Barry Melrose appeared on Ron MacLean’s Hockey Night in Canada and tried to explain his dismissal from the Lightning. I’ve posted to video below and I encourage you to watch it and see if you find it as entertaining as I do. Thanks to Puck Daddy by the way for the heads up on this. Melrose sounds very bitter, as he should be, and blames the players by insinuating that they had to have gone to ownership and complain about him and that’s why he was “dismissed”. No shit, huh Barry? It seems that Mr. Melrose still doesn’t understand that you have to build relationships with players in order to succeed. Now let’s think about this, if things were so bad that the players had to seek out ownership to voice their displeasure with you after 16 games, you were not only NOT building relationships, you were alienating these guys. You did things so poorly that you had a revolt before you finished unpacking. There’s a lot to be said about that. This also screams poor management from the top as Oren Koules and company have created a circus in the Forum that may or may not continue. The first obvious mistake was bringing in Melrose without speaking to the players about it. Now I’m not saying every owner needs to consult with all their players regarding coaching decisions, but it’s wise to at least get a thumbs up from your stars like Vinny and Marty before forcing someone like Melrose, who hadn’t coached in 13 plus years, down their throats. It was ignorant on so many levels that it’s just funny. Let’s see, you remove a Stanley Cup winning coach who carried respect in the locker room in favor of a Hockey Analyst turned coach, nice. In doing this they traded away Dan Boyle, who also carried respect in the locker room, for a guy who you turn around and trade 12 games into his Lightning career. Ownership also GM Jay Feaster in favor of Brian Lawton and that looks to be a mistake as well. Things may not be done getting ugly, but at least the delusional Melrose is finally off the bench and can’t continue his nonsense. So long Mullet, maybe the four letter network will have you back.

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