When Hiller went down with injury it would've been the wrong time to throw Ortio in net. He hadn't had much game time up to that point, and the team in front of him were playing horrid hockey.
It became apparent though that Ortio was never going to be given the opportunity to steal the job.
Maybe there's something to what Jiri was saying about starts getting earned in practice and Ortio not showing much, but I find it hard to believe that on a near basement hockey club with a starting goalie with a sv% below 900, that Ortio couldn't get a sniff.
People will post the Jack Adams trophy but it doesn't give a coach ultimate deferral.
As little as two weeks ago the direction of this season was largely set, this isn't the case of being in the stretch drive and needing the wins, or having to keep a goalie hot etc.
The team was awful and realistically is on the outside looking in regarding playing meaningful games for the remainder of the season. When you're on that trajectory the priority towards winning games doesn't decrease, but the priority towards developing players at the expense of winning does.
In Monahan's first season, when it was clear the team didn't really have much to play for, it was important he got put into important situations playing important minutes for the team. The team may not have gotten as many wins if they had played say Stajan or Backlund in those minutes, but the franchise benefited hugely from Monahan getting that experience in a situation where the pressure was off to a large degree.
I don't have any issue with him declining the conditioning stint and I think if people in the organization hold it against him they are out of line.
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