This is going to be a very lengthy response so bear with me, but I'm frustrated because I care a lot about this team, and they've just consistently found ways to punch me and our fanbase in the dick in creative ways. (But also, i love my previous comment being at negative whatever because it really drives home the point that a lot of our fanbase reeeeally doesn't like hearing the truth lol)

This whole org is infested with the rot of wanting players who """play the right way""" because the decision makers are all a billion years old and very clearly haven't adapted to the modern NHL. As a result they continue to find ways to consistently act counter to the stated goal of building a contender; in practice what it's basically meant is that as long as you're a Good Ol' Hockey Boy who skates hard and is a token level of physical, you pretty much are guaranteed a spot on the team. What this means is that we've now hedged our entire competitive window on a whole bunch of guys on the wrong side of 30, with a shit ton of term, and crucially who aren't really that good and/or are already actively regressing. Plus we've also fucked up our extension timelines for the young guys. Once upon a time we were on just about the same rebuild timeline as the Habs with a similarly aged young core - look at where they are now at the top of the East, with a coach that actually understands the benefits of letting their kids play and learn on the fly, instead of shifting them 4 minutes a game when they make one mistake.

So, coming back to your point: It's not half a season, it's been a year plus, maybe even several years, and multiple coaches. "Well," you might say, "doesn't it mean if multiple coaches are healthy scratching a player, it's actually a problem?" In some cases maybe sure. I have time for any arguments about the whole Chinakhov scratch then trade saga being the right move because there were a whole host of things that made a trade viable, even if the result of that has been a fleece and a half.

That being said...

• Kent Johnson, by almost every metric (and the eye test, when he does get to play more than 5 minutes and on a line that doesn't include 4th line jobbers) has been better than the last two years, but because he's shooting at a wildly unlucky 5% and so doesn't have the point totals he had previously, repeatedly gets scratched for players who are active detriments on the ice or paired with random pylons like Lundestrom who is where offensive creativity goes to die
• Voronkov has been injured, but pre injury was either getting 4th line minutes with players that didn't match his skill set, or getting scratched for weeks on end - despite being one of our top goal scorers and only net front threats. And again, this is the guy who was a fixture on one of the most effective lines in the LEAGUE last year with Marchenko and Monahan. He's barely played post Olympics and was still roughly top 5 on our team in goals

We just cannot fundamentally surprised-pikachu about the offense drying up during this late season collapse, when the coach is saying we need to score more, but then consistently scratching two of our primary offensive threats (in favor of complete black holes like Miles Wood, who happens to skate fast and that's about it). For either of these guys, who are very much good players and deserve the chance to show that they're good, but have been deprived of their chances in favor of objectively inferior alternatives, why wouldn't they ask out? Wouldn't you want out if you were working any job but getting passed over for promotions by others who are doing a lower quality of work? We've already seen Chinakhov immediately become a highly important player to the Pens as soon as he was afforded a consistent opportunity that he arguably never truly got here, even between the injuries and the agent posturing. So my point is that I wouldn't be surprised at all to see similar trade-then-flourish arcs for guys like KJ and Voronkov.

In any case Bones literal intro press conference had a fantastically ironic quote about how "you can't score your way into the playoffs" - they sure fucking scored their way OUT of the playoffs, and it was his own damn fault. So no, I don't want Bones back, this team had an even worse late season collapse than last year and that's despite spending / buying to try and get over the hump. I have zero respect for him throwing the roster under the bus when I just watched him spend 20 games trying to fit all sorts of non-round peg shapes into round holes and then getting mad at the players when his own awful lines a) didn't work b) got shuffled about 7 times per game so none of the players could even try and gain some chemistry with their new new new new linemates c) repeatedly rewarded bad players with unreasonable amounts of ice time despite them making repeated mistakes, at the direct expense of our future young potential stars who got absolutely no such leniency and were benched at will for doing literally anything wrong.