Well, coaches are recycled a lot more frequently than GMs.ukcanuck wrote: Perhaps and I am being devils advocate here to some degree, When its Gillis' turn to walk the plank, there won't be a line up of teams looking to grab what were so quick to let go...
AV is a very good coach, one I've defended quite a bit but what this post-season showed is that he lost his handle on putting his team in the best position to win, and his coaching moves didn't pay off.
He failed to effectively match-up his lines vs the Sharks, whereas McLellan did an excellent job exploiting match-ups, especially in San Jose.
The line combinations, D-pairs and decisions on the starting goalie really blew up in his face vs San Jose. It was eerily similar to last year's series vs the Kings where almost every decision AV made was the wrong one.
These things can happen with coaches after a while. It's not really an indictment on AV's failures perse, but a product of the reality that AV seemed to have lost his touch with this team, at least when it came to playoff game plans and strategy execution.