Shouldn't you wait till they reach the NHL before you can say that the work done in the AHL paid its dues? What will it does to the NHL team if the only thing we could be satisfied of is to have a better AHL team while we still have to acquire Eric Staal of this world in the NHL?
How hard it is? Well as I said before, from 03-07, he had 1 top 10, 1 top 15 and 2 first rounders no later than 22nd overall. From 08-16, we had 1 top 3. In one of the worst draft ever.
So let's go at it again...based on those picks, how EASIER is it for the head scout to not mess up. And how easier it is for the AHL and NHL coach to not mess them up? Compared to years where they had only 1 top 3 pick?
In the end, Lefebvre had a chance to do something with 27% of prospects. Compared to 45% for the others based on the 03-07 picks. Yep, Lefebvre should have been able to do something more with Leblanc and maybe Tinordi and Beaulieu. Scherbak improved his numbers every year he was with Lefebvre.
Yes and no, as this is where the NHL coach plays a roll. So what you want to see from the AHL coach is to see his prospects improving/progressing. Then in the NHL, it's out of the AHL coaches hands. Take Scherbak, say Lefebvre was able to turn him into a solid 2 way player, as we know his offensive game increased every year the problem was the rest of his game never improved and a lot of that imo is on Scherbak as he never struck me as mature or hard working. But let's say Lefebvre pulls it off, and Scherbak by the time he's in the NHL he looks good. But when in the NHL MT/Julien put him on the 4th line with grinders, he struggles to produce, turns into a bubble guy. That wouldn't be on Lefebvre, as he would have done his job.
With Bouchard since I've seen every game, I've seen how much Evans improved each year. How much Vejdemo improved each year. Look at Fleury, got sent down last year and was just terrible. This year he's way better then last year. Of course there's Brook and Poehling and how much they have improved over last year. That's what you want to see from your AHL coach.
Of course you need them to be a success in the NHL, and so far Evans has been ok but we know everyone will see it differently. We don't know if this is his peak or not, time will tell.
As for the picks, again it doesn't matter when just about every prospect he coached regressed. Scherbak improved his numbers but never improved where he needed to. Scherbak was handed as poorly as could be by Lefebvre, for reasons I've listed hundreds of times. Tinordi, Beaulieu, DLR, McCarron, Leblanc, Scherbak. There's no way anyone can convince me that with a better AHL coach, better development team not rushing them, that we would miss on all of them. They should have been able to do a better job, starting with Timmins as he clearly made mistakes going for size (McCarron/Tinordi/DLR/Crisp), etc.. then Lefebvre who has zero head coaching experience does what imo was a terrible job in the decisions he made, then you have the crappy job from management in calling them up too soon, doing the yo-yo at times. Then you have the NHL coaching not putting them in good positions to succeed and finally you have the players for not working on what they needed to. That's why I have said countless times and likely will have to say it countless more that I will NEVER blame just one person for this mess. It's NOT just Timmins or Lefebvre or MB, or MT/Julien or the players. It's all of them to some degree.
I just think it's becoming very clear. We saw how good a job Guy Boucher did, the Randy's even Lever who i wasn't a big fan of, then we saw how terrible a job Lefebvre did, how he hasn't been able to find a head coaching job since, something he never had any experience at before. Now we are seeing much better results in the AHL under Bouchard, anyone that watched the Lefebvre coached teams and the Bouchard coached teams and doesn't see it very clearly, there's no helping you or no point discussing it as it's plain as day.
So we did good/ok whatever ones definition, then MB makes poor choices in hiring a head coach who has no experience and a former head coach that was fired a few years previously. Then he compounds that by replacing MT with a similar dinosaur in Julien. But he makes one of his best moves in hiring Bouchard and it's night and day as our AHL team is finally playing structured hockey. NO matter the picks, how many, where they were picked, he's got his players playing hard, sound, structured hockey.
