"Outlandish contracts".
Christ. Just stop, put your account of vacation mode or something.
The owner has absolutely no influence on the team, because he is in LA trying to harras and pay actresses for sex. When the owner of the team is not around to make decisions or give inputs, his chosen replacement takes over.
This is the Alternate governor on the right, his replacement:
These people run this organization.... Look how much they lived in the past, just in this video. They felt like they were entitled to maximum respect and authority, BEFORE they got promoted to the highest levels of the organization. Lowe and MacT and gods I'm their own mind, its sickening
"Any time you win 5 cups, there's a semi-mess that comes along with that." Haha. It's been ****ing 30 years...
Yeah, the old guard has undoubtedly had some influence in the chronic dysfunction here. They are the common denominator, and to be at this stage having fired and re-hired and embarked on x number of "rebuilds", it's outrageous that Nicholson stood before the city and its fans - season ticket holders - and inferred that a change at the top level is off the table. EVERYTHING should be on the table.
That said, for the immediate intervention, getting rid of Lowe et. al will have no effect. That's an off-season move among others.
The problems in my mind are such: 1 questionable roster, 2 player mis-management (meaning having players in the wrong slots, playing erong minutes, etc.), and 3 player effort/players doing their own thing without team buy-in. And they're all coming into play.
Point #1: Manning, Petrovic, Cave, Benning, Gravel, Brodziak, are all examples of players that shouldn't be in the NHL of are at best on the proverbial bubble. The game has either passed them by (Brodziak), or they're simply not skilled enough. Any game we have at least 2 of the above in the lineup, some nights all of them.
Point #2: Talbot, Koskinen, Lucic, Larsson, Puljujarvi, Russell, Rattie, Rieder, to some degree Nurse, and in some ways Kassian are examples of players incorrectly slotted into spots that require skills that aren't there to meet the minutes. Granted, Hitch has resorted to moving players all over the lineup, but the results speak volumes.
Point #3: Rieder, Larsson, Kassian, Draisaitl, Rieder, Lucic are not bought-in. Either through lack of confidence or belief in the system, or simply not investing the effort required.
That leaves McDavid, Klefbom (injured most of the year), Khaira, RNH, and Chiasson - 5 freaking players - who're properly slotted into roles with the team that suit their skill level and are committed to the team vision. Of course, as the burden of carrying the team weighs on them, each is vulnerable to stretch their play beyond their capacities and to eventually show a lack of buy in as well. By-product of fatigue.
So there you have it, imho, the reasons for our failures and the breakdowns of why they've occurred. A team with 5 properly utilized players is going nowhere.
Fancy that.
Regardless of what Hitch has to say or do.