Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
That's my position.
Now maybe Darryl can work wonders with Bennett but it doesn't mean 'Bennett is made for Darryl's style'. You have 27 point Dustin Brown on the Darryl end of the spectrum (2014) and 61 point Dustin Brown the first yeazr away from Darrytl. What if that's Bennett right now - a 60 point player playing 26 point hockey under Gulutzan (and maybe it isn't, but my eyes tell me it's a possibility). We need to find a solution to his woes and I am of the opinion that needs to be priority number one in the coaching search. That doesn't mean I'm not a huge fan of Darryl Sutter. In fact Darryl pretty much wrote the book on awesome coaching and he's far more adaptive than people give him credit for - but to me this team was lacking a coach that would push the individuals to flourish for the good of the team.
An individual breakout for Bennett, especially as a center, would go a long way for this team. Even if Bennett was only average as a two-way player, his ability to impact the game down the middle when on his game is unparalleled even by Monahan, Backlund, or Jankowski. There's some things - reads, dynamism, etc that only Bennett possesses in our center group and the coach who can successfully harness will mean a lot for the long term future of the team - even if said coach can't immediately take the team to the next level the way Darryl could. I don't think you can always have your cake and eat it too - some players' development paths need to have years of learning offense from some coaches (as Monahan and Gaudreau did for two years under Hartley) and learning the full game under jothers. I've seen it elsewhere too - Kadri in Toronto, Seguin under his three coaches. I felt Backlund needed the switch to Hartley even if Hartley had toxic qualities.
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So I read this as saying Darryl could still be the guy it is just not slam dunk that he would be the guy that turns Bennett's game around. I agree!! I guess every team has a coach that doesn't mesh with a certain player/s, however Darryl has proven he can take a team all the way and that's a good place to start. AV would be a good choice too, hopefully we can land the best proven coach available and let the chips fall.