What did you guys expect him to do? He fixed up the defense with adding Montour and Miller. The offense will take time and if you were expecting him to make Sobotka or Okposo disappear without giving up picks or taking an equal salary back is not happening.
I dunno about fixed, but he shored up the defense certainly. The general problem most people have with Botterill is that he seemed to have assumed that a new Coach will somehow correct the inadequacies of 40% of the roster being AHL or worse players. Even understanding that he was strapped with a few bad contracts that he could not get rid of; the lack of roster overhaul on the front-side of things was beyond an optimists reasoning.
He added Vesey, Johansson to the forward group. Thats it. Vesey is at best a 13 energy forward (ironic with his number) While Johansson seems to be a positive addition.
To assume that Sobotka, Sheary, Girgensons, Okposo, Mittlestadt (too early and definitely not ready,) and to a lesser point Larsson, would magically evolve into middle 6 forwards, or even bottom 6 forwards, is lunacy.
The season started great, but it appears that the players have reduced themselves to muscle memory of 2 years in a system... The coach's are very clearly stating what they want to occur. It doesn't happen. Case in point; shots on the powerplay/5x5...every intermission interview has any of the Assistant Coaches saying we need to shoot more....what happens? They pass around the zone until inevitably they lose possession or it gets blocked. Its pretty clear at this point that the Coach isn't the problem. (Don't get me wrong, Housley had to go based on the endless bad decisions,) so the roster needs to be adjusted.
I defended Botterill (I still hate the "big head" infancy that people spout off, it's just childish,) but at this point he's completely to blame for our current state.
