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Jim Montgomery didn’t have to wait long for a new opportunity. St. Louis ousted Bannister and brought in Montgomery. Teams are around the 20 game mark and 4 days out from Thanksgiving. There are clearly teams that have seen enough to move on from their bench boss, but has Detroit?
Mlive’s Ansar Khan did a write up on what was considered “a winnable game at home”. The irony, of course, is that the Bruins who have the worst PK in the league shut down all of Detroit’s 5th ranked power play attempts, and had a similar outing. These changes are often criticized but they can shake up the room enough to get their stuff together.
Don Cherry talked about the conversation with Phil Esposito when he was traded. Bobby Orr was in Phil’s hotel room when the former Hockey Night in Canada host walked in. The legend of it is that Cherry told Espo he’d been traded. Phil responded with, “if you say New York I’m jumping out of that window”. The coach replied, “Bobby, you better get away from that window”. Apparently Orr ripped into the locker room where grown men were in tears over the trade and said, “if Phil can be traded, anyone can be traded.”
We’re in a different era. Player protections built into some of the contracts make it difficult and 3rd teams get involved more and more in a retention portion often getting draft picks in return. It’s a much more simple fix to dismiss the coach at this point.
Returning to the organization’s focus at the end of last year, the goal was to upgrade defensively and shut down goals against. Thus far it has not been a great execution of that directive. The summer before was about adding goals. That worked out well.
The number of times the team fails to get the puck out of the zone on a PK is near maddening. The number of broken plays in front of their own net is the same. Players just seem disconnected. Tarasenko needs to be off of the top line. Not sure who you replace him with, but it’s just not working (yes he had a really nice assist last night as well as an icing that led to a failed clear and the GWG by Marchand).
Being critical of the team does not make someone “not supportive”. If something is going poorly and can be improved, start with a tweak. LaLonde is calling out players, but apart from the power play how many plays are there that make for an obvious strategy? That lays at the feet of the coach.
Let me know your thoughts. Some of you like Q, I personally don’t want to see a dismissal with one of the current assistants taking over. Someone needs to come in and light a fire (opinion). As always, thanks to all who stop by. Always feel free to shoot me an inbox message if you want to have a side conversation. Always grateful to hear from you.
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