Ruff has to be on the hot seat...

Posted by Thumper:

Absolutely, dasaybz. Ruff is on the hot seat. When you're teatering on missing the playoffs for the second consecutive year, the head coach's performance is always going to be questioned.

But I look higher. Let's look at what the GM has done since putting together one hell of a team post lockout.

He made poor decisions on who to spend money on in the off season, prior to the 2006-7 season. Spending on players like Kotalik and Kalinin over Dumont was a mistake.

Fast forward through that season, and what happend? We lost our top two centerman at the free agency period. I'm not even blaming Regier for that, although some around here would. But I still blame Regier for what has happend since then.....And what that is, is failing to address the losses of your first and second line centermen.

How many centermen has Regier acquired since Drury and Briere left? The answer, pathetically, is 1. Dominic Moore. And that's 2 full years after losing his organizations top 2 centermen. How can you ignore the pressing need up the middle of this organization for that long? Even with Connolly being available and then getting hurt, he never addressed the center position. This team went through most of last year with wingers playing center. Softer type wingers at that.

Those are my first complaints about Regier. There are other apsects of his job that he's been reactionary too, instead of proactive as well.

About 90% of his time here, he's waited until players have played well enough to cash out big time before signing them. Now I know that in some cases, players will wait to sign on purpose, knowing full well that they'll bank bigger if they wait. But not every case has been like that. I look at the Tim Connolly situation first and foremost. Based on less than 30 games of a healthy Connolly, Regier decided to spend 9 million dollars on him in order to keep him. There were people on local message boards that were screaming for Connolly to be resigned before he came back. I thought these people were crazy and/or stupid. But they were 100% correct. They had the foresight in which an NHL GM should have. Are you going to tell me that Connolly wouldn't have signed another deal while he was out? He would have been crazy not too.

I look at Daniel Paille, Andrej Sekera, and Drew Stafford. Now perhaps 1, 2, or all 3 of them wouldn't sign a semi-long term/cheaper deal. But if you take a young defenseman like Sekera and recognize his potential early on, like many of us have, who's to say that he wouldn't accept that kind of deal? Who's to say that Drew Stafford, coming off of last season in which he struggled pretty hard at times wouldn't sign a 5 or 6 year deal worth 12 million in guaranteed money during last years off season? Hey, if you miss on a young guy like that, you're only spending 2 to 2.5 million per year on an average player. If you hit on a young guy like that, then your roster is constructed very similarly to the '05-'06 roster. Cheaper players that are still developing and performing beyond their years.

I also look at how the league has changed and which players Regier has decided to invest the most money in. I admit, you couldn't predict that a player like Hecht, who's usually good for around 50 points, would just fall off the train like he has. A player like Pominville, another guy that Regier waited too long to extend. He waited for Pominville to score nearly a point per game before inking him long term. That's a bad buisness decision that he's repeated. Once or twice, maybe you let it go. But now it's Regier's routine.

Now I look at Regier's recent trade deadline acquisitions. This year, on a team that is completely filled with 3rd line players that are defensively reliable, he just added another one.

Really? That's your guy? That's your playoff push acquisiton? Nothing against Dominic Moore, but what's he really supposed to be doing to help this team make the playoffs again? I like that he added a centerman, because it's the first fucking time he's done that since Briere and Drury walked. But the center position should have been addressed in the same off season that we lost 2 centermen.

I look at last seasons trade deadline acquisition. He acquired a player that really didn't help much at all to gain 4 points to make the playoffs. It was a player that wasn't even wanted by the organization when all is said and done. Another botched move.

I see many, many, many more reasons to hold Regier responsible for this teams troubles than the head coach that is also dealing with the mistakes and gross overpayments, as well as his failure to address the pressing needs on this roster that his GM has made.


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