Its a bizarre thing after what happened in Tampa and him taking a step back.
Was he demoted in Tampa Bay and just proclaimed it was his idea?
Is this just a goodwill PR move in Detroit and he has no plans to work the day to day management and he will just be a figurehead until the rebuild sees results. He should ask Trevor Linden how that worked out for him.
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Speaking TB, while Sports Pundits rake over its corpse and forget they played another team one must consider a lot of factors.
1) Its well not the Regular Season is not the Playoffs. This comes up a lot in the analysis.
Most of the emphasis on this statement focusses on the level of intensity that comes with the playoffs. This is true, and most of the talking heads are talking about how TB expected the CBJ to fold over like it was the regular season once they were up 3-0 in the first. CBJ famously did not do that.
The other part of this fact is something they don't seem to talk about: a series is a lot different from the regular season. Mainly, in regards to scouting. There's a lot personally at stake for the players and financially for the owners in the playoffs, so this is where coaching management really do their work. They study their opponents and look for tendencies and weaknesses.
With Tampa Bay being at the top of the heap and CBJ squeaking into the playoffs by the skin of their teeth Columbus knew they were going to play one team and one team only. I seen this in the 1988-89 Canucks when Bob McCammon played them all year to meet the Flames in the first round. They were the only team to take them to 7 games before the Flames went on to win the cup (I was surprised this was referenced the other day when the commentator mentioned "Pavel Bure's" breakaway on Mike Vernon that Vernon stopped. It was, in fact, Stan Smyl.)
In other words, Tampa was coasting into the playoffs as one person put it.
2) To put it another way, CBJ were pressing to get in where Tampa clinched at around 66 games.
This seems contradicted by the Lightning's continuing effort to win through the stretch.
But this makes some sense if you consider the curse of the President's Cup.
3) There is some truth that being the league's number 1 team in the regular season can be a detriment but not for superstitious reasons.
The constant need to win in the moment can expend needed energy that should be saved for the playoffs. No better example is the 1981-82 Oilers where they lead the league in points and Gretzky got his 92 goals, the first 50 in the first 39 games. The Islanders knew better and went on to win the cup. Gretzky asked management after that to shore up their defense and you could actually see the Oil coast in the regular season during that last stretch after that. But this was in a league with 21 teams where 16 of them made the playoffs. That lack of effort at the end has seen teams get knocked out in the 31 team league.