McLellan answer for almost any other player; You have to work for your minutes, prove you deserve them and make the team give you minutes and assignments through your efforts.
McLellan answer on Lucic; "We have to get him back where he needs to be"
Double standard. My hypothesis is its Chia directing the play Lucic with McD mandate. Even though Lucic does nothing to help our topline.
You could be right. Chia did sound like he had a mancrush on Lucic when he signed him. He acted like he was Lucic's dad or something. But we will likely never know if hes telling TM to play Lucic more.
But for me personally I dont really see Chiarelli's influence on the coaching staff on how he thinks they should coach and what personnel they should be using. Quite a few times in Chiarelli interviews , I get the impression that he thinks that young players need to get incorporated into the line up better. TM has been so stubborn to make some changes to the team, especially special teams and younger players. You would think if Chiarelli wanted TM to play Camalleri more to maybe get some trade value out of him, that he would of got less playtime after the trade deadline but he really hasnt. You would of thought that Maroon would of got more time with McDavid prior to the trade deadline to boost his trade value, but he didnt. I dont really get the impression that TM has used Strome the way Chiarelli intended to use him when he traded for him. I got more of an impression that Chiarelli wanted to use Draisaitl as a center coming into the year and TM didnt really put him on his own line for like 25 games into the season. I personally dont think Chiarelli is really telling TM to do anything or if he is, TM isnt really listening to him.
Theres a lot of people who believe that the GM should be the GM and he should let the coach, coach. I see more of that with the Oilers.
I would argue really that someone should be telling TM what to do because for the most part, everything he has done this year, has been a failure. It hasnt seemed like Chiarelli and TM have been on the same page all year and theres a communication rift between the two.
