Over the past few days I have been thinking and reading a bunch of the posts in here condemning this hire and wanting to fire Jarmo. I've tried to write this post a few times but I've struggled to find the right words. But I'll give it a try.
I have long been critical of Jarmo. From calling out his roster decision making, to bashing him on his hard line negotiation tactics, and his "smartest guy in the room" syndrome he seems to take pleasure in with regards to draft picks and his overall draft pedigree being overrated. However even with all of these criticisms I don't think he's a bad GM. I think some people here have gotten spoiled a bit with our regular season success, and the thing is thats not even a bad thing. That just speaks to the job that Jarmo has done here in his stint as GM. He has shortcomings as does all GMs, but by and large I think he's been a success. People see that we've made the playoffs 4 years in a row (before this year) and are quick to turn around and say "Well they only won one round." While accurate, its also not fair to him. The team has taken massive amounts of losses in his tenure, from players leaving to injuries. The fact we stayed afloat and made the playoffs after having three of our top players leave us from the sweep year is a testament to the coaching and pickups made by Jarmo. Conveniently people leave out that our losses in the playoffs in Jarmo's tenure have been 3 Cup champions (Pittsburgh, Washington, and Tampa) and a Cup runner up (Boston). We're not getting upset by lower tier playoff teams, we're literally losing to the best team(s) in the league.
Yeah, nobody remembers 2nd place or whatever place we're in. But we've had our hat in the ring in Jarmo's tenure. I'll take that over the Howson years and especially the MacLean years. Jarmo and co. f***ed up in the last few seasons with hard line negotiations and driving away some talent, but I think its only fair to let him try to fix this mess. Because he has shown in his history here that he is capable of turning things around, albeit slowly. He annoys the hell out of me with some things but I don't think firing Jarmo is the right call either.
As for JD returning I don't really get why people are bent out of shape about him coming back. People wanted Jarmo to have a watchdog or help in the decision making, and JD was around for our greatest successes as a franchise. I don't see any downside to his return. And yeah, are we his second choice? Yes. Are we anybodies first choice though? Sometimes you have to play the cards you're dealt with. JD helped right the ship in 2013 when he got here and we got some fun memories and good times out of it. I saw people talking about his "failures" in St. Louis because they never won many playoff rounds/titles when he was there, but conveniently forget that the Blues had to go through the prime Toews/Kane Hawks teams and the LA Kings juggernauts of seasons past. When they finally broke through and won, they still had plenty of players from his and Jarmo's tenure there, and in very important roles too.
I think these two are good together. I think its far better than Jarmo working alone, and I think they're worthy of staying in their posts to try to right the ship. I hope they learned a bit from the Anderson/PLD/Johansen dramas of the past are able to change course a little bit to make he team more player friendly and be a place players want to play at. Maybe going to NY and getting fired will humble JD. Maybe getting publicly demoted will humble Jarmo. I think they're a good team and I think they'll help make us a good team again.
I’m not the former coach but use his name to honor my first hockey home team (Checkers) and love for the sport.....but small details notwithstanding, I am available.
