When does Therrien get fired?

[habs rule]

For Crawford, he's likely hoping he can take credit for a strong PP or something to move into another job.

I really like Jacques Martin in Pittsburgh and Kirk Muller in St. Louis though. Same with the Walrus in Anaheim. Guys with flaws as head coach but still have tons to offer on a coaching staff. I think it'd be great for Therrien to have an associate coach who has head coach experience but in Montreal, people might assume he's there just to one day replace Therrien.

Muller would be a great addition. I highly doubt he is interested.

[Guest Stogey24]

For Crawford, he's likely hoping he can take credit for a strong PP or something to move into another job.

I really like Jacques Martin in Pittsburgh and Kirk Muller in St. Louis though. Same with the Walrus in Anaheim. Guys with flaws as head coach but still have tons to offer on a coaching staff. I think it'd be great for Therrien to have an associate coach who has head coach experience but in Montreal, people might assume he's there just to one day replace Therrien.

Apparently Therrien made alot of phone calls to Demers for advice.

[Commandant]

Muller would be a great addition. I highly doubt he is interested.

Muller is an assistant in St. Louis, can't see them allowing him to leave for the same job with another team.

Teams usually only let a guy leave if he's getting a promotion.

[DON]

For Crawford, he's likely hoping he can take credit for a strong PP or something to move into another job.

I really like Jacques Martin in Pittsburgh and Kirk Muller in St. Louis though. Same with the Walrus in Anaheim. Guys with flaws as head coach but still have tons to offer on a coaching staff. I think it'd be great for Therrien to have an associate coach who has head coach experience but in Montreal, people might assume he's there just to one day replace Therrien.

A team East of Ottawa, Crawford may jump from A-coach to head coach for perhaps, if said team slumped or had extended losing streak next season

[Davehab]

11 April 2016 - 08:42 PM

Well it looks like we are stuck with another year of Le Genius.....I wonder if Guy Boucher would come on as an assistant...

before this vote of confidence I was actually daydreaming about hiring Crawford and Boucher as a coaching tandem. Crawford getting the head and Boucher the ass...

but really, it wasn't that kind of dream, get your head out of the gutter

seriously I thought it would be a great Tandem

This is a post I made regarding the hiring of both Boucher and Crawford last month.....le sigh

If Ottawa wins a cup with these guys at the helm I will expect payment for copy-write infringement...... or some such thing,

ether way.... what the MB you could have made this happen. but you didn't.

[Commandant]

ether way.... what the ###### MB you could have made this happen. but you didn't.

Yes, what the MB? You could have had 2 crappy coaches, but instead choose to keep one.

[KoRP]

*Yawn*

[Davehab]

Yes, what the ###### MB? You could have had 2 crappy coaches, but instead choose to keep one.

Do you honestly think Therrien can out coach even one of those guys?

MT has been treading water for a while now, we missed an opportunity to make a positive change.

[habs rule]

Apparently Therrien made alot of phone calls to Demers for advice.

Geez that worked out good. Was Demers awake? Did He actually answer the phone? Or was this one of those psychic episodes?

[Commandant]

I honestly think that there are about 3 or 4 coaches in the nhl who stand above the rest.

There are probably 1-2 who are awful and hurt their team

The others are largely interchangeable and make little difference in their teams success or failure cause they are pretty evenly matched.

Therrien and crawford are part of the large mass of indistinguishable coaches.

Boucher has yet to prove hes even at that level. His time in tampa features one good season where they won a crazy percentage of 1 goal games and had a crazy shooting percentage. His next two years saw that shooting percentage and percentage of one goal games won go back to normal levels and his shitty 1-3-1 system was suddenly getting dominated in possession and the team fell to the bottom of the league.

He was not hired again for 3 years and went to switzerland where his teams largely failed to live up to expectations

There is nothing so far in bouchers track record that makes him a better coach than therrien. Nothing on that resume.

[Machine of Loving Grace]

NHL coaching is like early 90s goaltending. If you don't have Roy, Belfour, or Joseph you're going to be likely settling with a Bob Essensa, Kirk McLean, Kelly Hrudey or Tim Cheveldae. And you're going to have to grin and bear it.

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

I like Crawford. Him at least you can make a case for being as good or better than Therrien, based on his c.v.. The pro-Boucher argument is sheer fantasy, and exemplifies my belief that many of the Therrien haters are not comparing him to actual human beings but rather to some idealized archetype of the Perfect Coach. Such people always think that a guy who has a minimal track record is by definition better than Therrien, because they are able to read whatever qualities they want onto that guy. In 2-3 years we will have a lot more information about what Boucher does or does not bring to the table, but his career thus far gives ZERO reason for thinking him better than Therrien. Zero.

In the bigger picture, I agree 100% with the arguments of Commandant and Machine above. There are outliers of coaching excellence and coaching badness, and then there is the huge mass of interchangeably competent pro coaches, of which MT is one.

Therrien has one SC Final, two Conference Finals, four second-round appearances, and - except for his abortion in Pittsburgh in '08-09, which he clearly learned from - a track record of getting results commensurate with what his team's talent level would lead one to expect. The fuming hatred just is overblown. It's ridiculous.

[Guest Stogey24]

Well who does Bergevin turn to if this team continues their shit performance into next year? Better not be Hartley.

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

Well who does Bergevin turn to if this team continues their shit performance into next year? Better not be Hartley.

Of the guys currently available - not counting unknowns - Hartley seems to be the only credible bilingual option.

[illWill]

There is nothing so far in bouchers track record that makes him a better coach than therrien. Nothing on that resume.

He has that bad ass scar on his face which demands respect. Other than that, nothing.

[DON]

Pascal Vincent was said to be a possible option?

[BCHabnut]

Well who does Bergevin turn to if this team continues their shit performance into next year? Better not be Hartley.

Or Crawford. He's an assistant

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

Can you hire other teams' assistants mid-season? If so, then yes, Crawford remains an option - assuming Ottawa lets him walk to their closest rival. That he has that weird label of Associate Head Coach may complicate things, since Ottawa can argue that moving over to MTL would actually be a 'lateral' move, in order to justify holding him to his contract.

I don't know which other bilingual assistant coaches are out there in the league at present. (Alas that Muller never learned French; he'd be an interesting if questionable choice, despite his lack of success in Carolina). I do know that I don't want some untested NHL rookie coach, not given where this particular team is at in terms of its growth cycle.

[Machine of Loving Grace]

Well who does Bergevin turn to if this team continues their shit performance into next year? Better not be Hartley.

Hartley, Martin, Crawford, Jodoin, Kevin Dineen (born in Quebec, raised in Toronto, heard he speaks French, no idea if for sure), Claude Noel, Pascal Vincent, Benoit Groulx, Dominique Ducharme, Andre Tourigy, Vyacheslav Bykov (speaks English, Russian and French), possibility that Vigneault and Julien are unemployed next summer.

I like the idea of not going with a veteran coach this time and going with a Groulx or a Vincent or even a Bykov. Otherwise I still think Crawford would be the best pick.

[Trizzak]

I honestly think that there are about 3 or 4 coaches in the nhl who stand above the rest.

There are probably 1-2 who are awful and hurt their team

The others are largely interchangeable and make little difference in their teams success or failure cause they are pretty evenly matched.

Therrien and crawford are part of the large mass of indistinguishable coaches.

I find it a little odd to look at a bunch of individuals as just an amorphous mass. Do different personalities have no effect on team dynamic?

John Torterella doesn't "stand above the rest", but what he does to a team is vastly different to what Dave Tippet does.

Therrien is old-school, uses simple-systems, and seems to have a track record of demanding a tightly run ship from the players. I also believe he's past his best-before date on this team, that his voice doesn't resonate in the room anymore, and the players would be better led by a more modern outlook. I also want a coach who brings in assistants that make up for his weaknesses, instead of hiring a bunch of his drinking buddies. Also would be great if this new coach's favourite player is Galchenyuk instead of Desharnais.

[Machine of Loving Grace]

I find it a little odd to look at a bunch of individuals as just an amorphous mass. Do different personalities have no effect on team dynamic?

John Torterella doesn't "stand above the rest", but what he does to a team is vastly different to what Dave Tippet does.

Therrien is old-school, uses simple-systems, and seems to have a track record of demanding a tightly run ship from the players. I also believe he's past his best-before date on this team, that his voice doesn't resonate in the room anymore, and the players would be better led by a more modern outlook. I also want a coach who brings in assistants that make up for his weaknesses, instead of hiring a bunch of his drinking buddies. Also would be great if this new coach's favourite player is Galchenyuk instead of Desharnais.

Tippett is one of the best coaches in the NHL despite having terrible Coyotes teams to work with all the time on super tight budgets with millions in cap space taken on dead players like Chris Pronger.

The biggest problem with Therrien is like you said, he's past the expiry date. Delicious milk becomes bad milk when sitting too long.

[habs rule]

I find it a little odd to look at a bunch of individuals as just an amorphous mass. Do different personalities have no effect on team dynamic?

John Torterella doesn't "stand above the rest", but what he does to a team is vastly different to what Dave Tippet does.

Therrien is old-school, uses simple-systems, and seems to have a track record of demanding a tightly run ship from the players. I also believe he's past his best-before date on this team, that his voice doesn't resonate in the room anymore, and the players would be better led by a more modern outlook. I also want a coach who brings in assistants that make up for his weaknesses, instead of hiring a bunch of his drinking buddies. Also would be great if this new coach's favourite player is Galchenyuk instead of Desharnais.

Man you are right on. But ya know we stuck with Le Genius, I would say for another 2 years. He will win enough games (thanks Carey) to keep his job. The management of this team are either too stupid or too cheap to go get a real good coach. This thread will live as long as Le Genius is employed by Les Habs. Oh great pumpkin I would love this thread to be useless.

[Guest Stogey24]

Tippett is one of the best coaches in the NHL despite having terrible Coyotes teams to work with all the time on super tight budgets with millions in cap space taken on dead players like Chris Pronger.

The biggest problem with Therrien is like you said, he's past the expiry date. Delicious milk becomes bad milk when sitting too long.

Let's get one thing straight, Therrien was never delicious

[DON]

Psycho Bouche could be in his last NHL head coaching job if dosent work out and Crawford still cant get a NHL head coaching job.

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

I find it a little odd to look at a bunch of individuals as just an amorphous mass. Do different personalities have no effect on team dynamic?

John Torterella doesn't "stand above the rest", but what he does to a team is vastly different to what Dave Tippet does.

Therrien is old-school, uses simple-systems, and seems to have a track record of demanding a tightly run ship from the players. I also believe he's past his best-before date on this team, that his voice doesn't resonate in the room anymore, and the players would be better led by a more modern outlook. I also want a coach who brings in assistants that make up for his weaknesses, instead of hiring a bunch of his drinking buddies. Also would be great if this new coach's favourite player is Galchenyuk instead of Desharnais.

I think the "interchangeable mass" metaphor is meant to suggest that there are very few clear-cut "elite" or "terrible" coaches per se. Rather there is a large number of competent, credible NHL coaches, each bringing particular strengths but also weaknesses, which are hard for us as outsiders to really get a bead on, since so much of this is about relationships. What the MT haters typically (not universally) want is a coach without significant weaknesses or limitations - i.e., a knock-out superstar coach. But coaches are like players themselves; few are sublimely accomplished in all aspects of the job.

What this means is that - in fact - you're quite right in principle. A given coach, however competent in general terms, can be the "wrong fit" for a given team, for various reasons. For example, a "teaching" coach who works really well with youngsters may grate very much on the nerves of a veteran core. Most often, as you say, a competent coach just passes his "best before" date. Has Therrien? I don't think so, but I agree it's a concern. In fact, I advocated firing him partly because I think he's too close to the best by date for comfort, even if he hasn't already passed it. Now we risk losing a season, not to bad coaching as such, but to players tuning the coach out.

But I also don't think any of this stuff is very clear cut. Most competent coaches are at least minimally adaptable and nowadays don't just try to stamp a cookie-cutter approach automatically onto whatever team they've got. They adjust their message for their charges; if they don't, they don't last. None of us are in the room, so we really have no idea what the dynamics are. Heck, most of us don't even understand the ins-and-outs of hockey systems very well; and even if we do, it's very hard to separate the success or failure of the system from the question of team talent.

So my own view is just to focus on the big picture. Is the team winning? Does it look good in most of its games, win or lose? Are its results commensurate with its talent? Therrien's Habs have generally ticked all three boxes. Even last season, they outplayed the opposition on most nights until about February, and lost because they had THE worst goaltending in the league on a night in, night out basis.

On the other hand, the horrible power play is also a major, consistent pattern that hurts this team. It is unacceptable that MT has not found a way to at least improve it. This seems like a permanent fixture of his coaching. Like I said: imperfect. Just like 95% of other coaches.

The rational case for firing Therrien is therefore NOT that he's a bad coach or done a horrible job. The rational case for firing him was that a new voice - from a similarly "competent" non-elite coach - would help give the team a fresh start and create a new energy and dynamism on the team. This is kind of what happened when we canned Pat Burns and brought in Demers. Neither was a Super Coach, both were solid coaches though, and the change from one to the other gave a breath of fresh air that contributed to the 1993 run.

MB opted against this, no doubt because he accepted the simple, inescapable fact that teams with sh**ty goaltending generally do not win or make the playoffs. That's to say, once Price went down, nobody but Bergevin could have saved the ship (by trading for a quality G). If the Habs get outplayed night after night once Price is back, then I'll be first in line demanding Therrien's head - because this team is good enough not to be outplayed night after night, and was NOT outplayed night after night until the whole thing collapsed due to sheer demoralization.