I don't think it was as simple as he was too passive. To me it feels like an internal struggle between Shero's "old school" approach and the "new school" approach ownership wants that finally came to a head when the season went to shit. Holding on to Hynes so long certainly didn't help, but I don't think firing him 6 games into the season instead of 26 games would have saved his job. I'd also like to know which goalie we were supposed to trade for that would have saved the season when the entire team was playing like shit. I think Hynes + goaltending is more of a convenient excuse for the owners to get rid of Shero so they can have a "new school" guy that will do things the way they want to. And as owners, that's well within their rights. Hopefully it actually works and we don't hear 5 years of "trust the process" with another GM only to have them pull the plug on him when it fails.