Great QOTD!
Answer: lot's of things (obviously)
#1) is Ortio without a doubt - they wentfrom having Grade A goaltending to having ECHL tending. They were done the moment that happened.
2) Centre depth. When they had Granlund, Arnold and Knight, they were deep. Granlund getting called up, on its own, was probably withstandable. But then the Arnold injury really hurt them at a bad time. Then the Knight trade, which resulted in Shore, who got called up. Suddenly, not a single NHL-prospect up the middle.
3) scoring depth - primarily due to call-ups. Baertschi was back and forth and never really contributed much in Adi. Poirier was their points leader until he got called up, but after that he cooled off. Ferland was among the team leaders until he got called up, then the concussion derailed him. Wolf was on fire and so he got called up, and subsequently cooled off.
4) lack of experience on D - early, with a boatload of talented forwards and good goaltending, they got away with it. But as the roster was depleted, and then Ortio went down, the lack of depth on D became glaringly evident.
Those would be the biggest reasons IMO.
|