Quote:
Originally Posted by kyuss275
I hated the style of hockey that Sutter was using, but he had no choice. The only way to try and compete for a final playoff spot with that roster was to play that way. Do some forget Hartely's first year with the flames when he changed it to a more open , speed game, with pretty much the same roster that Sutter had? They were done by the end of January.
Granted I doubt he would have changed his game plan if he had the roster that the flames have today.
Also for the poster laughing that Sutter should have gotten consideration for Jack Adams.... I agree with Francis. If he had snuck that country club , veteran , slow team to the playoffs , he should have been considered.
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Disagree here.
Sutter's system revolved around 'the walls'. Defencemen were not allowed to pass the puck up the middle of the ice, and had to chip it along the boards to the forwards. Opposing forwards knew this, and would cheat, and a board battle would ensue.
On offence, the plays revolved around cycling. Again, in what world does it make sense to force one of the oldest and one of the smallest teams in the NHL to cycle? The consensus at the time was: "This team can't score off the rush." Well, it looked liked to me they did a better job scoring off the rush than off the cycle.
There were good things about Brent's system that he just wasn't able to implement - the forwards doing a better job of supporting the defencemen being the most obvious. He just couldn't get the buy-in from the players (which may be because the core was difficult to coach, or perhaps Brent wasn't a good motivator, or perhaps because players tuned him out due to the disagreement on how they should play?).
By the time Hartley took over, that team was done. It is tough to blame Hartley for being unable to turn that team around - especially without the benefit of camp and the big distraction of the lockout. Coaching changes and their corresponding systems take a while to get implemented, even with the benefit of camp. Don't you remember when Brent first took over, and the Flames were winning (I think 3rd overall in the NHL or something) and Brent kept insisting they are not playing the 'correct' way?
I am not sure what system Brent should have been using, but in no way was cycling and forcing the team to play along the boards from the defensive zone and into the offensive zone a logical system for the NHL's oldest (or 2nd oldest?) team and the NHL's smallest team. It made no sense really. It made even less sense after 3 seasons of trying to force it to happen without any success.
It will be interesting to see how Hartley incorporates Hamilton, Frolik Navidad and Bennett in the system. What will be more interesting is what happens as the team slowly gets bigger if guys like Ferland, Carrol, Smith, etc., start making the team as full-time NHL players. Then you can really start seeing the Flames being able to compete along the boards and up the middle.