Unfortunately, I believe you are correct. Unlike many who call for a coaching change, I simply don't the the AVs in general are a very good team. They've got a few good players and even fewer great ones. They've got some sort of stew cooking in the AHL which is interesting but it's not helping (yet) at the NHL level. Should the AVs be a better team? Yes...there is a lot of bad puck luck going on. Duchene's first month was truly a horror movie. He appears to be on track now but it's at the sacrifice of having a better second line. Varly, has been pretty terrible this season but seems to be on the verge of getting back on track. The AVs still have a very weak second and third line which should be producing more and a pretty spotty defensive core.
I don't believe the best coach in the world could really help this team. It's going to take better players and that involves winning a lot of trades in quick succession or just time to allow younger players to develop. Biggest reason I semi-quit posting and reading here is that sometimes it feels like many believe we are a coach-flip away from a good team. We're really not. This team does under-perform but it's not the coaches fault only or even mostly....and a change of coach is not suddenly going to make the team better in the long run. Honestly, I love that Roy has a say in personnel moves, it provides more congruity between what the team is trying to do and the type of player the scouts are looking at and researching. The downfall is when folks see a scrub consistently getting ice time they don't understand that some sacrifices need to be made in the short term to allow full player development (talking specifically about why folks like Guenin, Redmond and Holden <who has been good this year> continues to see ice time over some of the prospects in the AHL here.) The same could be said of keeping Tanguay and Iginla around. Yes, they are shadows of the players they used to be but by being in the lineup they allow other players to develop and also provide a positive, professional influence in the locker-room of a pretty young core of players.
I personally disagree. When you look at good coaches and see what McLellan is doing in Edmonton and Babcock is doing in Toronto, it's pretty obvious coaching does make a big difference. The Avs aren't a great team and I don't believe a coaching change will make us contenders, but if we had an actual structure and system in place, we'd be a bubble playoff team.
I've lost faith in Roy because he simply can't adapt. Maybe he'll be a great coach once he has the right players for his system. However, with the league being the way it is, you need to be able to adapt. You can't keep a team together for a long period of time. Good coaches can make a system for the players they have to work with. He still has his positives, but they aren't enough IMO.
Also, I would question the positive influence Iggy and Tanguay bring to the locker room. Imagine them saying something along the lines of 'We're still in this, we can bounce back the next period, just need to give it our all' and than you see them floating around the ice doing next to nothing. Our best season is when we had a young group of core leaders with Stastny being the 'vet presence'.
I don't believe you can just throw a group of young guys onto a team and believe they don't need guidance, but you also can't have a bunch of washed up vets being the focal point either.
