wait I'm not DONE. Saying "for the past four years we've worked on development" and that people have been given leeway and chances in that time and now "that's over" and they need to "earn their ice time"— UMMMM!!
You have not been head coach for four years. You were assistant coach for two and head coach for two. Don't act like you were in charge of development for four years and you've been soooooo patient when in reality you've been rushing shit since day one.
The bulk of your young core have been with you less than 1-2 years. You might have worked on development with the team in some capacity for 4 years, but it's unproductive and unfair to project that impatience on players who just got here. Players need more time to develop than that. On average it takes 3-5 years, actually. Stop shortcutting their growth so you can bask in the accolades of getting a team to a playoffs run they have no business being in.
For that matter, development requires ice time. Yes, even when they flail. Learning means letting them make mistakes and adjust without being immediately yanked off the play. You have to show trust in them so they start trusting their own game and understand which calculated risks to commit to.
Speaking of players who have been given leeway. Players that have been given chance after chance. Let's talk about the vets. And your apparent inability to see their role in puck mismanagement, sloppy turnovers, and unnecessary penalties. Because they play the kind of hockey you respect and understand more (hard! physical! grinding! heterosexual!!!!), you've decided you don't need to address their issues. They're vets! They've earned it by [checks notepad] losing so many games the Sharks won the lottery. Surely your lack of accountability with them could never lead to laziness or bad habits.
And finally: your obsessive need to turn every creative, playmaking forward into a defensively minded board battler. You were a d-man, which of course means every part of your team has to play good tough defense, especially the ones that score flashy beautiful goals and dish sneaky impossible assists. Make sure the slimmer players are so focused on puck retrieval and blocking shots that they barely have any time to play hockey their way. It's your team, after all. What are they complaining about?
