Lost: Gift of Gab

I hadn't gotten around to writing about the Sabres game last week, yet. I was only able to watch the first period, and was fairly disgusted at watching the team fall behind 2-0 to a team with a large number of AHL'ers. I later read that Chimmer managed to make it 2-1 (on a penalty shot, no less), but that the team almost immediately gave up another goal, and it got worse from there.

Well, that was very disappointing, but I was still shocked to hear on the radio, this morning, that Boudreau was canned as coach, and that Dale Hunter had agreed to step in as head coach (and not as interim, apparently).

Despite the fact that I've thought, for quite a while, that Bruce wasn't the one to take the Caps to the promised land, I was still sad because he seems to be a great guy, and because he managed to make it fun to follow the Caps again. I do wish him all the best, going forward, and I think he'll be an even better coach down the road (for someone else, unfortunately) for his experience in Washington.

So, don't get too down, Bruce; I'm sure you'll have plenty of offers very soon with other teams.

I'm excited for the Caps, although I don't know what to make of Dale Hunter as the new head coach. I remember his playing days; he was never the best player on the team, but he was quite a good one. And he was certainly the heart and soul of the team towards the end of his tenure, here. If he can get the team to play the way he played, then they very well could go all the way; we'll see.

As a coach, I don't know too much about him. He's been coaching the London (Ont) Knights for quite a few years now, and has been very successful at that. I don't know how much difference the jump from OHL to NHL is, though I know it isn't small. Can he make the jump? I'm cautiously optimistic.

The good part is that he's coming in with a pretty loaded team. All he really needs to do is to get them to play as a team, and to play hard. The bad part is that there's plenty of ego in the room, and I hope they don't tune him out (ignoring his playing credentials, and not respecting his coaching ones). I don't think that'll happen, but it's certainly possible.

So we're in new territory, and we'll have to see how the team approaches that. First test (though a small one, for a variety of reasons) comes tomorrow night against St Louis (who have their own new coach).