I still like what we got from Hartley. I think he instilled a harsh work ethic into people like Johnny, Ferland and Monahan early on. And probably helped build Gio's leadership through a good-cop/bad-cop type of relationship.
These coaches can have short term success no doubt. Hartley, Keenan, Tortorella, Crawford. They're not new. Maybe their time has passed a bit, but I think there will always be a use in organizations at a certain point to instill a little of what they do.
Everyone will have people that hate them. Especially coaches. Their human too, make human errors and have biases, etc... For sure some players will walk away from almost any coach thinking they were treated unfairly. I'm close with someone who played for Mike Keenan in his heyday and still hates his guts to this day. He told me he once had a teammate have to stop him from chopping him down with his stick. But they went to the Stanley Cup finals twice under him, and so did others.
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