Tough crowd. He was handed a team that had Johansson, Rask, Bjugstad, and Hartman as C candidates and told to make a team. Oh and Sturm had what....maybe 5-10 points in his career coming into this season?
I thought he did really well. The team never gave up, and made numerous comebacks when I thought it was over. They took a Cup contender to 7 games despite some pretty questionable reffing and losing two starting Dmen. We were all pretty disappointed at the time, but seeing what VGK did to CO, maybe we should feel better about ourselves, and Dean. I would've liked to see Boldy in the playoffs over Bjugstad and Parise, but let's face it, LW is not where the real problem was, and Parise delivered when he was played.
Thought he could've done a bit better managing the goalies, but that's minor quibbling/ second guessing. We had much better goaltending this year than in the past, and he deserves some credit for that, IMO, as well as Guerin for signing Talbot.
The team seems to play for Dean. I think they appreciate that it is a meritocracy now, as Parise is no longer gifted top minutes, and Suter is just one of the top 4 guys rather than a guy who won't get off the ice, and Lords it over everyone.He tried all sorts of combinations of lines early in the year, and did, IMO, the best he could with a near impossible situation. He somehow conjured up the idea of playing Hartman as a top 6 C, and he didn't do half bad, compared to the other options.
I really don't get a lot of the criticism he gets on here. I think a lot of the things that he did are taken for granted, like putting together and sticking with the GREEF's after Kunin was traded, being smart enough to get out of Kaprizov's way as soon as he saw what he was, using tough love in the best sense of the word with Fiala, and figuring out that Cole could actually play, and Hunt couldn't. The PP was historically bad, but he then fixed it so it actually became quite good. All these things could have gone the wrong way, but didn't. That's not by accident. Evidently the NHL agrees.