I don't see how there's really any other conclusion to draw. We're 41 games into Martin coaching this team - a good amount of time to evaluate - and we're right around the same record. Some things are a little bit better, some things are a little bit worse. Generally speaking, mostly the same.
This is not an exoneration of DJ. I've said since the beginning of this season that this team had confidence problems and a new voice in the locker room, early on in the season, was the potential recipe to turn things around. But there's just no way to look at what's happened and to continue hearing people say that the biggest problem this team had was coaching. If that's the conclusion people are still drawing, then the guy that replaced him with nearly identical results would logically also currently be the biggest problem.
There are some issues comparing coaching,
DJ coached at a time when the team was legitimately in the race, and games mattered, while Martin came in when the season was "done" and saw players get traded off at the deadline. It's a lot harder to stay motivated in the later situation, imo.
While I do think there were longstanding issues that DJ was not able to address, he takes far more heat than deserved. He's not by any means a top end coach, there are better candidates out there and I've been a proponent of moving on from him since before the start of last season, but the claims of no system and terrible coach are really just scapegoating when expectations aren't met.
That said, I do think there have been signigicant igns of improvment uder Jacques after a slow start. Our underlying numbers have all improved in the last 30 games (even with those last two outings...). The one thing that hasn't improved is team sv%.
these are 5v5 numbers from 12 Jan to present, CF, CA, CF%, FF, FA, FF%, xGF, xGA, xGF%, SCF, SCA, SCF%, HDCF, HDCA, and HDCF% are all top 10 in the league for that period. Sv% is 2nd last, and sh% is 7th last.
Coach | GP | TOI | W | L | OTL | ROW | Points | Point % | CF | CA | CF% | GF | GA | GF% | xGF | xGA | xGF% | SCF | SCA | SCF% | HDCF | HDCA | HDCF% | SH% | SV% |
Jacques Martin | 30 | 1833.13 | 14 | 12 | 4 | 12 | 32 | 0.533 | 64.83 | 58.49 | 52.57 | 2.91 | 3.37 | 46.35 | 3.31 | 2.66 | 55.43 | 31.25 | 26.47 | 54.14 | 12.79 | 10.34 | 55.3 | 9.15 | 87.81 |