I’m gonna go on record again and say that Brian’s tenure has been largely a mixed bag. Hopefully he improves over the next few seasons but if his trajectory is any indication - which I think is a downward one- I’d wager that he’ll do just enough to keep us competitive, and not much more. He is riding GMGM and Ovechkin’s coattails as of right now. And he doesn’t have any knock-it-out-of-the-park-this-changes-everything moves to hang his hat on. Oshie is the closest thing to that but then he turned around and signed him for 8 years when there is a long history of players of his ilk declining precipitously in their 30s. Orpik is another player who served a purpose, so the signing wasn’t terrible, but keeping him on this season in the top-4 while leaving the younger, faster, cheaper and better suited to today’s game Schmidt unprotected is most likely another Cup losing blunder. Combined with his deadline flops, I’d say he’s taken away as many chances as he’s given.
He gave us two amazing opportunities at a Cup when there was a perfect storm on the roster. But his first year and this year - two seasons where considerably more work was needed - he punted and it cost us. Plus if you look down the road into subsequent seasons I’d say we could definitely be in better shape. He’s neither tried to aggressively open a window down the road, nor has he truly gone all-in on a consistent basis. Instead he’s done a little bit of one and a little more of the other.
This playoffs and the following offseason will be extremely telling. I won’t be shocked if he surprises me and smartly retools the roster on the fly. However, my confidence in his ability to do that effectively is at an all-time low, so if I had to guess I’d say he continues to tinker and largely ride Ovechkin’s brilliance and McPhee’s core...
Not only that, I don’t think he has the stones or the gravitas to make a larger impact on the organizational culture. I think the continuation of some of the things that plagued us during McPhee is a testament to that. If it’s coaching, he needed to spearhead a more aggressive approach to rectifying it. If it’s the players then he needed to trade from the core and change up the inherent mix on that front. He’s done neither.
We could do better...if anyone wants to seriously argue otherwise, have at it. So far no one has spelled out sufficiently why Brian is such a keeper at this point. I think the reason that no one has done it is because it can’t actually be done.
delicious 
