Brett Howden
Colin Blackwell
The Carolina playoff games
This year's critical Iselander games
Quinn does 80% of the job fine, but then there are the things that separate the ok/mediocre coaches from the good/great coaches, and that's where Quinn goes astray. Bad, blinders-on personnel decisions; failures to prepare/motivate the team for the bigger games on the schedule -- that's his Achilles heel. You can add to that the slight (or even more than slight) disconnect between him and the team's elite players that Uncle Larry rightly wrote about a couple weeks ago -- the whole "North-South" obsession he has, even after wins. We've seen enough of it not to write it off as just a small sample or a coincidence. Just not good enough.
Still can't begin to see what he brings to the table that would have made him a shoo-in in JD/JG's eyes to return next year. How did that even begin to become a thing in their viewings? Just inexplicable, IMHO. I can see publicly saying, "David is doing a fine job" during the s
I understand that a lot of fans don't like to hear it, but the players weren't experienced enough and therefore not good enough to do much better.
Their defense was far below the NHL average. The 3rd pair was an utter disaster, and Miller, after a decent start, was an absolute horror show, making the second pair a big liability.
Fox was awesome. Lindgren was very good. Trouba was okay, but filled a physical void that is badly lacking on the team.
Carolina is as good as any team in the NHL.
The Islanders are a much better team than the Rangers.
I'm no Howden fan, but I'm not sure who you would rather have had as a 4th-line center from the roster. It's not like he was blocking Czikas.
The Blackwell usage, in the beginning, worked out perfectly, despite a lot of fans screaming about it, although I agree Quinn should have demoted him sooner.
This is not an argument to keep Quinn. Coaches don't matter much to me. If they were so valuable they would win with less than stellar personnel and they never do.