The situation with Roberts is that financially he's one of the most sought after offseason guys in the game. Potentially *the* most sought after. Any contract offer made to him would have to reflect that in its significance. It's a bit like dealing with the TV guys. Any number of them could catch on as assistants somewhere, but the TV money is so good that the only offers that interest them are so high up the ladder that any owner would have to be *really* passionate about their upside to hire them. See also the Pierre rumors to GM spots in St. Louis and Toronto. Roberts is a conditioning rock star right now and with that clout he can demand to walk right into power should some GM be unfortunate to confuse his ability to work with athletes as a viable and sole important head coaching attribute.
But my question is why go that route? Why try to play American Idol again with our head coaching spot? Aren't we in enough trouble already? Kirk was a pretty hot name when we courted him as well but as time went on it became pretty obvious he knew nothing about some of the important aspects of game management, line management, tactical adjustments, player roles, etc. In other words, he talked himself into consideration for a job that he didn't know how to do. What's different about this?
Do we need to sacrifice another head coach on the altar of "learning on the job", while making obvious mistakes? Can we, for once, get a coach that has already *made* those mistakes somewhere? We broke in Maurice. We broke in Kirk. How far back does it go that Laviolette was the only coach with experience we've hired? Holmgren was briefly an assistant with the Flyers before becoming the Whalers head man. Pierre.... we won't even get into that one. Rick Ley. Jim Roberts. Is the most recent hire we've made that actually coached an NHL club (with a five year break between jobs) was Jack Evans in 1983? Is this real life?