Quote:
Originally Posted by GioforPM
True. But i still think it’s farfetched to have expected any coach to do it, based on what had been shown. And before it’s said, the Florida thing is different - more like when the Flames tried various new guys on the top line to take advantage of adrenaline.
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After his rookie season, they transition him to 3rd line centre and played him with Brouwer and various other anchors. So they really never ever gave him a chance - and that's not just on the coaches (although I still argue 13/23, 19/93, 11/67 should have been the tandems), that falls back to Treliving cycling in Brouwer and Neal over the years. It's a really rotten place to put your already deficient head coaches in. Just goes to show you can't spend that type of money on players that are below-NHL caliber. Whether it's coaching hires, horrendous free agent signings - the impact cascades through the entire team.
The most baffling thing to me was the treatment of Bennett this season though. After the playoffs he had, he comes into this season just gets tossed aside. Ridiculous. That comes back to the hiring of Geoff Ward though...just heinous work on that hire. I also don't understand it from Ward's perspective, because in my eyes part of the reason why Ward even got hired was because of his play-in round success which came because of the Lucic-Bennett-Dube line. I just don't understand how Ward wasn't coming into this season thinking that Bennett was one of "his guys".