The Red Wings season has finally come to a merciful end and now, all there's left to do is to get into what happened over the past year and what to look forward to in the coming years. Amidst all that there is one question, or one topic of debate, that is lighting Red Wings fans on fire like anything else. That topic being: what does his holiness Steve Yzerman do with Jeff Blashill. Ole Jeff's contract is up and if you've ever searched the #LGRW hashtag you know pretty much everyone with thumbs and a smartphone isn't very keen on bringing him back.
Fortunately for Wings fans I get into all of it on the most recent episode of The 2nd String Pod which you can find on Spotify here:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6ttjOGNrpRRgD248POP318?si=2c9479d139b54162
But for now I'll give my quick thoughts on the Blash situation. Here's the Thing with our buddy Jeff... no matter how you feel about him, I always am gonna be slightly in the camp of it being tough to judge him when he's been coaching a bag of potatoes for the last 5 years. I mean look at the teams he's dealt with, a Scotty Bowman, Jesus Christ reincarnate would struggle to bring any of those teams to the playoffs. No disrespect to the Captain, cuz I fucking love the guy, but if Dylan Larkin is your best skater, odds are that team was never meant for the playoffs to begin with, no matter who coaches them. Not to mention, the Wings' vast defensive improvement while is credit to Steve making some moves, has to be at least somewhat attributed to Blashill and his boring ass style.
Where Blashill loses me is when we talk about the fact that in order to win hockey games you need to score goals and his preferred method of doing so seems to be giving the puck to the other team. And when I say loses me I mean being blindfolded and driven out into the middle of a forest and abandoned type lost. No compass, no nothing, just me and the North Star (like anyone knows which one it actually is). Jeff, how the FUCK are you going to deploy an OFFENSIVE strategy that hinges on allowing the other team to have the puck, how the fuck are you gonna let that fly. It would be one thing if Detroit was stuffing nets every night but when you have the worst offense in the league by a mile, and you tell Dylan Larkin and Fil Zadina to just turn it over rather than possess the puck through the zone for 53 straight games, you're gonna lose some people. That's where I'm at. Don't think he's totally gotten a fair shake as far as his personnel but certainly think he doesn't really get scoring. Like, has he seen McDavid play? Mathews? Anyone that averages more than 10 goals a year?? They don't give out Rocket Richard trophies for losing puck battles in the corner, Jeff.
Whatever Steve does I trust, and I will understand, just a damn shame that either way there will be reason to be upset. Check out the podcast for more!