Magic man MacLean
The next neck on the NHL's chopping block may be that of Columbus Blue Jackets' general manager Doug MacLean. The Blue Jackets are conducting their own organizational review this coming week and MacLean may be asked to explain how it is that the other three recent expansion teams have all made the post-season at least once now, but his team has never come within 19 points of a playoff berth.
I'd like to be a fly on the wall for that explanation, as I imagine it'd be akin to Jeremy Roenick's musings on why a team should sign him next season.
If MacLean doesn't get punted out of there — quickly — the Columbus franchise is in a heap of trouble. (More so than they already are.)
Labels: Blue Jackets
by James Mirtle @ 6:41 PM
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WOW, how art the mighty fallen (II Samuel 1:25). Only a few years ago, it was "Doug MacLean's a genius," "Doug MacLean's a god," "Columbus is guaranteed to go to the finals within their first five years."
Seems to me like some of this criticism of MacLean is a lot like the criticism received by Brian Burke in Vancouver. There's little debate that the drafting has been good, and as far as that goes the team hasn't been overly bad at giving the young players some support. You can criticize his decisions to an extent, but ultimately the real knock against him is that he is a "dead duck" GM... he hasn't made changed where they should be, instead preferring to hope that players who should ideally be lighting up the lamp will start despite years' evidence in the contrary.
If MacLean follows in Burke's footsteps, mind you, we will see him GMing a Stanley Cup contender soon enough. Not saying that neither one should have been fired... just that sometimes it's necessary to change scenes before a man's real potential can emerge.
Here's a video of Roenick making one of his pitches on TSN.
http://vignetted.blogspot.com/2007/04/hell-make-gretzkys-head-bleed.html
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