Interesting stuff from Don Waddell.

I'm not on the Fire Waddell bandwagon this season. There have been times in the past that I have flirted with it, not because of his inability to re-sign players like Savard or Hossa, and not really because of his drafting, but because of his signings and free agent acquisitions (and the inclusion of Dupuis on the Hossa deal instead of Perrin - ugh). There have been seasons where he has just iced an awful team, and there are seasons like last year where he iced what looked like a good team on paper, but for various reasons his best efforts fell flat (cranky elderly, people who couldn't play in Anderson's system, Jason Williams).

This season is frustrating because Waddell has put together a really, really strong team that should have maintained a playoff position. The defense is the best as it's been in the franchise history, the signing of Afinogenov was just damn smart, Antropov is solid, Kubina for XLB was swell... I can't think of anything he's done that has frustrated me. I'm still thrilled with the Bergfors and Oduya acquisitions, and glad that he didn't cave to Kovalchuk. I like our squad this year for the most part. The disappointments of White and Kozlov were unforeseeable given how they played last season.

Waddell chats with Chris Vivlamore of the AJC today regarding personnel, his outlook on playoffs, and his job evaluation. If he could keep his job through some of his past teams, Wadddell's safe. Vivlamore does ask about a coaching change, but it's too late for it to be effective this season. Honestly, it would do absolutely no good and serve no purpose this late in the year. Offseason wise, though, Anderson will be looked at just like everyone else on the team.

Vivlamore makes a good point about how we can only put together losing streaks of epic proportions, and not winning streaks. Consistency has been a major problem for this season. As a fan, I appreciate Waddell's forwardness in answering the questions (no "John Anderson is an important part of this organization moving forward" kind of answers). The season's not over yet, but apparently a lot remains to be seen.