Deployment is such an easy point to attack but does it actually make sense? Narratives change after the fact, not before.
For example, Giroux, DeBrincat and Brassard aren't playing especially well against Florida. As fans, we say, give the guys playing well that game more minutes! Makes a lot of sense, right?
So, does the narrative become the best players play? Or does the more likely narrative become, every time someone doesn't play well DJ crushes their confidence and gives their minutes away.
As a coaching philosophy, do you give veteran players more leeway to play their way out of a poor game? Sounds like in this case we're saying no. So when the results don't come because the lower quality players didn't actually produce more as a result of playing more, do we say DJ made the right move and we didn't get the result we hoped for or do we say the chances of getting the result we hoped for from a move like that were so small that we shouldn't have been trying that in the first place?
Another way to ask that question: which has a higher probability, of the following options - a) the guys like Pinto and Kastelic produce better results as a result of playing more minutes or b) Brassard, Giroux and DeBrincat work their way into producing because that's what good vets who've been around the block do?
These are easy decisions to make for us, without any knowledge of managing a locker room, without the insights into player mentality, without the benefit of many hours to analyze post-game results, etc. In the moment though, you make a gameplan and you stick to it. So far our gameplan this year has led to mostly good results and a couple of bad ones. Changing our gameplan which has produced mostly good results to try to fix 2 bad results is the kind of overcoaching and poor leadership that leads to bad overall seasons.
