Not sure it's his job to 'produce' players...
Of course it is. His job is to prepare the prospects in order for them to make the jump. If pretty much none are able to make the jump, then sure, blame drafting. But if that still applies 5 years into it, sorry, development takes a big chunk of the blame too.
again, I don't agree with the notion that players go to the AHL, a coach grabs a hold of them and turns them into an NHL player or even an NHL star.
That's not quite how it works.
That coach doesn't take Mr. Joe Schmo from the street and turns him into a NHLer.
He takes talented young players that need to grow their game to make it in the pros. They're coming out of juniors and are now facing full grown man that are bigger, better, more difficult to play against. They need all the help they can get from their coaches to learn how to play at that level.
For some (like say Kristo or Fisher), they have no chance. They'll amount to a regular AHLer at best. Others, they're just so talented (like Subban or Gallagher), you know they'll make it. But there's a grey area between those two categories of some that can make it with hard work and guidance from development team. This idea that we only have had either too crappy or too good players and none that are in that grey area is simply unrealistic.
Can a coach help a player become better? Sure...but guys like Leblanc & Tinordi moved on to other organizations and have never established themselves as NHL players, even if they got coached by other AHL coaches.
Tinordi was a lost case when we moved him. It was too late for him.
Leblanc, I cannot speak as to what happened once he left here. When he was here though, there were obvious issues with Sly, and he clearly had a weak psyche. It doesn't mean he would have failed just as much had Sly taken a different approach.
Curious what makes you think Leblanc could of become a decent bottom 6 guy? If that was the case, why didn't he become one in Anaheim? They've graduated a ton a of players to the NHL from their American league affiliate.
Beaulieu was drafted as a top 4...he's never been able to establish himself as one, but he's at least a regular (somewhat) NHL dman. That's a win if you ask me.
As I said, I cannot speak as to what happened with Leblanc in Anaheim, I have no idea how he was handled there or how his mindset was after leaving.
We failed with Beaulieu. His offensive game improved from just settling down at the NHL level, and getting more opportunities, but his defensive game did very little improvement. When I look at some of our defensive woes over the years, I'm sorry, but man these guys were taught jack ****. You had even guys like Markov looking very sloppy defensively. Everyone out of place, poor positioning in the zone, just a complete mess in our zone.
When I look at how our entire team played defensively, there is nothing surprising as to why the kids coming up don't look like they improve much. We had terrible coaching.
Now, I have more faith in Julien, he has a cerebral approach to the game, which I favor. He just needs to get rid of JJD asap, and we need to get rid of Sly because he's done nothing.