It is kind of weird when you think about it.
Playfair was an assistant that got promoted to head coach after Sutter started focusing exclusively on his GM duties. The players didn't really accept him as a coach and certainly didn't respect him.
Huska was an assistant that got promoted to head coach after Sutter was fired, but the players seem to respect him.
It makes me wonder if it was the team or if it was the coach that was the issue in 2006-07. With Playfair having that 'super tantrum' in the AHL after a bad call, and with him never again getting a head coaching gig, I am going to go with Playfair not having what it takes to be a head coach, but I also do remember Sutter stating that: "This team is hard to coach", which people interpreted back then as "coach killers". I just thought that they didn't have good coaches other than Darryl Sutter. Playfair (undetermined), Keenan (semi-retired on the job) and Brent Sutter (wrong system and unwilling to adapt it) were all poor fits IMO.
|