Earning ice time I would agree seems a universal concept. My perception of UNH however is more of "loyalty" ice time. It seems hard to play yourself out of a role if an upper class men or into a role if you aren't. It also has seemed more a practice based decision instead of an in game adjustment.
I'm pretty sure we'd all agree what you've outlined above was a characteristic of Umile-coached teams, the "loyalty to the juniors and seniors" piece of it anyway, which only seemed to get more pronounced in Umile's later seasons, sometimes leading to decisions that frankly hurt the program short AND long-term. After all, who can forget the infamous "senior first checking line" concept while Foegele became disenchanted, and other lesser examples. MS7 seems to have distanced himself from overplaying mediocre older kids, and embraced giving younger deserving kids with potential more ice time. Unfortunately, the younger kids he's recruiting, there's not the same depth OR talent as the guys who played for Umile.
But I think your post here really hit paydirt in raising the whole "in game adjustments" angle, which was hung around Umile's neck for almost as long as I can remember, even back to his early days at Snively. How often in a big game, when something might not be working, or something that had been working was neutralized by the opposing coach's own adjustment(s), and you just looked at the UNH bench to see some signs that critical thinking was taking place. Umile was regularly criticized for not using his timeouts more strategically, if ever. And that's not a huge in-game adjustment in and of itself. Maybe stuff was discussed at practices, maybe in between periods, but in game stuff you could see guys like Parker, Walshy and York doing, just never seemed to be happening along the UNH bench during live game action.
As noted above, I think we can see MS7 has done some things differently than his own former coach, but it's hard to see the fruit of his in-game decisions panning out when he's starting from a position of weakness in the overall talent department.
There's a saying I encountered over a decade ago in soccer coaching, which goes "you can't have tactics without technique" which of course is another oversimplification IMO, but the point is, a player's technique (talent) must be optimized if you're going to hope to get maximum effect from your tactics. D'oh, right? But what I've always taken out of that is, you can only go so far with tactics and strategy if you don't have the talented players to implement it to max effectiveness. What you can do is, you can start "coaching up" a fairly average talent pool, get them playing over their heads, maybe get your program a notch or two above where the talent dictates it should otherwise be ... then flip that into a slightly better foundation for your next recruiting class, coach them up another level, lather, rinse, repeat a few seasons, and over time your program builds momentum, you develop a reputation as a teacher and developer, which leads better recruits to your doorstep, and you go from where UNH is now, to where UNH used to be. Gradually but in a positive direction. We should be seeing that by now.
But we haven't, now, have we? So we are stuck where we are, and the reality is, unless MS7 and his staff start to excel in at least one area (and probably multiple areas), it's not likely to change. Can they recruit quality talent in depth? Can they instruct and develop that talent for the next stages of their hockey careers? Can they make effective in-game adjustments that could make the difference in turning 2-3 losses into wins over the course of a season? After 3 full seasons as HC, and 6 seasons of being actively involved in recruiting, here are my grades:
Recruiting Talent in Depth? For 3 years, I'd give MS7 a C- but for his full 6 years, I'd give him a D
Instruct & Develop Talent? For 3 years, MS7 gets an Incomplete, but for 6 years, I'd give him a D+
In-Game Adjustments? For 3 years, I'd give MS7 a C, for the other 3 years, he wasn't in charge
If MS7 can find a way to step up his recruiting game, it makes everything else easier. Gildon could be in the NHL within the next year or two, and we'll see if Crookshank gets to Ottawa or not. Those developments could mean more to MS7's rep as a developer of talent, than whatever Umile and/or Borek got for having JvR and TvR land in their laps (in fairness, someone should get some credit for TvR, he was far from the finished product at UNH, and ditto Brett Pesce). And as UNH plays more important games against better programs, we'll finally get a sense of how MS7 stacks up on in-game adjustments.
