I am getting confused, so we were contenders or we werent contenders? I thought that MB was a miserable failure because of how good of a team he inherited that he should of won multiple cups and getting to an ECF was a gigantic failure?
You're confused because instead of reading what people say you just imagine what they say and end up thinking they said things like the ECF was a gigantic failure when no one ever said or implied that.
And even if you have some weakness's or holes, I would think a team that finshes 4th and 2nd in the NHL and won its division twice in a 3 year span would be at least somewhat close to "contender". Maybe not the favorites but we gotta be somewhere up there around the top 10 mark?
I don't understand the argument, MB inherited a great team ready to win a cup, but we weren't ever contenders, but the team was amazing and all we needed was a better forward than PAP to get the cup, but it was a miserable failure.
My head is hurting here trying to understand this, its almost as if the contender label is thrown around to suite an argument.
My point is that MB's tenure has not been a miserable failure, doesn't mean everything he did is gold and that he is a hockey god. Yes he could of signed a better UFA, or traded his Mac and Scherback picks. Even if he didn't do all of that he still squeezed some very good years out of this team, and after 3 years it essentially peaked. The team epically collapsed and he started to ship out the pieces and rebuild the team and here we are today with almost a completely different team. Is it better or worse well time will tell.
I considered us a contender heading into both the 2013 and 2014 playoffs.
In 2013 we were a top team without any real weaknesses, we had the scoring (5th in GF) and although our GA wasn't that great (14th) a lot of that had to do with a bad couple weeks where we got blown out multiple times. For most of the year we were a top defensive team.
In 2014 without Vanek we weren't a contender due to our poor offence, with Vanek we were a contender. So yes MB deserves credit for getting us Vanek, although it's mostly a case of him fixing the mistake he made in the offseason when he failed to replace Ryder's production.
MB's first offseason I'd say was average at best, he made a good move signing Prust, he signed Pacioretty to a great deal. But his made moves included hiring Therrien & Lefebvre, and forcing Subban into a bridge deal.
His second offseason he let a top-6 player go (Who produced like a 1st line player for us) and replaced him with a bottom six winger. That and Therrien's incompetence killed our offence and so we were no longer contenders until we acquired Vanek.
His third offseason he again let a top-6 player go (Who again produced like a 1st line player) and again tried to replace him with a bottom six winger. However this time he didn't address our offensive woes at the trade deadline so we weren't contenders heading into the playoffs that year.
His fourth offseason he again failed to address the missing top-6 player that was needed to be a contender.
His fifth offseason he finally found that missing top-6 player in Radulov, but by then it was too late, we were no longer one top-6 player away from being a contender due to Plekanec's decline from top-6 to bottom six player.
His sixth offseason was a massive failure, and his seventh has been a big success.
So his offseasons went: Average, Bad, Bad, Bad, Good, Bad, Good.
Pretty much all MB did was try and fill the holes he created by letting top-6 players go and failing to replace them. That's one reason he was a miserable failure, the other main one was hiring and then sticking with Therrein/Lefebvre.
