Inflexibility
When Lalonde first came on the scene, it was a refreshing change of pace from the previous head coach, Jeff Blashill. I remember the Blashill Blender coming out more often than not, and sighing.
“Why does he have to keep changing things up? How can anyone build chemistry with anyone?”
In Blashill’s defense, his options were a smaller pool and plenty of injuries reduced the pool even further.
After the first third, or so, of the season, Lalonde began aggregating me with his lack of changing up the goaltenders.
Of course, hindsight is 20/20 but even as I actively watched his choice to continue with he tandem of Ville Husso and James Reimer, I kept questioning: why can’t Alex Lyon have a start?
This opportunity to play Lyon sooner is just one example of Lalonde’s stick with it attitude, which is to the detriment of the team at times.
Maybe Lyon would have faded earlier in the season, but who knows? He could have helped alleviate some pressure from Husso and Reimer. We won’t ever know and I hate saying things like that, especially with how often I said them with Lalonde last season.
I’m not sure of the reasoning to wait to put Lyon in net, but I can say it didn’t help Lalonde’s case in my book of good head coaches.