Time will tell if this is the right appointment or not, but there are several reasons to be excited.
In the short time he was in charge last season he changed our style of play, and it was successful. I watched back the Playoff Final a couple of days later back in full and was impressed with our style of play. In previous games v Belfast I felt we always rode our luck a bit. Soaking up pressure and then trying to hit them on the break.
In the PO Final though we more than held our own. Arguably more so than in the previous PO Final. We had long spells of domination in the Ozone which we hadn't been doing earlier in the year. As mentioned in the videos, it's going to be a return to the style of hockey we got used to under Lord.
It's not a complete restart again. I was willing to give Skalde a year and a bit to settle in and get used to the players and league, so when he was released I was worried we'd be back to square 1 again. As Todd points out in the video signing Dupont means we are not back to square one. Whether as Interim Head Coach or Assistant Coach he was on the bench for most of last season. It sounds like we might be re-signing more players than we were expecting, but I think we all had a couple of maybes on our list who under a new coach and new style of play can move themselves into the must keep category.
But the key point which encourages me the most is the influence of Franny in this situation. From memory the appointment of Lord was mostly down to him. He had seen what Lord had been like in his preparation as a player and believed it would translate into coaching too.
With Skalde, for all the interviews in the world you can't find out what someone is like until they actually get into the locker room. But Franny will have seen first hand what Dupont is like. From being a player, to Asst Coach to Head Coach. And if Franny is confident in his ability I'm very excited for the coming season.