Good luck to Dupont, we can debate the positives & negatives all summer, as Finny said time will tell as he’s not coached yet so we’ve got nothing to go by. Yes he was “the coach” in the Playoffs, not without a few issues though, he’s got a long way to go yet. He’s certainly cut from the same cloth as Lord, says everything fans want to hear, which is great if that’s backed up on the ice. My fear is though you need the same quality of recruitment afforded to Lord, you need many factors to come together in order to win, quality starts at budget, recruiting the best you can afford, etc etc all the way to producing a Devils team ethos. If players can only turn up for a few games following a rousing changing room speech, then you’ve got problems. I don’t buy the Skalde lacked locker room presence as the reasons we didn’t turn up most games, Skalde has a proven track record at a high level of coaching, for me it was basically missing the number one & two in my previous comment, budget & recruiting the best you can afford. Skalde brought in a radical change in net minding policy, my feeling is he knew he’d need strong netminders to carrying the lack of scoring and inconsistent defence. If we are keeping the majority and bringing in only 6 new guys, it’ll be an interesting rebuild season, fingers crossed Dupont can pull it off, l certainly don’t want to be proven right if it means the Devils get worse than the dire season we’ve just had.