The only thing that quote points to is the press continuing to stroke a rumour. "a sigh of "Amen" seemed to drift through the room" - what a hack.
Aquilini is well aware of the "meddlesome owner" tag and he is trying to distance himself from it- heck he threatened to sue over it (which was not smart and only made things worse). No doubt he was involved in the decision process, but I'd like to see a shred of evidence that Aquilini overruled Gillis over Tortorella's hiring. Without that, 95% of the nonsense on this board about this subject is without any factual foundation. I don't think for a minute that the Aquilinis are saints and maybe one day Gillis will write his memoirs and reveal that he went to the wall to hire Steven's and was overruled. But right now, there is only the kind of rumour that hack sports reporters thrive on.
Very, very well said. Could not agree with you more.
This ownership is meddlesome narrative has come out only to absolve Gillis of his mistakes. For 5 years we never heard a sniff of this - then suddenly Gillis ***** the bed hard for a few years and all the poor decisions are the owners fault.
I also love how the owners were responsible for a variety of seemingly contradictory moves:
Hiring Tortorella (despite firing him at huge cost to themselves a year later)
Preventing a Kesler trade to stay competitive
Forcing a Kesler trade to stay competitive
Forcing Gillis to adopt a Boston model
Hiring Linden as a figurehead...so he could hire a coach who plays an uptempo, puck-possession, Detroit-style?
Such a load of horse****.