Thats one thing that turns alot of people off about Hockey. A few years ago (cant remember the team) a coach got fired after the first week. I think Peter DeBoer is in a little hot water here in South Florida. Although it was his teams 4-0 victory over the Lightning that got Melrose the boot. Oh well, guess we'll see him back on ESPN.
Usually when a coach gets fired after the first week it has been brewing for a while. I'm beginning to wonder if John Stevens might be in a little hot water myself. The flyers came back from being down 3-0 the other day and lost the game in a shootout 5-4.
Wow. I can't believe it happened that fast. The talk around here is that it just hasn't been the same though. Guys like LeCavalier just didn't look right. And I know Melrose walked out of practice on Wednesday. I don't know what it is, I haven't watched any games this year. But people were definitely talking.
Wait... was this his first season? And he got fired after 16 games? Thats the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Way to throw away a season...
I've seen the Lightning play twice this year and Melrose deserved to get canned. The team has NO SYSTEM. No breakouts to speak of and everytime they got in their own zone it was a fire drill. This is not shocking in my opinion. When you go out and spend all your cap room up front and do absolutely nothing to help the back end and go with a 200 year old goaltender bad things are going to happen. Melrose was not equipped to handle todays game. It's a game that is overcoached. When he was relevant the game was different. He also had some talent on the back end in L.A.. I expect this to be the beginning in Tampa. In about a month, when the coaching change does nothing to improve their record they will realize they need to add to the back end. You can not win in the NHL with no defensemen no matter how much talent you have at forward. If they can find a taker for Ryan Malone they should ship him out to get a decent D-man.
Stevens gets a pass roght now with how banged up the Flyers are on defense. Having Marty Biron play like a complete sieve is not helping matters either.
Well, they wanted to make a splash. That is what happens when you hire a GM with no experience and have new ownership who think they know everything about the sport and go crazy in free agency without any rhyme or reason to your signings. I predicted in the "NHL Thread" that they would be terrible unless they fix that backend.
