No, actually I'm not spinning. Buff was the #3RW for exactly one consecutive game when Maurice got here in the 2013-14 and had been voted into the all-star game as a defenseman all the years prior.
One game. That is not the entrenched/inherited and rigid line structure and team chemistry that a new coach might concern himself with maintaining. If anyone is spinning, it is you now, when you speculate that changing Buff back to defense "probably would have come soon anyway". Buff was the #3RW for the end of 2013-14 and the start of 2015-16. He did not get to practise or take shifts at training camp as a defenseman. When asked by the media if Byfuglien was "starting the year" at forward, Maurice said very firmly that he would "start and end the year as a forward". Presumably, if he didn't trust Buff, he'd have tried to correct those mistakes at practise or at camp, no? Could you imagine someone sticking Zdeno Chara on the wing after a few bad games then leaving him there until 4 or 5 defensemen got injured? No. They would get fired if they did that.
Wrong again. He didn't get to put his experiment into operation because both Little and Ladd were injured at training camp and so he begrudgingly went with the same lines as the year before. How anyone could assess Adam Lowry as being even remotely close to #1C is beyond belief. That is the point and it is not exaggerated.
Don't take issue with most of the rest except that I have no idea why you would not favour hiring Boudreau. What specifically do you know about him or his systems that we don't? Winning percentage too high?