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"[ @PredsNHL General Manager David] Poile, [who has been a GM in the @NHL for more than 30 years without ever winning the #StanleyCup 
,] the architect of a perennially underachieving team in the playoffs, has lost the benefit of the doubt."
Preach: https://twitter.com/adamvingan/status/1291879920344412160
,] the architect of a perennially underachieving team in the playoffs, has lost the benefit of the doubt."Preach: https://twitter.com/adamvingan/status/1291879920344412160
In addition to roster changes, I propose cleaning house on the scouts. They occasionally find an offensive diamond in the rough—think late draft picks like Patric Hornqvist (7th rd.) and Viktor Arvidsson (4th rd.)—but the #Preds 
don't need more diminutive puck-moving defensemen.
don't need more diminutive puck-moving defensemen.
Until the @PredsNHL organization can have a real, adult conversation about accountability on the ice—and everyone from the owners to the scouts are responsible for that—they will continue to descend back into the bottom of the standings.
The one thing I definitely wouldn't change is John Hynes. His record as a developmental coach speaks for itself. Check out his win-loss record in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and @usahockey's development arc when he has been involved.
He may not be the right coach for this aging roster and their ingrained bad habits. But he's the guy I want working with Rem Pitlick, Philip Tomasino, Eeli Tolvanen, Alexandre Carrier, Alex Lafrenière (wait, what?), etc. and turning them into stars they've been projected to be.
As @AdamVingan and several others have noted, not only is it not fair to transpose Hynes's coaching record in New Jersey onto a new franchise with completely different and vastly more talented personnel, but barely 1/3 of a season is too small a sample to judge.
Which brings me back to David Poile. Nobody in the league offers a bigger sample of not winning championships in the @NHL. He has been the @PredsNHL GM for now most of his career. He's got 6 years on the next-longest-tenured GM in the league (Doug Wilson in San Jose).
Coincidentally, San Jose has also never won a #StanleyCup . The next, Bob Murray hasn't won a Cup with Anaheim (they won the year before he took over). And the next, Stan Bowman, won three in very short order after taking over in Chicago. Accountability matters.
. The next, Bob Murray hasn't won a Cup with Anaheim (they won the year before he took over). And the next, Stan Bowman, won three in very short order after taking over in Chicago. Accountability matters.
100,000 people aren't going to show up in the streets of downtown Nashville, clamoring to get into @NSHLockerRoom to get some gold swag if the team isn't winning. We Day 1 diehards will always be there. But we can't carry this @PredsNHL payroll by ourselves.
Someone—anyone—at 501 Broadway must be willing to step up and say "no more, this isn't good enough." But nobody will because nobody wants to rock the boat. Everyone is too soft and nice and touchy-feely. It translates to the product on the ice, and other teams know it.
Or, we can try to sap as many merch, concessions, gate, and ad revenues as possible, and in 5 years, have ourselves another Jim Balsillie/Boots Del Biaggio fiasco because the @PredsNHL can't draw crowds. Personally, I lived through that already and don't care to again.
Yes, I'm really frustrated on the day the @PredsNHL has been sent packing from the Edmonton bubble by a team that, if you can imagine it, struggled worse than they did in the regular season. No, this probably won't be the last time I say something about it.
But if you've been following me for any length of time, you know that I'm not saying anything new here about the abject cultural rot at the @PredsNHL HQ. If I didn't care, I wouldn't complain. Now I'm going to go eat dinner. Y'all discuss amongst yourselves.
Okay, I'm back for a second. Let me be absolutely clear that I appreciate everything David Poile has done for Nashville. I love the sport of hockey. I was living in Massachusetts when someone told me Nashville had won an expansion franchise. I thought they were pulling my leg.
Craig Leipold really handed Poile a short straw in 2007 with the sale of the team and fire sale of the roster, just when the team was first becoming competitive. I don't know that the @PredsNHL would've weathered that storm without Poile.
Rather, what I'm saying is that this franchise can't exist on weathering storms. It needs leadership with the chops to take the next step. Poile's body of work speaks for itself; he just doesn't have it. Never has, and won't magically develop it before he finally retires.
