I think it’s safe to say it’s not just 1 thing that’s wrong with this team.
Huberdeau has underperformed there’s no question, but the guy didn’t forget how to play hockey in Calgary, and no he didn’t “get paid” and stop caring that’s just a witch hunt mentality.
His usage is poor, his line mates have been wrong and that’s on the coach. He needs to be put back with Lindholm and taken off of Kadris line as they play opposite styles of zone entry and line efficiency.
He’s not put in a position to succeed, he’s been fine in Florida for 5+ years and then all of a sudden has to change his style of play and what makes him effective to fit Daryl’s questionable system. It’s okay to have defensive and offensive lines, we don’t need every line to be focused 100% on suppression. Geez I wonder why we can’t score??
Goaltending has been awful, that’s their own fault and one point you can’t argue.
It killed this team this year, but we’ve got nobody that can put the team on their back and pull everyone into the fight anymore. Our goalies costly poor goals has clearly played a role in the mental game of our team.
Daryl is old, stubborn and clearly lost.
He relies on 4 lines far too much and has too much love for old grizzled vets because he places far too much emphasis on “guys who won it before”
He doesn’t play his top guys enough, he doesn’t adapt lines as the game goes on he simply starts playing his 3rd and 4th line more if the top 6 aren’t scoring which isn’t working.
Theres very clearly a rift between the coach and the room or the coach and the top players dating back to the first few months right around the time he felt the need to publicly throw the teams highest paid player under the bus in the media. Wether it was right or wrong it should have been handled differently.
This team is playing uninspiring, low hockey IQ, perimeter offence and it’s the worst product we’ve seen in years. But at no point have we adjusted lines drastically, put our top 6 out enough nor adjusted on the fly.
It’s the coaches responsibility to have his team ready, to adjust the game plan when it’s not working and to roll the lines appropriately. Daryl isn’t doing this and hasn’t almost all season, but he’s sure good at deflecting that in the media.
As a fan it hurts, because once again this team should be better than they’ve been, we botched our rebuild window this summer and now we’re back to mediocrity without any real plan or resolution because we tried to re-tool and extend a window we really didn’t have.
Hurts to pay to watch this.
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