It’s hard for me to not feel like the sky is falling. Our teams advanced stats game after game are absolutely horrible, the only teams we’ve beat are dumpster fires, and the first NJ game they heavily outplayed us but had goalie play. Seider is playing the stay at home role instead of chiarot, he’s off PP1 and is getting less minutes than Hronek. Raymond looks like a shell of himself, Zadina sucks and all our players are injured. We have given up 5 goals in almost half our games, and gave up 4 to horrendous chicago when we choked. These things don’t look like they’re going to change soon, and it will be a process but still something about this team looks dead, things feel different to me and I’m finding myself less invested. Oh and we are paying Copp 5 and a half million to block shots. One thing I know about the NHL is mid season turnarounds are not likely, by thanksgiving majority of teams are what they will be. We have 3 weeks or I think we are already dead in the water again for the 7th straight season.
I disagree with your conclusion. We have essentially a new team and new coaches. Even without the high-level injuries in play (every team has injuries), doesn't it make sense for the new coach and GM to say "the rebuild is done, and we'll be as good as we can be, but we still have lots of things to learn and teach, and that's more important than winning every game."?
Early in the season is a good time to try and see what players and the team overall can handle. What it can do, and how best to make it all happen. Maybe coach told Seider and Raymond "look, statistics say you're not going to be as stellar this year as last, and you know what? That's OK, because we brought in a bunch of veterans to back you up and learn from. I want you, Mo, to be a little more stay-at-home and watch this Chiarot guy for a bit, see what he does. Lucas, I want you to try more setups and wall play." Etc.
I don't know that that happened and I doubt that it did, exactly, but if you're not
expecting to charge into the playoffs, and management
and the whole team knows what the plan is, then a few bad games and odd assignments don't seem that horrific to me. If nothing gels and it turns out this is the best the team can do (good against the bad, bad against the good), THEN some worry is justified. But I can hardly see that we're there yet.
IMO.
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