Right. Pommers may not be the guy the room needs either. We always criticized the guy back when he was part of the old core for his white bread demeanor. But at least he can still play.
I'm more worried that, as I've posited before, we lost two years of development under Bylsma. I think Jack desperately needs to be coached. But he has to buy in to what the coach is selling (as does the rest of the team).
Good veteran influence might help too. I'd like to see Pommers stay on Jack's line because Pommers is more of a vet influence than Moulson or Gionta. Maybe still not enough though. This is the tough part about having a completely gutted team with no well respected veteran Sabres on it. There's no one there to say "I won on this team and this is how we do things around here".
I mean, I think I get what Jack was doing there, which is expecting his D to make a play on a quick shot from Williams. Williams dipsy-doodling was a little surprising to me but I think that's because Beulieu kinda blew that coverage. Eichel is in the right spot if the idea is that he's supposed to trust his defenders and goalie to handle the initial opportunity and then he can drop in and help them cover up any second chances. But that never happened.
This gets to a bigger problem of the tank though, which is that we completely gutted this team of anyone who commanded any respect in the locker room. Sure, give it to Ennis or Foligno or something. It probably wouldn't have mattered that much, but bringing a washed up free agent in to wear the C was the wrong move.