Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe
The mantra that "this team is not good enough to score off the rush" - while this was partly true, being one (if not THE) smallest and oldest teams in the NHL made it pretty obvious that they couldn't score off the cycle either.
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Wow, I almost forgot about that gem of a philosophy. I can't believe a coach would actually say this to group of NHL'ers. Especially when quite a few of them have scored plenty of goals in the league.
I think Brent's issue was he was so caught up in executing every last detail of his system. It was just way to rigid for any normal player. Let's face it, hockey is a balance of team/system play and also creativity and skill. Brent never got that balance right and I think the performance of a lot of players really suffered under it. I'm not saying he should have deployed a run and gun system either, but there has to be flexibility. The team under his tenure was so scared to make a mistake that it affected their entire game, and they made mistakes anyways.
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A few weeks after crashing head-first into the boards (denting his helmet and being unable to move for a little while) following a hit from behind by Bob Errey, the Calgary Flames player explains:
"I was like Christ, lying on my back, with my arms outstretched, crucified"
-- Frank Musil - Early January 1994
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