Here's a few problems with this,
1. You, 101 and I have discussed this ad nauseam about the goalies letting in softies, the team defense or lack thereof and when one is good the other isn't or vice versa or we have a game like we did against Vancouver and it all clicks or we have a game like last night where Dubnyk couldn't stop a beach ball if his life depended upon it. Dubnyk is a huge guy that plays small with a slider speed glove. If you know baseball terms you know what I'm referencing. He is not the athlete that Rinne or Lindback are and if you're going to be a little slower, you need to stay big. He doesn't. The one thing the trade did was made Hutton realize his job was on the line and in the two games he's played since we've acquired Dubnyk, he's looked like an NHL goalie. Hopefully that stays the case. Until the team learns to play together night in and night out, that means all 19 players, this team will remain inconsistent.
2. If you're basing your entire season on one player, like a Rinne, you have not constructed your team properly. No team can lose a superstar, I get that but other teams have and yet they keep rolling along. The Kings lost Quick for over a month and their backups came in and kicked butt. Other players have gone down over the years and other players have stepped up. We don't a roster where anyone can step up if someone goes down. This is a huge problem that hasn't been addressed. While I love having an all-world goalie, if he goes down, the entire ship seems to sink with him gone and that to me is poor roster development.
3. As far as the excuses go, last year it was injuries, this year it's Rinne, years ago in the playoffs it's because we were the lower seed then it was we were matched up against a San Jose team that we didn't match up well against. I remember making it to the second round and crying, like many of us did. We got over the hump, finally. Then we did it again the next year. Poile made a bunch of moves to make us a serious contender yet Trotz and the new mix of players didn't work out for whatever reason. Since then, this team has been a disaster and heading in the wrong direction. The owners gave Poile a budget to work with and he signed a bunch of grinders and guys that Trotz has no idea how to use. For all the complaints about Cullen, he's a solid playmaker playing with guys with stone hands on most nights yet we complain about his production when he's teamed with non-skilled guys. That's a coaching decision. Yet, he gets PP time with Smith and Spaling as the forwards and it works. So why is he not getting more time with skilled players?
4. At a certain point, people will stop going to games. I know I have. I ran in to a guy at work the other day who loves this team as much as I do and he's in the same boat, he has to be dragged to games at this point. When your loyal fan base is not interested in the team, what's going to happen to the casual fan? We are frustrated beyond belief and the email I got back from Sean Henry was less than inspiring about the direction of the team.
5. It's great having an NHL team in our city. The expectations of any franchise is to win a title. Cigarran and his fellow owners have pledged this to the fan base yet the moves that his hockey people have been making don't add up to building a contender. If any one of us can sit here and see the architecture of this team and us becoming a contender any time soon, I'm all ears but at some point, you have to get offensive players in the system via trades, the draft or free agency. It's been 15 years. Wychek the other day lambasted the GM for not going out and getting scorers. He was frustrated that for the last 10 years we haven't been able to do this. He tried to get Howard to agree with him but all the butt kisser would say was I don't disagree with you Frank. When the media who cover the team won't call the team out on occasion, what's the point. It's like we're all good old southern boys and we don't want to rock the boat. With anything in life you have to take chances to succeed and achieve greatness. Poile is good at playing it safe as is Trotz. If people want to continue to pay money and watch the product on the ice, that's their business but all I see and hear is excuses about why this isn't going well or something else isn't going well. A change could fail or it could work or we may stay stagnant. At this point, I see the same mistakes over and over on the ice and while I see the effort out there, the mental aspect is missing from a lot of these guys. I want more from the team and with the amount of money we're able to spend now, why are spending it on guys that are a dime a dozen as opposed to guys with actual hockey talent?
All that said, NO MORE EXCUSES.
