Why is this such a surprise? Barry Melrose should never have been hired in the first place. He pretty much said exactly that in his recent interviews by saying he could not motivate this new generation of players.
It's not like he had a team of rookies looking for direction and a pep talk after every shift! Lecavalier, St Louis, Prospal, Roberts, Recchi, Gratton... This is a nice group of veterans to work with. Is motivation really what is missing with those guys?? Wouldn't it be a system that works? a coach that spends the time studying his opponents' schemes, find the right matchups and gets his team the tools and preparation they need to win night in and night out.
I do not have inside information here but it looks to me like Melrose did not put in the time needed to getback in a game he left more than a decade ago. Things have changed and the TV star couldn't adapt: Talking a nice rap (basically all you need to do sports TV) will not go well with professional athletes. Don't you think the Lightning's players wont see through the empty words of that guy??? I would tune him out pretty damn quickly.
And don't even get me started about 1993! The one real accomplishment on melrose's resume... Did he really do that great of a job in 1993? Wasn’t he really assistant coach to player/coach Gretzky? And let’s not forget the makeup of that team: Kurri, Robitaille, Granato, Sandstrom, Dave Taylor, Tim Watters, Huddy, McSorley, Mark Hardy…. This is no talentless group of youngsters that had to be picked up and carried through. This is a veteran core that probably allowed the coach to take it easy a bunch of days.
Melrose is a chump.
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