[MisterJoji]

Man, this is Brent era painful. What the hell happened to our best players? Part of it has to be the system, if you can call it that, but I don't think even Babcock could help right now. Gaudreau has > 4 giveaways/game, Monahan looks like a corpse, Gio making terrible decisions (both puck management and penalties), Elliott can't make a key save, Dougie just floating along, Bennett trying to deke 4 guys and the list goes on and on. At least 50% of the passes are either in skates or intercepted, I have yet to see 3 accurate consecutive passes. All the shots are weak or from the perimeter and are routine saves for the opposing goalie, no one has any sense of urgency or passion. Johnny's getting slashed to death? Cool, not my problem. PP is mind-numbingly easy to predict and therefore counter, PK looks terrible, just chasing pucks around.

Frolik, Backlund, Brouwer, Johnson, Jokipakka, and Kulak are the only bright spots. Brodie appeared a lot better this game but still not vintage Brodie. So essentially our best players are the middle six forwards, our bottom 3 defenseman, and the backup goalie. You know what a legit playoff team looks like? You have your star players acting like star players PLUS the role players playing well. When your role players are your best players, you're going to look like hot garbage.

I don't know how much of this you can blame on the coaches and systems, but there is almost a zero percent chance Gulutzan is getting canned. How terrible are the optics when, as a GM, you fired a coach one year removed from the Jack Adams, replaced him with your handpicked choice, and now you have to admit you made a grave mistake? It's going to take balls of steal for Treliving to fire him, the first year he hired him, and pray he doesn't get fired right along with him. But maybe that's what needs to happen. He's made some good moves. His FA signings have been good, trades have been great, and drafting adequate. But last years 3 headed goalie monster is all on him, and now this coaching disaster. If the plan is to try and salvage the season, I'm afraid BB may have to can BT, maybe take over GMing himself for a bit, and find a coach where maybe you interview more than one guy.

Now I fully realize we are 6 games into an 82 game season and I'm posting very emotionally, but my god, this team stinks. You might be wondering how I posted such a long winded post so early in the PGT? Because I started writing in the 2nd intermission because I knew I wouldn't be watching the 3rd period. I'd love for this team to have an epic turnaround and I'll stuff my face full of crow if that happens, but this is a team on paper that should easily be a playoff team and not a team that looks like they're a favorite to win the lottery. Something's got to change, and fast.