There are two things I think must be taken into account here.
1. I think of Jones a lot in this perspective. I am a big Jones fan, I think we underrate his ability to get things done and I think we overrated the competitors especially last season and especially Nemeth, who I thought was a horrible signing.
BUT, with that said, if Gallant looks at Jones and comes to the conclusion -- against the back ground of his vast experience of what it takes to go deep during a NHL season -- and comes to the conclusion 'I think we can rule out the possibility that he can reach the level of durability and consistency to be a defender that can survive a long NHL season and then a long grueling POs' -- can I say that he is wrong? Nah, its hard to argue that such opinion is 100% wrong. We all saw how fast Schenider tackled of in the POs.
I bring him up as an example because from our POV -- we look at positives and succesful plays and rate them. But you don't survive 82 regular season games and a long PO run by chance. You do it by being extremly diligent, developing the right habits on and off the ice in all imaginable ways. Right? If a kid isn't there yet, you 100% just set him up to fail if you play him.
2. One thing that Gallant de facto has had pay off a lot for this franchise is to manage games by using pure role players. We didn't just win a lot of games by chance or through Shesty standing on his head -- we all know that great goaltending never is enough alone. There is no way Shesty could have carried us to the pretty stellar record we had -- if we didn't play a fairly composed and consistent game. Some will say consistently bad, which is true to some extent, but ultimately what you must avoid more than anything in the NHL is the worst breakdowns. You can survive playing "5 man PK" fairly well, but its when you lose the battle infront of your own net that you lose games, its when 4 players think you are doing one thing on the ice and the 5th wtih the puck does something else that you really become vunerable and so forth.
I am also a big Kravy fan. But honestly -- we are not the same team if we take out Hunt and insert Kravy and take out Reaves and insert someone like Spooner or Etem or Namestnikov on the 4th line like we always did under Gorton, to last season's team.
Gallant is certainly not perfect, but he isn't completely lost either. There is a reason he formates the team the way he does, and its not because the depth role players are his "favorites". It is because he basically sees a value in being consistently bad vs. other alternatives.
Ultimately, I am definitely not saying that certain opinions aren't viable or that someone can't think that "X" should play over "Y". I am just saying that I we are making it a little bit too easy for ourselves if we reach the point where we think that the coach just plays certain guys because they are his "favorites".
