shmenguin wrote:mikey287 wrote:Players' coaches have a difficult time holding veterans accountable because they might lose the favor of the locker room if it's done incorrectly. Thus, all the problems with the team are taken out on the youth (Despres scratched, Bennett benched tonight). While veteran players, those that would have more pull, are able to get away with a few bad games (or more) and not lose their jersey...Orpik will probably start the next game, Engelland hasn't been scratched yet has he? Kunitz early in the year to a lesser extent, Adams to a lesser extent...some players seem to be immune to the rotation, audition is merely a formality for them...
Personally, I don't believe Bylsma has the wherewithal to sit a player of Orpik's caliber...
Now, I'll say the flip side as someone that has a fair amount of coaching experience (relative to an average person, not an NHL coach). It's a lot easier to talk about benching/scratching a player than it is to actually do it...the consequences can be dire, you can lose the player, you can lose the room, you can affect morale negatively...coaching takes a delicate balance...some players don't like to be pushed and prodded, some players need you to light their ass on fire every night to get a pulse from them...you have to really understand your team at a macro and micro level in order to push the right buttons...
Personally, I think the team can make adjustments with the current core and be ok...I don't think we need to do anything rash, but I'm a "let's not do anything rash" type of guy...will those adjustments get made? Will they be successful? Useful questions.
i'm sure it's a delicate balance. you'd just hope that if he's not willing to scratch/demote/move to wing/whatever, that he's pulling him aside privately and carefully informing him that he's kinda sorta a significant part of the problem.
Oh, for sure, you can't allow nonsense to permeate into your gameplan and into your locker room...
If I had to guess, and I'm not in the locker room, but if I had to guess on my own intuition...the very worst thing HCDB could do is scratch Orpik and not say anything about it. If Orpik checks the cast list before a game and that's how he finds out he's the understudy, I think that causes a major problem both for the individual (Orpik) and for the team...that's just my guess...I could be way wrong, I'm often way wrong...
