assistant its probably the same price. I'd wait til the offseason to hire a fulltime coach. I think you need to go through a full process to try and get this right.

Returns are always pretty bad. Look at Seguin too. And thats one of the best run organizations in hockey.

Boudreau almost always makes the playoffs. Julien has cup winning resume. Gallant did some magic with an expansion team. All 3 have won jack adams trophy once. Honestly - I'm probably partial to Gallant. Julien seems to be a defense first guy, and that's not going to help the team with goal scoring troubles.

Oh, and one has terrible goaltending....

It sucks... but that was 2 GMs ago. I don't think he should be benched when you have cody eakin just dragging an entire line down. No offensive zone ability, and can't pass or skate. I guess he's good defensively, but he's living in the defensive zone anyway. Put a new center out there, give those minutes to casey.

Right but watching the game they generated chances, didn't seem trapped in the defensive zone a ton. Eakin to me is more of a problem than okposo at this point. The line had a goal, but they can't get it out of their zone. And yet they continue to start in the d zone.

I thought the line played well with okposo on it

I'd say the earliest is the 10th due to the road trip.

I would not.

Yeah - the owner has final say so on trading the franchise player. I don't think anyone wants to trade him either.

There are leadership qualities that Allen possesses. When they talk about him its like he's a brother, a guy they want in the foxhole, the guy leading the charge etc. After losses he goes to almost every player on the bench and makes sure they got their head on straight for the next one, same with playoff losses. Hell, he makes sure that the guys don't get too high after a win as much as he makes sure they aren't too low after a loss. It's a sense of, we will be back, and we WILL win. Nobody seems to say that stuff about Jack. He doesn't seem to lead at all at least from any discernable way on the ice.

Hutton starting? barf.

Hockey teams right now are all losing money with no fans. The TV money isn't nearly enough to make profit. Then you have to factor in whether they'd be interested in moving to somewhere else. Some Canadian billionaire could move them to toronto or something.