Exactly right.
We don’t pick “scapegoats” out of thin air... despite what the contrarians like to suggest.
There’s a very clear pattern.
The “scapegoated” players who get hate (Macdonald, Hagg, Manning, Lehtera, Filppula, Vandevelde, etc) are all awful players who hurt the team.
The “infallible” players who get defended (Giroux, Voracek, Ghost, Konecny, etc) are all great players who help the team.
We don’t sit here, pick a player like Hagg to hate on at random, and decide that they’re bad. We hate the players BECAUSE they’re bad.
And the inverse is true. We want Sanheim in because he helps the team win. We didn’t just pick his name out of a hat and decide we were going to defend him.
Same thing with the coach. Nobody wants him to be bad. He’s hated because he is.