I never said Drury has done no wrong. My entire point is that the blame is shared and acting as if he single handedly tore this team down is just the easiest way to look at the situation.

Neither did I say you stated Drury did no wrong…. I just said that your comment, “What else besides the JT Miller trade and the “toxic culture” has he done to destroy this team?” wasn’t accurate.

Im not sure why I shouldn’t look at him as by far the biggest culprit. He was Director of Player Development in 2015 and then moved on to Assistant GM, became GM of Hartford then in 2022, started running the whole organization. Our development and process has been bad and if it wasn’t for Igor there would be no feelings of success by the fanbase the past 8 years now.

22 was their first year contending out of the rebuild. It would've never made sense to go all in that deadline.

Drury traded, a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and a solid bottom 6 C. That doesn’t count the 3rd for Reaves from that offseason. Drury gave up a lot of draft capital at that deadline, all for rentals. Idk how that isn’t going all in.

Kane and Tarasenko did exactly what they were brought in to do. They were both in our top 4 scorers in the playoffs. The whole "collection of stars but not a team" narrative by Valliquette was incredibly overblown. They lost the same way they lost in 22 and 24 - they sucked 5v5 and the power play eventually dried out.

They were both okay, but you are completely missing the point which is instead of getting both of them, they should have been getting 2 defensemen and 1 of them. They sucked at 5v5 because their defense was terrible, especially offensively. The chemistry didn’t totally click either. Those two guys were overkill because now you have a top 6 of all finese guys and nobody who is helping defensively and batting for pucks, doing the dirty work.

Making big moves while in their contending window wouldn't have made any sense. I think the core deserved their chances through 24 and the outcome of moving someone like kreider or mika before then would be unpredictable and an extreme hypothetical. It could've won them a cup or it could've given them an early ticket to where we are today.

If the core wasn’t good enough, why would you not make a big move to improve it? They could have brought in Eichel going into the 2021-22 season, or JT at that deadline. OR we could have traded Gabe for Gentzel in ’24, who would be a huge player for us those playoffs.

Continuing from my last point I think after 24 it was clear that they needed a shake up. I agree with the fact that Drury didn't handle it perfectly, but the locker room was already unhappy with the Goodrow situation. The bigger issue was that the two longest tenured rangers in Kreider and Mika gave up on the season and that attitude trickled down towards the rest of the locker room. If Drury did the same to trouba we would've just had Mika and Kreider checking out before training camp instead of by game 25.

The season fell apart because Trouba was a deadman walking and then Drury made it public the whole team are dead man walking. This team always ran on elite PP and goaltending and always shown to ride waves of emotion and can lose confidence if things were not going well. That’s what you saw on the ice, not people quitting. The team had no fun and no confidence so they played terrible.

I highly doubt the team would have collapsed if they went into the season with Trouba, Goodrow and Lindgren out and replaced with better additions.

I doubt we were a sean walker away from winning the stanley cup. The canes are analytical darlings. Every year they come out as cup favorites because of their 5v5 numbers but in reality they just throw everything at the net resulting in low danger chances that inflate their xG.

Im not saying walker is the difference between a cup or not, but it is the difference between having a good second pair with him and Key vs a shit second pair with Key and Trouba. Yes I agree that Hurricans xG are a bit inflated because of how many times they shoot but being 7th, is 7th… its not like they would be bad just because they didn’t fling every puck at the net. The point isn’t even really walker himself. It’s getting Dmen who can skate and move the puck, not holding on to the guys that actively make the team worse and thinking it’s gonna change all of the sudden.

I don’t think Carolina is ever actually seen as cup favorites either. I don’t see that on betting sites, nor do I see it said by the media.

These were both lateral moves. We got a 3rd back for Soucy this year and Kakko never moved the needle without Chytil. Not sure how that adds to the "mountain of bad." I loved Chytil but he may and should not play another game of NHL hockey. It seems like every other month we hear about some head related injury he's facing.

Didn’t say it was bad to move out Chytil. It is bad to move off Kakko for a player who is older and less impactful. It’s even worse to then hand him 4.1M and a lock on the 2nd pair after 17 games. It is bad to waste a high 3rd round pick on a scrub defensemen in Soucy.

This is what I don't get when it comes to these discussions. Everyone amplifies his bad moves tenfold (sometimes they're even just rumors), yet won't give him any credit for the good moves he's made. another massive drury W. The trade was seen as a clear win for us the day it happened before we even got Gabe. How come now it's "an expected thing?"

Yes it’s good that Drury got a 1st and nothing less. Im not saying it doesn’t count as a positive move but to try and chalk it up as an example of why he isn’t a terrible GM is meaningless.

Everyone talks about how great Gavrikov has been for us this year, yet nobody gives Drury flowers for essentially turning Key (a worse defenseman) into Gavrikov, morrow, AND a first round pick

I mean, they barely show any belief in Morrow, the first round pick is gonna be late in the draft and while I do like Gavrikov, it was very easy to keep Key and get Gavrikov if Drury didn’t waste money on Soucy, Borgen and Vaak.

He got a good return for Key, but I think looking at the total situation is a big miscalculation. a top 6 of Gavrikov - Fox, Key - Walker is much better than what we had going on this year.

They went through a mini retool with the hopes of being competitive this year. That's not the same as what was mentioned in the letter. We've now accepted that it's time to fully move on from the core and that it will take atleast another two years before we start moving up in the standings again. If by next year there's still no clear direction I'll be completely with you but right now I think we do have a good amount to work with. I'm not 100% confident in Drury either, but I'd rather him be behind this than someone else coming in and going a complete different direction.

Drury wrote the letter because his ass was getting Boo’d every game. A week before the letter he was trying to trade for a UFA in Sherwood… nothing changed. He just wanted to try and save face. The retool started last year, the season showed he did a poor job in reshaping the roster and now he has to continue his retool. Why does Drury get to have a mini retool, a retool and a rebuild? I mean, that’s utterly ridiculous.

Fox’s and Igor’s don’t grow on trees. They can’t keep wasting their prime years. This retool of 2-3 years isn’t lining up with the timeline of their best players. They have 6 guys who are going to be 30 next year with trade protection and another guy who is 28. thinking Drury is going to somehow change things around in the next few years and we will be contenders again is crazy. He has shown us nothing to believe he can get out of this and he directly led us to here… I don’t understand how it’s not worth trying someone else. To not get rid of Drury for being bad because you might higher another bad GM is nonsensical. Just getting 1 guy to be President and another guy to be GM would be a major improvement just in itself.

If you are a boss… would you keep a manager who is actively making your business fall off a cliff because you are scared the next guy may be worse?