I stuck behind Fleury through all the times fans wanted him gone until I reached my limit this year.
I stuck behind Martin until very late last season until he was just purely atrocious.
I would never have dared suggest trading Letang...until now, and honestly not because of how bad he was(since everyone else was equally as bad), because it doesn't make financial sense.
I believed more strongly in Bylsma AFTER we lost to Tampa and while we lost that series in a bad way, what caught up with the team was not his doing. He made that team play team defense for the first time I've seen in a dog's age. But where did that go?
I believed in Shero. I believed that Shero would make all the right acquisitions this year, and he did. I would never have dreamed of questioning how great of a GM he is....until now.
Yeah, I'm disappointed Bylsma will be extended. Yes, I'm disappointed at the positive Fleury rhetoric. I'm disappointed on the Letang rhetoric.
Why am I so disappointed and frustrated?
Because there doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency to fix what is wrong. I'm frustrated because Shero seems to believe that the kids are alright, everything is fine and nothing needs to be tweaked.
Honestly, I wouldn't feel so bad about the Penguins being eliminated in the Eastern Conference Finals. I think making it to the ECF is a great accomplishment. If this series was a hard-fought battle and it went six or seven games, I'd say fine, we made it pretty far and now it's time to regroup. But that didn't happen. We were swept, outplayed, out-coached and offensively neutered.
The Penguins are a joke right now. They are the punchline of many jokes and off-handed comments in the media. This quote bothered me the most even though it came from a website that is itself a joke. This is commentary about how the Bruins will have to adjust when they play the Hawks:
When a team defeats the Penguins the next series is tricky because the team grows accustomed to playing without backcheckers on them and get used to playing with space.
Do I care what people think? No. But what does this say? The Penguins are predictable and sadly this comment is 100% correct. I'm more angry that a moron hit the nail on the head and this wasn't someone like Mike Milbury just being a hater.
Let me be clear, I'm not looking for Shero to fire people and make trades for the sake of it. He doesn't even necessarily need to make any moves at all. But to say he's happy with how things are is what is worrisome.
Shero has given no indication that he thinks there are issue to be addressed. To think that everything is fine after not only getting swept, but only registering two goals in the ECF is my issue. This makes me question Shero's ability to be effective in building this team for success.