It is impossible to separate a coach from the talent he has. I remember the late Pat Burns and his "you don't suddenly become an idiot". Coaches are at the mercy of talent. Good players, can make a coach look good. Low talent cannot be overcome.
It is why Scotty Bowman cherry picked. He understood. It is why, coach Q is being careful.
In a crazy way, Melnyk was right..he did not explain the "without talent". If you are not a well built, talented team..who cares, who coaches. All you will do is pay top dollar for loosing.
At the time, we had talented players in Karlsson, Stone, Hoffman, ect. We were specifically looking to contend; Dorion said why not us, why not now referring to going after the big prize.
One thing that has plagued us in the past is paying more than one coach at a time; how much did we save firing Clouston and MacLean before their contracts expired rather than get a coach that would being good enough stick around? How much did Boucher's dull system cost us in gates? Would we have won more, and in turn had better attendance with a better coach?
Coaches that get more than the sum of their parts aren't a myth, for a budget team that might be the way to go, who knows.