I don't think OP mean literally comparing the current team to the '94 team, but rather that it was Messier that "got rid" of Ron Smith (i think) a year before winning the Cup, and Lundqvist "got rid" of Torts.
Ron Smith was the interim coach after Roger Nielsen.. He was never expected to stay long... Messier's beef was with Roger Nielsen.
Nielsen was a pioneer in using video to analyze the game, and despite coaching a very good team in 1992 (Some say it was even better than '94), Messier hated him. That '92 team also had goal scoring machine Mike Gartner, emerging rookies Tony Amonte and Doug Weight, and James Patrick, a very capable #2 PP QB. It also had easily the best 1-2 goalie combo in the league in Richter and Vanbiesbrouck. The following year they added Kovalev... That '93 season was a huuuuuuuuge disappointment based on how good they were the year before. Leetch having 2 major injuries probably didn't help... The thought process then was that the team underachieved greatly, and Mike Keenan was hired before the '93 playoffs even ended.
Keenan helped make the team tougher, and that '94 team literally beat the snot out of everyone. (Of course, he benched Leetch a few times, messed with Healy/Richter a few times, and was begged by Messier to stop being such a d-bag)
All that being said, it seems that while Torts was the perfect coach for the 2012 team, he couldn't manage the new talent, nor could he manage his ego in thinking that "just because I had success last year means I don't have to change this year, despite the glaring fact that the roster is completely different"
Calling out players didn't help either. I think Lundqvist is too nice to ever have said "He needs to go". I believe like most of the players (that matter anyway), Lundqvist suggested the team might be better off without him...
Let's just hope Lundqvist and his possible co-conspirators can do what Messier did in '94, which is to say, talk the talk then walk the ******* walk.