WWYDW: Finding a President of Hockey Operations
5 years ago
Francesco Aquilini addressed rumours regarding the team’s search for a President of Hockey Operations yesterday afternoon via his personal twitter account.
One wonders how a report like this gets out to multiple respected sources in the industry if Aquilini and Lombardi have never spoken, but if Aquilini says the rumours are bogus, I’ll take him at his word.
Regardless of whether or not the rumours about Dean Lombardi (or Ken Holland, for that matter,) are true, the fact that the Canucks are looking to add to their front office is no secret, and yesterday afternoon’s tweet served only to renew interest in the team’s ongoing search. Do you think the Canucks need to add a President of Hockey Operations? If so, who would you like to see in that role?
Last week I asked: What changes would you make to the Tampa Bay Lightning organization this offseason to insure they don’t suffer a similar fate next season?
canucksfan:
This is why hockey is the best – it’s so unpredictable and regular season form means little in the playoffs. You just have to make it in and anything can happen as Columbus have shown this season.
As for Tampa, how can you even comtemplate change on this team after such a great regular season, they are so stacked. Better goaltending perhaps. More experienced coaching maybe. Real tough to pinpoint anything though.
My only thought is as Detriot and Pittsburgh have done in the past, just coast along in the regular season and try to avoid injury/fatigue by busting a gut and save some juice for what matters most, the playoffs.
Goon:
The Lightning have been to the conference finals and the cup finals in the past couple of years, and matched a regular season record this year. They got hurt and demoralized at the wrong time, nothing more. They should maybe tinker around the edges, but anyone who thinks there need to be big, fundamental changes to the Lightning is out of his mind.
Jim “Dumpster Fire” Benning:
I would make absolutely zero changes. This is simply something to learn from. TB (outside of that Van game earlier this year) has never been a big strong team that throws the body, finishes checks, and makes their opponent work for every inch of space on the ice. They’ve always won with speed and skill. Naysayers may argue that they simply aren’t built for the playoffs, but their past success in the post season says otherwise. I think they just need to use this as a reality check going forward. They just need to really up their game intensity both individually and collectively. No rash decisions whatsoever.
Bobaner:
Tampa Bay will probably see enough changes to their line up through free agency and salary cap considerations to avoid having to do anything to drastic. I think the more pertinent issue is how any elite team goes about preparing for a playoff run and I imagine a historically bad playoff performance will change the conversation around this. Traditional hockey pundits and the players themselves won’t like the idea but it might be time for top contending teams to pull some of their stars out of the line up down the stretch. It’s as much about resting those players as it is about changing the dynamic around the team. It will also force the coaches to change up strategies on the fly. Hopefully that will ramp up the intensity and force the team to tighten up defensively.
TheRealPB:
I agree that they shouldn’t overreact to this. They have a solid core that is all resigned with the exception of Point. The injuries to Hedman and Stralman were really big. Kucherov’s dumb suspension didn’t help. And Vasilevsky couldn’t seem to adjust to the Blue Jackets strategy of crashing the net and throwing point shots at him. He’ll be better next year.
They should invest in a better backup, and turn over some of that D–four UFAs and you don’t need to bring back Coburn, Rutta, Girardi, but replace them with Cernak and Foote. Anything can happen in a playoff series. Just like you don’t want to overplay the puck carrier on the PK, you don’t want to overthink what a series like this teaches you. Torts’ crazy collapsing, shot-blocking and yell-coaching ways can always win you one or two. Hard to see much more than that but their top players came to play. I still don’t think they can beat the Bruins, Caps or Islanders but then I thought that they’d never get by the Bolts, so who knows?
