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Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
Personally I feel both Ramo and MacDonald have been average/mediocre in the games they have played so I don't really care that Hartley is going with MacDonald although there doesn't seem to be a clear reason or pattern to support MacDonald getting three straight starts despite losing his last game.
I will say though that Hartley seems to be one of those coaches that always likes to have a player or two in his doghouse. From his comments about Ramo after the first start it was pretty evident he wasn't happy despite the fact that MacDonald hasn't been much better but it's pretty clear we won't see Ramo again until MacDonald really stinks things up. We saw Blair Jones get banished last season for still unknown reasons. He didn't seem keen to play Sven at all until after the trade deadline. It's pretty obvious he's not a Horak fan as he went from being a regular under Brent to permanent AHL under Hartley. I just want to see players get a fair chance and Hartley seems to me like one of those guys that gets overly personal in some of his decisions.
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Ramo has not inspired confidence going side to side. Perhaps the way he was owned in the shootout hurt his perception. We agree in that we don't care who starts either way.
Jones earned his demotion. The only thing he did well for Hartley was have a 53% faceoff win %. Despite that slight advantage starting out, and in quite sheltered minutes, he had a pretty significantly negative corsi.
Being a regular under Brent's underperforming regime means little. Horak has shown to be serviceable but not spectacular.
It does not seem to me like Hartley made decisions that were overly personal though it does seem like some people take them that way themselves.