Vigil: The Jeff Blashill watch

[yave1964]

  It has to be a matter of time. 

 

  The Wings started 3-1 pushing the play, contesting pucks, really playing good hockey. Since then the wheels have fallen off and they have lost six in a row giving up 5 goals in five of the losses and being outscored 27-10 during that span. Larkin, the teams best player has played his worst hockey since joining the Wings over the past two games, he is looking for the perfect pass, the perfect shot and is clearly pressing. A lot of the other players seem to be going through the motions.

 

  It is a matter of time before Coach Jeff Blashill is shown the door. It simply has to be.

 

 Look, I predicted in here an entire year before it happened that Babcock would leave for Toronto and Blash would be our next coach and truthfully I thought we were being left in good and capable hands. I make no apologies, I love AHL hockey and felt he did a tremendous job with the Griffins winning a Calder Cup so I thought he was the perfect fit. I would have stayed within the organization as well, it was a no brainer.

  

  Instead, other than Larkin and to a lesser extent Athanasiou you cannot name a single young Wing who has lived up to potential. Mantha has consistently been bounced up and down lines and been a whipping boy, AA according to numerous reports simply hates Blashill and you seldom see him smile anymore even after scoring, too many young Wings get called up, get 8 minutes a night while contract albatross veterans get 15 or 16. The kids get put on a cycle of failure, the veterans are being overused for their lack of skill level while the kids are set up to fail.

 

  It is time for new blood behind the bench. Dan Bylsma comes to mind but frankly anyone willing to let the kids play and make mistakes as part of the learning curve would do. The Blashill experiment failed miserably, it is time to move on.

[SpikeDDS]

@yave1964

 

You’re certainly right that unless there is a sudden monumental shift, that his days are numbered. But, quite honestly, I wonder how much of this is Blash and how much is other-than-Blash.

 

Remember back in the years before Babcock left. We were still constantly complaining that few, if any, of the secondary players were playing to their expected, supposed potentials. Remember?

 

But then we dumped some of that talent that just seemed to have potential that we could never seem to tap into all the way. With Babs it was Hudler and Brendan Smith and FIlppula. With Blash, it has been Mrazek. Nyquist. Tatar.

 

NONE of these guys have done anything more significant than they did here UNLESS they had significantly more talent around them than they did here ala Fulppula with the Bolts. Bring him back to a team with less talent, and his productivity takes a dive.
 

The only exception might be Tats in Montreal. He wasn’t any better than in Detroit even with Vegas when they went to the Final. He never flourished until he became a Hab.

 

but that is ONE player. Who else has left and done any better after leaving that wasn’t significantly helped by those around them?

 

<crickets>
 

So I don’t think it is ALL Blash. I DO think that it could be too long with the same voices saying the same things. Blash/Babs have been training these guys for a LONG time. They have heard it all before. Babs even said, as he left, that his players had heard his voice for too long. It was time to move on. Perhaps that is the issue, I’m not sure.

 

But the PP hasn’t really been good since Lidstrom hung them up. Even toward the end of Datsyuk’s time, the PP was looking bad. That continues, despite almost complete personnel change and coaching change and even assistant coaching changes. Nothing has worked.

 

It May be time for fresh blood to stoke the competitive fires.

[yave1964]

@SpikeDDS

 

Tats has been a solid contributor with the Habs.

 

Mrazek, quite frankly has found his game and turned into a minor star with the Hurricanes. No way no how do they make the playoffs last year and all the way to the conference final without his brilliant play, especially down the stretch. it has carried over this year.

 

 Nyquist had 12 points in 19 games with the Sharks, not quite what they hoped but on pace for 50ish for an entire season. He has looked good early with the CBJ.

 

  But yeah, overall I get your general point. Brendan Smith, Sheahan all have more or less floundered since leaving. 

 

 But to me, how much of that is drafting? How much of that is not having them coached up in the first place? 

 

  I have been highly critical of the drafting done by Holland in recent years so I agree, Blash hasn't exactly been handed a full deck to play with. Throw in a couple of wretched traded, adding Cole/Zidlicky for Janmark and Jarnkrok from Dallas and Nashville certainly didn't help,both the J's have went on to be solid NHL players. 

 

 But my point is this: I believe in Larkin, Mantha, Athanasiou, Bertuzzi, Seider, Rasmussen, Svechnikov, Veleno and Zadina. I believe in Cholowski and Hronek. Not yet sold on Hirose, Givani Smith, Kuffner and Kaski but I am cautiously optimistic.  I wanted to see Blashill succeed, I was tickled with the choice, but at this point I have lost all confidence in his ability to develop what to me, is a skilled core that should develop into at the least two top lines and possibly three. I feel that we have gone as far as we can with him, it is time for a change. 

[SpikeDDS]

@yave1964

 

See, I think it MAY be more drafting than we want to believe.

 

Even Babs couldn't coach up those players, and while he's not a perfect coach (he does torment certain players who won't ever hit their potential because of it), I think it's safe to say that if he can't get it out of most players, there may not be as much to get out as some would think. This has happened WAY too often.

 

I mean, at the end of Babs' tenure, our PP was NOT good. Better than it has been under Blash, but not MUCH better. And he had Z and Pav! Now is that coaching? Or is it the other team being able to focus on a couple of players and forcing players that aren't so good to try to be so good that made them fail? Maybe, just maybe, our secondary players aree just closer to being 2b players than 2a or 1b.

 

But I'm not disagreeing with you that it is time for Blash to go. Perhaps he is better cultivating talent from younger players at the beginning of their careers and not so good at getting NHL players to play to their potential. But whatever the cause is, the Wings have underachieved under his tenure, and even though we just gave him that extension, we need to make a change.

 

And I'm not so sure that leaving Bylsma in charge will be much different. He's been in charge of the PP, and it's not been much better. A little. But it wasn't like when he took over the PP that it jumped immedioto. It didn't. And the increase isn't very significant even over time.

 

It may just be time to clean out the coaching house and get fresh voices and eyes in the room and on the practice ice. We need to make sure that even if the drafting doesn't turn out to be as brilliant as we were thinking, that at least people are playing at or near their potential. That's not happening right now. And if Larkin's game takes a dive, this team is in trouble!

 

We don't really have too much to lose making a move now, do we?

[Hockey-78]

The Fabbri trade changed the course, eh?!

[yave1964]

5 hours ago, Hockey-78 said:

The Fabbri trade changed the course, eh?!

Nah, just a nice weekend. Fabbri is a talented player, always has been and was a favorite of mine his first two years with the Blues before blowing out his knee not once but twice. Great passer, nice shot, hits everything, speed gone at 23 but a nice reclamation project for the Wings to take a chance on.

[SpikeDDS]

@yave1964

 

But he does seem to have sprung AA, as he is suddenly filling nets and getting us points.

 

MAybe more than just a w/e? We can hope, can't we?