No I am not actually, I am looking at the objective evidence that this team has to play a conservative defensive team game to stay in games and when that stops this team has been shown to be swiss cheese. This team doesn't have the talent to play a wide open game and keep it close. Right now they are barely able to play a tight game and keep it close. What evidence do you have that if they play a more open game that all of the sudden Detroit will play a more entertaining game, and not just look more pathetic? Because you're the one who is making it seem like light switch, they change their game plan and all of the sudden they will be more entertaining instead of they change their game plan and the bottom really falls out.
What evidence do you have that they will NOT look more entertaining? What is this - LOL - "objective evidence?" They've played Blashill's game - where have they gotten? Their worst loss in decades? A losing record? A bottom 5 team? What exactly do you point to when they lose? Because all I see is a team who is not capable of executing a "conservative game." After all, what is a conservative game? Is it a game that promotes moving the puck forward with speed or is it a game that promotes careful-at-all-costs decision-making that does nothing more than slow down the game in your own zone and the neutral zone? And isn't that precisely where our team is weakest?
In the end, all a conservative game does is slow down the game in the hands of our weakest players. Advocating that is counter-intuitive. All you're attempting to do there is inflate the abilities of your pitiful defense to average (i.e. competent) but in the process you're diminishing the best attributes of your best players - your forwards!
I mean...what functions in this league now? Is it puck-possession or dump-and-chase? Who prevails in the league today: Dylan McIlrath, Erik Gudbranson, Luke Schenn, and Griffin Reinhart or John Klingberg, Tyson Barrie, Shayne Gostisbehere and Zach Werenski? Who has more trade value? Lucic or Gaudreau? Toews or Kane? Givani Smith or Alex Debrincat? Do you need a Bergeron more or a Crosby more? Do you need Letang and Schultz or Orpik and Alzner? Can you make do with a Trevor Daley and a Ron Hainsey or do you make do with a Jonathan Ericsson and a Brian Lashoff?
The league today is fast. Speed-wise and transition-wise. There is no escaping that. You can't cover that up with interference or open-ice physicality or hooking or slashing. You can't back down from it in your own zone either - being flat-footed is death and being a moron positionally only makes that worse. The best you can do is work with what you have on the fly - which should be your last D back and your two-way forward with the speed you employ up front making the break-neck back-check. That is nothing Detroit can't handle at the end of the day and even if they can't, its nothing they can't give a whirl in a season where they're dead in the water as it is. Puck-possession-to-transition hockey is the now and the future so they might as well become accustomed to it while their young guys can learn on the fly and not hurt the team record as it stands.