I don't have a ton of time before my first class, but I'll try to revisit later...
Firstly, anyone who hears the Neely-Sweeney Gang talking about changing tactics and hears words like Dump, Chase, and Grind is right to be worried...we've seen too many chumps get too much money and ice time in recent seasons. But I think people are missing some of the nuance here.
From reading all of the Athletic articles, my takeaway on what the FO is saying:
- We try to generate too much offense based on clean breakouts. If a team stops up our breakout we didn't show the ability to adjust our game.
- Our zone entries were too predictable, especially on the powerplay, this caused too many turnovers
- Given these factors the FO wants to see adjustments to switching up to more of a dump and retreive (which given their love of bangers falls in line with their ideals)
- Offensively we don't offer enough of a varience in tactics, relying almost exclusively on cycling. When other teams drop 5 down low to stymie this, we don't adjust. Sweeney specifically mentions working high to low and getting the D core scoring more.
- Butch is too tough on the kids and needs to trust them more even if they're not as sound defensively if he wants.
Now, I think a lot of this is coming out of the fact that we
just lost to a very good Carolina team who
- stiffled our breakouts with aggresive forecheck and pinching D
- dig a great job on their blueline of denying clean zone entries
- plays a very aggressive style where they want to get pucks in behind the other team and force turnovers
- play a low-high game in the OZ where they like to get shots from the point, and use their forecheck to tip/collect rebounds/harass the other team back into turnovers.
I'm sure some of this is just philisophical, although it's hard not to imagine the line about Ronal Reagan...he always believed the last thing someone told him. I do wonder how much recency bias is in play here.
I don't think they're quite as neandrathalic as people are suggesting here, and I do think there is some merit to making different adjustments, but I don't think trying to emulate Carolina (who has spent a few years building a team around his philosphies) when you've got a completely different roster is the right move. If they want to change things and move to a different model then we probably need a new coach and some significant roster changes.