Quote:
Originally Posted by mustache ride
Gilbert and Hay had better results ( perspective) with worse teams. That has to say something! Tell you what, In my post i listed the things i think he is doing poorly.
-Poor lines
-Not developing young talent
-Not handling the goalie situation successfully
-Not having a game plan to start games
-Not managing the game succesfully
Just tell me two things you think you think he is doing a good job at.
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Well pretty hard to compare across eras. In the old NHL it was arguably a lot easier to win with a bad team because you could teach less talented players how to clutch and grab and it would negate a lot of the skill differential. Go look at our roster in 2003-2004 and say with a straight face that we had the talent to compete for the cup. D. Sutter had those boys working as a team, forechecking with good speed, and clutching and grabbing with the best of them. That was the old NHL. Teams with crap for talent can no longer clutch and grab their way to victory. Low talent teams can really only compete by having an all star goaltender (see Nashville when Rinne was on his game.)
Saying Gilbert and Hay were more successful is a pretty dubious claim. I'm not sure we can read much into the lockout shortened season where Hartley didn't get a training camp and Kiprusoff was bizarrely out of form. And this season the divisions have changed and we're in an absolutely brutal division, a division much deeper and much tougher than Hay or Gilbert was in. So basically you can't directly compare these eras because Hay/Gilbert coached in the clutch and grab era in a completely different division. IMO from watching the team in both eras I think Gilbert and Hay are clearly far inferior as coaches. Their NHL coaching track record since being fired tends to support the idea that they weren't the best NHL coaches. Hartley's resume is obviously a lot more impressive at both the NHL and other pro levels. Monahan's been handled well so far IMO. Guys like Joe Thornton had WAY worse NHL rookie season. Imagine if we were playing Monahan on the 4th line, oh my.
I think the goalie situation has been handled perfectly fine and I'm surprised when I see people jumping all over that. MacDonald wasn't great and got demoted as a result. Ramo hasn't been great overall. Berra has been the best of the bunch and thus has won the starters job. I don't see any issues here at all. IMO Berra has won the starters job for now and Hartley has recognized that. We don't really have a fully developed #1 goalie so they are going to look bad sometimes. People are going to have to get over that. The people ready to give up on Berra after a couple flukey goals are out to lunch IMO.
Other positives
-He's got the team working pretty hard. To me this isn't the floaty, do nothing team of Iginla's late tenure. The Flames just looked horrible at times under Brent Sutter. Remember getting into a playoff position late one year and then losing badly to the Coyotes and then getting trounced by the horribad Oilers? And that is when we were supposed to be competing for the cup. We haven't rolled over in many games this season. We used to do that fairly often.
-Despite B. Sutter saying he liked to activate the defensemen, Hartley has his defensemen doing this much more successfully. Perhaps it's personnel, perhaps it's Hartley.
We've been competitive and having a chance to win in almost every game. And that is with a pretty bad roster. In a pretty tough division.
I think Sven has been pretty inconsistent and that it's not a crime to sit a youngster in a rebuild. I have been more disappointed with his handling of Backlund than I have his handling of Sven. I like the things Sven is saying, I think he's starting to get it. Brodie and Russell seem to be flourishing under Hartley so far.
Obviously I'd do a lot of the lines differently and so would most people. But I'd say the same of almost every coach we've ever had. The redundancy of Bouma/Jackman/McGrattan is more on Feaster right now IMO and I think when Stajan/Cammalleri are eventually dealt it will force Bob to use his youngsters more.
Overall I think Hartley has been a lot better than I thought he was going to be when he was first hired. I like his passion, his emphasis on hard work, his entertaining style. These aren't your dreadfully boring Flames of past years. While fans wish development was the top and only priority, the coach still has to emphasize winning and making sure the players don't end up with the same mentality of the losers to the north. So sometimes he has to make hard decisions that he thinks may help us be competitive even if fans just want to see him ride the rookies.
This team has a lack of talent. And it currently has a couple major injuries that have really tested our depth. The lack of talent makes the coach look bad. Frankly I think if Scotty Bowman were coaching this team the people that hate Hartley would be saying a lot of the same things about Bowman.
I think people have short memories. How did the team look early on with a healthy Gio? People are underestimating his loss. I said before the season began that we couldn't sustain 1-2 injuries in the top 4 defense.
Coaches aren't magicians that can turn a roster with a suspect defense, mediocre goaltending and mediocre forwards into world beaters. Based on this thread it seems a surprising number of people expect Hartley to perform miracles. He isn't turning water into wine and he's not going to get a consistent winner out of this roster no matter how great of a coach he is. I'm surprised we've looked as good as we have and that is a credit to Hartley IMO. Everybody expected us to roll over and be the worst team in the league, an easy victory. We've been far from that IMO. I think a healthy Gio would make a big difference. We lack talent up front in a big way. Cammalleri is our only legitimate 1st line player at this point.
Certain types of fans have to have scapegoats. They need specific people to blame after each loss. Hartley is a convenient one for some of you but I don't really buy it. The easy answer is that our team isn't that good, we're gonna lose during this rebuild and you don't need to scapegoat people after each game. If we win be happy. If we were close be happy. If you see some progress by some of our players be happy. If they work hard and entertain be happy. That's my philosophy. Clearly others believe in the philosophy of assigning blame, whining, moaning, crying, etc. It's the GM! It's the coach! It's the vets! It's the kids! OMG The line combos! How you could sit player X! How come Hartley with his Playstation controller didn't get player X to retaliate after event Y happened because clearly the coach is responsible for every single thing every player does or does not do, right?
Our young kids aren't going to develop over night and we're not going to exit this rebuild 1/4 of the way into the first season of it. Some of you need to try to take a longer view approach to this whole rebuild thing or it is going to drive you bonkers. Are the Flames showing more heart, hard work and commitment to defense this season than the Oilers have shown in their rebuild? If the answer is yes then clearly Hartley is far from the worst coach we could have during the rebuild.