Looking back now on the season and zooming up Big picture I would say Rick is about C+ as a coach.
I loved his passion in the press conference after the team no showed game 5 in the playoffs. I also liked how he modified it but held his ground in the player locker clean out day. He’s not a p***y and isn’t scared to try to at least hold our entitled class to an acceptable standard.
First half of the season he had them playing really well and buying in and that was a fun run and Rick was a solid A. Not sure why but the team seemed to quit on him and each other for a two month stretch in the second half of the season he was at an F up until the last 8 games or so and he was back to an A for that part. He got them into the playoffs so he gets a passing grade.
My concern with Bones is I think he is a good guy and a below average to average NHL head coach.
Under Bones in Dallas in 2021-22 his team had 238 GF and 246 GA for a -8 and his team was generously described as boring and the only way they could play you was "three yards and a cloud of dust"
Three yards and a cloud of dust is an expression of pride among those that play physical football and enjoy methodically marching down the field. Most use the expression as a pejorative for a dated, dull, and unimaginative style of play.
Dallas Fans didn't liked how he had Dallas playing last season. They replaced Bones and brought in Pete DeBoer and this season and with a very similar line up the Stars could beat you any way you wanted to play and they had 285 goals (almost a staggering 50 more) and also gave up less goals 218 and were +67. So they had a team goals for-against of 75 better under Pete which is almost a goal a game. That is a crazy improvement.
On to Bones time with the Jets I think he did a very good job especially in the first half helping us give up less goals and at the end of the season we have up 225 vs 2021-22 where our Maurice Lowry team gave up 257 so swing of 32 less goals (nice). Bones Jets team scored 5 more goals than MOLO coaching group.
I think Bones was "ok" which is similar to our team which is ok. I don't mind him being around for one more season but we can and need to do better.
This is just all part of the culture of average that Mark and Chevy seem to have settled into. A culture of no accountability with the players that hopefully gets cleaned up this off season via player movement.
I would counter that Bowness is the reason the Stars are who they are today. He over saw the maturation of players like Robertson,Hintz,Oettinger and Heiskainen. They dumped him and those 4 in particular rose to prominence this year and lead that team. Without him and his ability to allow young players to flourish I am not sure they would be the team they are today
With or without Bowness they were always going to score more goals. Because those young guys got a chance to play under him and learn how to play in the NHL. It is funny but it was the older guys that played poorly under him. Benn,Seguin,Radulov,Klingberg. The only guy that really bought into Bones style in Dallas was Pavelski. They Jettisoned Radulov and Klingberg but got a resurgent Benn this year. Seguin still is Seguin and they are stuck with him
I would say that our younger guys are going to be better with Bowness going forward whoever those guys maybe, Perfetti/Lucuis/McGroarty/Lambert/Heinola etc...
I think he is ideal moving forward especially if we go younger. I give him a solid B this year. He got us to the playoffs which is more then I was expecting out this group