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Coaches: like players, some are NHL quality, some not.


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18 minutes ago, GHT120 said:

Given what they have said, IMO the only reason that Hughes and Gorton would make an in-season change is if they feel that DD's leadership is actually hurting the development of the youngsters (e.g., Suzuki and Romanov), and perhaps Petry and others rehabilitating their trade value ... ***IF*** that is the case, a change should be made PDQ ... if not, then DD suffers through the rest of the season.

At US$1.7M, one ought to be able to put up with a bit of suffering!

 

In any case, after the last four games, I expect that Hughes and Ducharme will be having a sit-down, with Hughes laying out his expectations on how to maximize player development in the midst of a dumpster fire.

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9 hours ago, Commandant said:

 

As the article says... the change is about player development, especially pieces who are young and need to be part of the future like Romanov, Poehling, Evans, Caufield, Primeau, etc...

didnt read it, just saying dont care for any coaching changes this season. Romanov-Evans-Poehling doing fine, arnt they?

Caufield i think NO ONE has a clue what is best.

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15 minutes ago, tomh009 said:

Caufield should be dominating in the AHL first.

Could be, i really dont know, seems safest thing to do though and cant hurt, can it?

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42 minutes ago, DON said:

didnt read it, just saying dont care for any coaching changes this season. Romanov-Evans-Poehling doing fine, arnt they?

Caufield i think NO ONE has a clue what is best.

yes, they are doing fine. Drouin is having a good season too. Some veterans (Toffoli, Hoffman, Anderson) have played well when healthy.

 

I honestly do not think coaching is an issue

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When you go 3 straight games giving up 45 plus shots. 

 

And the only reason you didn't do it for a 4th game in a row is cause the other team was leading 5-1 after taking over 30 shots in the first two periods so they took their foot off the gas in the third....

 

I seriously have to question the coaching. 

 

Add to that the fact that the team has been totally inept in special teams at both ends of the ice.

 

And you have to question the coaching. 

 

These are still NHL level skaters, I get that there are injuries and the talent may not be as high as other clubs, but they aren't this bad either.  They are professionals.  A good coach should still be able to have his team play well enough defensively that they aren't getting caved in every night. 

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3 minutes ago, Commandant said:

I seriously have to question the coaching.

OK, sure. But does it really matter? Would they be much better? Would we want them to be much better?

 

I suppose they could ask Julien to come back since he's still on the payroll ...

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1 hour ago, Commandant said:

When you go 3 straight games giving up 45 plus shots. 

 

And the only reason you didn't do it for a 4th game in a row is cause the other team was leading 5-1 after taking over 30 shots in the first two periods so they took their foot off the gas in the third....

 

I seriously have to question the coaching. 

 

Add to that the fact that the team has been totally inept in special teams at both ends of the ice.

 

And you have to question the coaching. 

 

These are still NHL level skaters, I get that there are injuries and the talent may not be as high as other clubs, but they aren't this bad either.  They are professionals.  A good coach should still be able to have his team play well enough defensively that they aren't getting caved in every night. 

 

You are kidding, right?

 

Savard, Wideman, Kulak, Niku, Clague would crack a majority (> 50%) of the NHL Ds linepup

 

Primeau and McNiven were horrible.

 

Half the forwards are NHLers and unproven prospects.

 

Send any general to the war and only give the soldiers plastic knives... coacing is not the issue

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5 hours ago, tomh009 said:

OK, sure. But does it really matter? Would they be much better? Would we want them to be much better?

 

I suppose they could ask Julien to come back since he's still on the payroll ...

 

It matters as a year of development for romanov, caufield, suzuki, poehling, evans, primeau, etc...  plus whoever comes up after the deadline when we have traded some vets and play more kids.

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3 hours ago, alfredoh2009 said:

 

You are kidding, right?

 

Savard, Wideman, Kulak, Niku, Clague would crack a majority (> 50%) of the NHL Ds linepup

 

Primeau and McNiven were horrible.

 

Half the forwards are NHLers and unproven prospects.

 

Send any general to the war and only give the soldiers plastic knives... coacing is not the issue

 

There are ways to make less talented teams competitive with coaching.  

 

There are ways to get them to play a system so they dont get the doors blown off every night.

 

Can he make a crappy player into a goal scorer? No.  But these are pro level skaters where a defensive system can be put in place.

 

The team is not competitive at all.

 

I know what i see with my eye test... but lets deep dive this with stats shall we?  First time ive even pulled these up in a while.

 

Habs are -64 in goal difference.  The only other team this bad is arizona at -66.  The third worst team is -42. Buffalo and Ottawa are in the -20s and 30s.  They are not even competitive.  They get blown out on a regular basis.  When you factor in a that arizona has played more games... we have the worst per game ratio in the league.

 

They average per game the most shots against in the entire NHL.

 

Some might say but ben... they must be trading chances, playing wide open hockey and thats why their system gives up shots... NOPE.  They are 26th in the NHL in shots for per game. 

 

31st in shots for minus shots against per game

 

28th in corsi%, 29th in games that are tied or winning/losing by one goal.

 

32nd when we remove blocked shots (fenwick) and 32nd in fenwick in close games.

 

But special teams, thats where coaching matters most right... 

 

They are 31st on the PP and 32nd for net PP (adding in shg against as a -1)

 

They are 30th in PK and net PK.

 

Is it cause our goaltending is bad... no not really... its a little bit, but overall we are 29th in xGA, if we had an average NHL goalie in all of our games instead of who we have had in net... and still given up the same shots from the same areas... wed have a whopping 9 fewer goals against.  Our goaltending has been 23rd in the NHL at 5v5.  Add in the special teams and overtime sv% which is more about systems than goalies and we fall to 29th in save%.  The goaltending is Certainly not good but its actually making our team look slightly better at 5v5 than we are, which is a scary thought. And the team is dragging the goalies down with poor penalty killing.

 

Every underlying number suggests a very poorly coached team.  There is no getting around it.  The stats are even worse than I suspected they would be to be honest.  In the slightly modified words of Jeff Petry the team systems are BAD.

 

 

 

 

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5 hours ago, tomh009 said:

OK, sure. But does it really matter? Would they be much better? Would we want them to be much better?

 

I suppose they could ask Julien to come back since he's still on the payroll ...

 

Juliens issue was that he had lost the room at the end.

 

But For 95% of his time in Montreal his system produced results that were top 10 in the league in the underlying numbers even if his shooters didnt have the skill to take advantage of it.  

 

His pk was generally good as well.

 

Yes the PP stunk but its no better now so thats a wash.

 

Juliens systems were far, far superior to DD's.  Not even close.

 

 

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As for who replaces DD?  Id take a run at Joel Bouchard in the summer. 

 

Why did he leave the Habs org?

Well it is either option 1 or 2.

 

1) He went to anaheim as he thought DD just took the team to the final and Dallas Eakins was on the hot seat so that AHL job was closer to an NHL head coach job.

 

2) he couldnt get along with Bergevin and previous management.

 

 

Well if its #1 its easy to offer him the NHL hc job and Dallas Eakins has saved his job in anaheim so hes not gonna be offered the ducks job... and if it was #2, Bergy and his staff are mostly gone.

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9 hours ago, alfredoh2009 said:

... Savard, Wideman, Kulak, Niku, Clague would crack a majority (> 50%) of the NHL Ds linepup ...

Did you mean "wouldn't"?  ... they might make playoff contending teams as 5-6-7 defencemen, but not in the roles they are being tasked with playing with the habs this season.

 

9 hours ago, alfredoh2009 said:

... Send any general to the war and only give the soldiers plastic knives... coacing is not the issue

Coaching may or may not be the issue with winning & losing this season ... but I do have some concerns with both the development of youngsters ... both in terms of whether they are making sufficient progress in their games this season but also the environment oin which they are playing ... I don't care if the Habs win another game this season (hyperbole for effect) but I want the youngsters to (a) improve and (b) not develop bad hab-its because the team's structure and effort is lacking

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5 hours ago, Commandant said:

As for who replaces DD?  Id take a run at Joel Bouchard in the summer ...

 

laugh_in_very_interesting.gif&ehk=7u8Sw4

 

If they are "going  young" then he would be in interesting option ... working with younger players is reputedly his strength.

 

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5 hours ago, Commandant said:

 

There are ways to make less talented teams competitive with coaching.  

 

There are ways to get them to play a system so they dont get the doors blown off every night.

 

Can he make a crappy player into a goal scorer? No.  But these are pro level skaters where a defensive system can be put in place.

 

The team is not competitive at all.

 

I know what i see with my eye test... but lets deep dive this with stats shall we?  First time ive even pulled these up in a while.

 

Habs are -64 in goal difference.  The only other team this bad is arizona at -66.  The third worst team is -42. Buffalo and Ottawa are in the -20s and 30s.  They are not even competitive.  They get blown out on a regular basis.  When you factor in a that arizona has played more games... we have the worst per game ratio in the league.

 

They average per game the most shots against in the entire NHL.

 

Some might say but ben... they must be trading chances, playing wide open hockey and thats why their system gives up shots... NOPE.  They are 26th in the NHL in shots for per game. 

 

31st in shots for minus shots against per game

 

28th in corsi%, 29th in games that are tied or winning/losing by one goal.

 

32nd when we remove blocked shots (fenwick) and 32nd in fenwick in close games.

 

But special teams, thats where coaching matters most right... 

 

They are 31st on the PP and 32nd for net PP (adding in shg against as a -1)

 

They are 30th in PK and net PK.

 

Is it cause our goaltending is bad... no not really... its a little bit, but overall we are 29th in xGA, if we had an average NHL goalie in all of our games instead of who we have had in net... and still given up the same shots from the same areas... wed have a whopping 9 fewer goals against.  Our goaltending has been 23rd in the NHL at 5v5.  Add in the special teams and overtime sv% which is more about systems than goalies and we fall to 29th in save%.  The goaltending is Certainly not good but its actually making our team look slightly better at 5v5 than we are, which is a scary thought. And the team is dragging the goalies down with poor penalty killing.

 

Every underlying number suggests a very poorly coached team.  There is no getting around it.  The stats are even worse than I suspected they would be to be honest.  In the slightly modified words of Jeff Petry the team systems are BAD.

 

 

 

 

Not to be blinded by your numbers (ref to “blinded me with science”)

 

the one thing that I can tell from those numbers is that the system the Habs are playing is NOT the trap or anti-hockey

 

Seems to me that the coach is maintaining a system that enables talented players to shine, thus:

* increasing trade value 

* developing prospects

* establishing an identity

* tanking

 

I believe he is not coaching to protect his job but for the benefit of the club

 

and when he has had an NHL lineup and engaged players, he has won.

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6 minutes ago, alfredoh2009 said:

... and when he has had an NHL lineup and engaged players, he has won.

 

DD was below .500 (15-16-0-7) last regular season ... BTW, Julien was 9-5-0-4 when he was fired (.487 versus .611 in points percentage) ... his "winning" was in the playoffs, with a roster built for "playoff rules" ... I will always wonder how much was his coaching and how much was Price and Weber (as well as Perry, Staal and a couple of other vets) basically "driving the bus".  

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4 minutes ago, alfredoh2009 said:

Guy Boucher and Hughes have a history together... just saying 

 

ENTIRELY possible ... Boucher and Roy will likely be the media favourites if a change is made ... not that THAT matters.

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17 minutes ago, GHT120 said:

 

DD was below .500 (15-16-0-7) last regular season ... BTW, Julien was 9-5-0-4 when he was fired (.487 versus .611 in points percentage) ... his "winning" was in the playoffs, with a roster built for "playoff rules" ... I will always wonder how much was his coaching and how much was Price and Weber (as well as Perry, Staal and a couple of other vets) basically "driving the bus".  

 

He also missed much of the playoffs with Covid, and Richardson was behind the bench.

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33 minutes ago, GHT120 said:

 

DD was below .500 (15-16-0-7) last regular season ... BTW, Julien was 9-5-0-4 when he was fired (.487 versus .611 in points percentage) ... his "winning" was in the playoffs, with a roster built for "playoff rules" ... I will always wonder how much was his coaching and how much was Price and Weber (as well as Perry, Staal and a couple of other vets) basically "driving the bus".  

With the COVID-compressed regular-season schedule, it's really hard to know whether the Julien and Ducharme records are really comparable. Same as the question of whether the playoff success should be credited to Ducharme or not.

 

Clearly this can be argued both ways ... and has been, countless times here. I'm trying to keep track of those arguments, and as far as I can tell, no one has yet convinced anyone else to switch sides on this. 🤔

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6 hours ago, Commandant said:

 

Juliens systems were far, far superior to DD's.  Not even close.

 

 

 

Did Juliens superior systems  get the Habs to the Stanley Cup final?  I don't think so. 

 

Again, when you have a revolving door of players (many of them AHL'ers)  it's hard to find consistency. 

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Go back to september for one second.  Think of everyone here, or on twitter, and in the media... what was the narrative on the habs?

 

Even the worst predictions were something like... oh they lost weber and danault, price is hurt, they may have made the cup final but this year will be tougher.  I dont think they make the playoffs.

 

No one looked at the team and said, they will be dead last and one of the worst teams in the NHL, below Arizona, Buffalo and everyone else.

 

Well, here we are... and at least some of that has to fall on coaching.

 

And this started in October when other than Price, Edmundson and Hoffman the roster was healthy and injuries hadnt really started yet.  There is not one point this season we have won 2 games in a row (and alfredohs avatar tells that story).  Even before the injuries and covid hit, this team was terrible.

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5 minutes ago, Habs Fan in Edmonton said:

 

Did Juliens superior systems  get the Habs to the Stanley Cup final?  I don't think so. 

 

Again, when you have a revolving door of players (many of them AHL'ers)  it's hard to find consistency. 

 

Yes they did.  The team had no practice time last season with the covid schedule.  They were still playing the same system.  DD made minor tweaks.  Remember we all discussed this at the time, that DD really needed a training camp to make major changes? Its only been this year that hes had that opportunity to make big changes.  And look at what theyve done.

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I will be shocked if he is not gone come next season. It’s grown more and more obvious that the Run of ‘21 had to do with internal veterans taking the team by the throat, like in 1986, rather than any coaching alchemy. 

 

To me, it’s just a question of timing. Some feel that DD is doing irreversible damage to our young guys. I worry about Caufield for sure, but other than that I think the rookies are just happy to be in the NHL and will be teachable next year, while Romanov seems to keep on truckin’ no matter what the hell is going on with the team. In short, I suspect our young players can survive another half-season with DD.

 

More important is that the coaching search be undertaken with reflection and seriousness. The next coach will be the “rebuilding” coach - he’s the one who will really shape the Habs’ future. Whomever we hire needs to be someone who can bring along young players and instil a strong work ethic and culture of accountability. He will almost certainly need to be replaced by year 4-5 of the rebuild, when the team is hopefully nearing contention.

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Just now, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

I will be shocked if he is not gone come next season. It’s grown more and more obvious that the Run of ‘21 had to do with internal veterans taking the team by the throat, like in 1986, rather than any coaching alchemy. .

Based on the play of THIS roster? Come on.

But do agree, likely gone as Hughes we assume will put in 'his' man.

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