It is a good move by our GM, and it seems like some of this was probably talked through with Brooks before he was even traded. It's sort of shrewd I suppose, and still required Colorado to buy him out. But that was basically a no brainer that it would happen.
I think both parties realized that his fit is perfect here, in a bottom six role mentoring youth coming up. Especially since we drafted a bigger player in the draft this year whose style would be similar to Brooks (although better skater). Get those people learning when not to pinch, when to drop the man, penalty killing etc. It's honestly one of the only reasons I'm kind of very fine with Reirden taking over as Head Coach. Yes as a motivator with experience, I think Trotz was very effective. But I also think, Reirden was in control of this teams entire defense. Penalty killing. And Lambert/Forsythe have been tweaking the only genius we ever got out of Adam Oates, which was a restructured power play set up for years.
If the issue of this team was psyche, watching the group collective come together during the last playoff run was the evidence I needed to believe that this team is above needing an extra head coach just to keep their heads in the game. At least more than what is already provided. I also think Reirdens entire familiarity with our defensive core is a big plus. He worked with Niskanen and Orpik on the Penguins for seasons before they came over here, and he got great work out of Kempny and Carlson too. Looking at our improvements and reasons why we won, yes goaltending and bounces and all the usual jazz. But our defense was much improved from even the Dale Hunter days, much less the days of 2009.
Brooks is getting up there in age though, but I just don't see his playstyle being as such that it should have too much of a effect on him. Even still we can sit him some of the regular season anyways to get the young guys seasoning as they still get his wisdom/experience in camp and when he plays. If the idea is to have Brooks play drill sergeant to an increasing group of D who at some point we need to see taking strides, then I'm totally okay with that.
