Forgive me for not engaging your strawman argument. There are plenty of things that fans, ownership, coaches, and players might consider unacceptable that happen throughout the year to every contending team. That doesn't in and of itself justify what you think should be done.
But it is not just this current skid it is the alarming trend that no matter how much you try to wish it away isn't going away. The fact that we can't play with top teams in their own barn or even at all this year. That the same mistakes keep happening over and over and over and over and over again. The fact that so many of our star players have regressed this year into shells of what they once use to be.
I see players making fundamental execution mistakes. These aren't even related to scheme execution. Tonight's loss hinged on Jackman falling down untouched. Other guys are routinely getting caught puck-watching. Changing the coach to breathe "new life into the room" isn't going to magically stop those mistakes from happening.
Apparently neither is leaving in Hitch as the coach. When these mistakes happen and start to make a trend whose job is it to make sure they get fixed? If these mistakes were happening for a couple of weeks and then got turned around then fine no problem whatsoever but we are now nearly halfway through the season and still seeing the same problems. To me that says they either haven't been addressed or haven't been addressed correctly. Perhaps I said it the wrong way in the original post but "breathing new life into the room" would be one of the benefits of bringing in a new coach. Get the players attention, get them up and excited to go out and learn something new, a fresh approach.
What I want to see from the coach is big picture adjustments. We've been complaining about the forwards not applying backside pressure. Tonight they did. We've been complaining about the defensemen backing in. The last few games they've generally been stepping up at the line. We've been complaining about soft gaps. Those have been closing. I'm (gradually) seeing the scheme adjustments I've been hoping to see, so I think Hitchcock is doing his job.
Great any estimate as to how long these gradual adjustments are going to take because despite everyone's attitude being that we are a playoff lock I think that is far from true at this point. We are very close to being on the outside looking in. Also, why exactly haven't we seen these "gradual adjustments" since day one because these issues have been there since day one and nobody was complaining because everybody was riding hot goaltending and the STL line, even Hitch. Now that those have cooled and were losing the adjustments come.
I'm not going to go back through every game log to compile a percentage against good teams, but after a pretty brutal start to the season, the PP scheming and personnel usage has improved significantly. I still disagree with some things I see here and there, but they're making in-game adjustments and I generally think they legitimately pose a threat. It's not some mirage built solely upon their play against weak teams.
Oh but I think it is. I did look up the number and against the top teams in the west (NSH, CHI, LA, ANA, SJ) we are 6/39 on the PP or just above 15%. More than 8% points lower than our league wide PP%. That 15% is from total of 12 games, 8 of which we scored the great big zero on the PP. In fact four of those six came off the back to back against the LA Kings in mid December when they were struggling badly.
The PK has been disappointing pretty much all year. There's a lot of things that I think factor into that, but you don't fire a head coach over that either.
Just another ugly piece to a very ugly puzzle.
I'm not using injury and illness as a blanket excuse to absolve anyone (or everyone) from all blame, but I think it's pretty short-sighted to believe that doesn't affect how teams/players are playing. By far our best goalie has played all of 15 games this year. Things like that matter.
I just don't even understand what you are trying to say here. Yes of course they matter but I would be hard pressed to find a game this year in which we played where the other team had all their players 100%. One of our big strengths going into this year was depth so that an injury bug wouldn't cripple us. You say your not using it as an excuse and then you use it as an excuse.
I can go back through almost any year and find a contender that has suffered through an extended slump due to those reasons. It would be hard to find a year when one or more teams didn't.
Again it is not just this slump, it's the trend. This alarming trend that has been going on for more than just this year. Hitch did a great job he came in to a team that was struggling to make the playoffs and got us over that hump but I just don't think he is the guy to get us over that next hump and on our way to the cup.