Use of timeouts is a legit criticism. It's irritating when they're not used in obvious situations. However, on a list of things most important to good coaching, it is near the bottom.
Most important thing? Have the players bought n to what you're selling. Do they play with a consistently good work ethic and effort. Are there any signs that important players struggle with the role they are asked to play. I think Lalonde actually rates pretty highly by those standards. The comeback record for the team is an obvious tip-off for their high level of self-belief, commitment and trust in the system they are asked to play.
There are other obvious facts, rather than subjective evaluation of line combos or how well the Wings start games, that support Lalonde. The Wings were 13 games over .500 three-quarters through the season, despite a significant turnover of players to start the season. Their special teams were in or close to the top 10. Preseason concerns about secondary scoring were eliminated. They had a good goal differential.
What did he do differently during the losing streak that turned things around? Almost nothing. The losing streak was almost entirely caused by Larkin being out and Lyon falling apart, neither of which Lalonde had any control over. In the last six games, with Larkin back for most of them and the team getting some good goaltending, they're 3-2-1. Six or seven points from their next six games, which includes a probably must-win-in-regulation home game vs. Washington, will probably keep them alive heading into the final four.
There are some Lalonde peculiarities, aside from the time-out issue. He, like Yzerman, place a huge value on depth. No other WC contending team in the East, and very few if any good teams, have such little variance in ES TOI between the most-used and least-used regular players, or such little difference between their most and least productive regular players. This is good or bad, depending on how you look at it, but IMO it has contributed to the players' sense of ownership and self-belief that it's not just up to the star players (of which the Wings have precious few anyway) to bail the team out.
I doubt very much that Lalonde is in any danger of being fired, unless the team collectively throws in the towel the rest of the way as easily as some of the fans have. It's a mishmash team of a few keepers and a lot of place-holders and nearly-dones. They're brutal in their own end, which is mostly the result of too many of the few skill players being fairly useless in board battles and tight spaces, and too many of the heavier non-skill players being fairly useless with the puck. The result is that forechecking teams eat them up. Whether by design or player inability, they too often just give away board possession and load up the middle of the ice, hoping a blocked shot or pass somehow trickles outside the blue line. This is not a coaching issue, it's primarily a quality of player issue.
Apart from the players just throwing in the towel, which doesn't seem likely, I don't see any distance between Yzermans's beliefs and expectations and Lalonde's execution of those beliefs and expectations. There is nothing similar about Lalonde's situation now, and the circumstances that led to SY firing Guy Boucher in his third season in TB. The team is improving and has met the publicly stated, and admittedly low, preseason goals of both the GM and the coach to be more competitive and playing meaningful games in late March. The lack of rookie impact is by SY's design and with Lalonde's apparent support. I expect he'll still be coaching the team when six or seven of SY's draft picks are finally on it.
