| 12 January 2012
I'm a bit late to the party on the Scott Arniel firing- i've had absolutely no time to say anything when it happened because of school work. The Jackets have been miserable, yes. Something had to happen. And unfortunately for Scott Arniel, he was the scapegoat in all of this. The problem is firing Arniel isn't the solution here. Arniel did make some questionable decisions- like treating rookies like Ryan Johansen like Veterans and trying to hold them accountable for the team's struggles, rather than holding the underperforming veterans (i.e. Steve Mason) accountable. The Jackets aren't very lucky either- they lost their top Defenseman and Center for significant amounts of time and they've been a good possession team, indicating that they should be better than they are right now.
My problem with the Arniel firing is that he's getting canned for another man's incompetence- Scott Howson's. If anything, Howson should've been fired.
The Jackets aren't a good team for a reason- they have shitty goaltending. In the offseason, Scott Howson went and traded Jakub Voracek and the 8th overall pick (Sean Couturier) for Jeff Carter. He spend $33 million on James Wisnewski and his one good season (split between two teams). Yet he didn't bother to address the goaltending.
The Jackets were the third worst team in goal differential last season. One reason- Steve Mason. He's been the worst goaltender in the league for the last couple of seasons. He's the worst goalie in the league this year. Instead of letting him go, Howson's continued to show faith in his sievey goalie. Instead of trying to get a competent backup like JS Giguere, he went and signed Mark Dekanic (1 game of NHL experience) and Curtis Sanford, who hasn't been in the NHL for a few years. He's seen Mason sieve in goals repeatedly. He didn't address this problem and look at where the Jackets are now- last in the league largely in part to their league worst goal differential because they can't stop pucks. The Kings and Wild can't score goals, yet their goaltending has been more attuned to their offensive success.
However, turn the knife the other way. What if Howson was hoping that their offense would outperform their mediocre goaltending? It's a possibility- just look at the Leafs, Senators and to a lesser extent the Devils. Howson was hoping Carter and Nash would be a dominant scoring duo like Phil Kessel and Joffrey Lupul are for the Leafs. However, those teams have offensive depth. Columbus has the illusion of depth. RJ Umberger and Antoine Vermette are good, but they haven't been able to do their job. Kristian Huselius returning from injury helps, but they haven't gotten a consistent effort from their secondary scoring.
Their defense isn't great either. Marc Methot, Aaron Johnson and Grant Clitsome (heheh Clitsome) are regulars. James Wisnewski, who hasn't played a lot of games has been a black hole on possession and horrendous on defense. The other team scores more when Wiz is on the ice then when he's on the ice. This is why I suggested that they draft Ryan Murray instead of Nail Yakupov- having a good defense is half the battle. Having good goaltending is the other half of the defensive battle.
So basically lets recap- Howson grossly failed to assess the team's biggest problem- defense. He instead hoped that the Jackets would succeed because they'd be able to outscore their opponents by adding a defenseman who's had one good season and a 65 point center. Basically he was hoping that what's happening in Ottawa right now would happen with the Jackets. Unfortunately for him, it didn't exactly work out. Howson has the team competing for 1st overall rather than a playoff spot. Scott Arniel was in the wrong place at the wrong time- he didn't do a great job coaching, but he couldn't do much with the worst goalie in the NHL, two top 6 forwards on IR for most of the year, several players underachieving and a mediocre defense. Howson just thought throwing money around was the cure-all to the team's problems. He did just as much as Arniel did to screw this team up. Howson deserves to get fired just as much as Arniel did, if not more.
