Cats – Canes at the PNC ended up 3-2 in favour of the good guys with three goals in about 3:30 in the second period.
Panthers head coach Gerard Gallant gives his usual post-game presser and then after that bit of business is done is informed by the team that he and his assistant have been relieved of their duties and their current GM and former Canes assistant Tom Rowe is taking over behind the bench.
The cherry on the top of that sundae of suckage?
Apparently the team unloaded their luggage from the team bus that was about to take the Florida Panthers to the team plane at RDU for their quick flight to Chicago for tomorrow night’s game.
Tom Rowe used to live here…he knew the likelihood of them scoring a flight back to Miami or Ft Lauderdale from RDU at that time of night is NIL!
Clearly there were some big management disagreements behind the scenes in Sunrise but how Gallant and his assistant got the boot was just plain WRONG and completely LACKING IN ANYTHING CLOSE TO CLASS! Good luck replacing a Jack Adams finalist with anyone with any skill or self-respect knowing the stunt you pulled in Raleigh tonight.
Bad GM…NO BISCUIT! 🙁
Erik Williams
28 Nov 2016(In response to Sally who is a friend and probably most knowledgeable hockey fan I know pointing out that showing Tallon the door was a bad move…)
Well, the analytics they so love down in Sunrise say that Garth was totally correct when he identified the flavour of ice cream the current Cats management would be: pralines and … ! 🙁
That photo op is what convinces me that Rowe wasn’t just going for firing Gallant and his assistant…ensuring there was someone there to capture them getting into “Taxi Taxi” at PNC when neither of the Herald-Sun beat writers were on the trip was meant for maximum humiliation.
That’s some serious Mass**** nasty working there…that was definitely personal!
He won’t be out of work long…a guy who could take that team to an Atlantic title last year didn’t suddenly get stupid. Same goes for Dave Tallon…he only architected the Blackhawk’s recent return to relevance and Stanley Cup glory after Dollar Bill Wirtz did the best thing he could for the team by joining the choir invisible.
Nor do I think this will have the intended effect of lighting a fire under the players heineys…if anything, as well liked as he was in the room, this will likely have the opposite effect on their performance. They know full well performance wasn’t the reason…maintaining .500 hockey with the key injuries they’ve had and still being only two points out of wildcard is not a reason to fire the coaches.
Dumb. Just dumb, plain and simple.