Frank Seravalli

So part of that includes the coaching staff.

Part of that includes the coaching staff that, by the way, was very publicly criticized.

by those two players and it's not for that reason alone i think the way that this season unfolded you can point to a number of things with chris knobloch that i i think he's a good coach i think he's still got a lot to learn and i think he'll probably be better in his next run wherever else that is but one not enough growth

He tried to coach this team this year in year three, the same way that he coached them in year one, even though it's a different team.

Two, was probably stubborn and resistant to change, as evidenced by the late season addition of Paul Coffey back to the bench.

And three, that was necessitated in part because he surrounded himself with likewise inexperienced and like-minded individuals that were

have a lot of the same comportment as him.

You need to be challenged.

You need different voices.

You need to push the envelope.

That's what Connor McDavid does every day when he walks through the door.

Connor McDavid doesn't work on the things that he's good at.

He works on the things that he's not good at.

And that's the difference.

You need to have people that surround your organization that think and act and do in the same manner.

So that's the coaching side of it.

But I think that that part of it will echo through the entire organization or at least should from top to bottom in getting this back on track.

even if those two assistants remain on the bench the entire year, I still think this change probably would have been necessary.

It wouldn't have saved the season.

But I do think deployment, trust in other pieces in the lineup, and there is a bit of a chicken and the egg factor when it comes to, and I could surely, to be fair and balanced, make the case from Chris Knobloch's end about watching guys like Jeffrey Vielle and Tim Washi and others play