Quote:
Originally Posted by dissentowner
No, it's partly his confidence and partly a bargain bin coach who doesn't put him in the right position to succeed.
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It’s not on the coach, it never was. Regardless of who coaches Huberdeau, an elite one, a newbie, it never would have mattered. He was always going to struggle because he cannot play at the current NHL pace. In today’s game, you need quick reads, quick hands, quick acceleration to make quick plays and Huberdeau just doesn’t have these tools right now to execute at a high enough level.
It’s really just bad circumstances coupled with bad scouting/bad decision making and sadly, our team just happens to be the team that ended up being saddled with it. You have a unique player whose game was tailor made for an archaic system that he found success with.
Then you have a GM who built an entire roster for the modern game, but couldn’t recognize what kind of player he was bringing into the fold; a guy who would struggle to find chemistry up and down the lineup because his game clashed with basically everyone else on the roster. Then said GM makes arguably the worst decision of his career by rushing to sign up guy for 8 years, $84 million without ever seeing him play a game with his team.
EDIT:
It’s also a major indictment on him and his staff for not raising any alarm bells from the time the trade occurred and the time of his re-signing. Your blame should be directed at management who chooses the roster, chooses the coaches, chooses the vision and direction the team goes.