Quote:
Originally Posted by Max Cow Disease
So what do the best informed (Drury18 most likely) attribute these guys missing the playoffs to? Flames fans who don't watch the AHL much exist in a sort of vacuum where we obliviously value our bountiful prospect cupboard and organizational depth, so it puzzles me that this seemed to be such an underwhelming year for the baby Flames.
In short, what happened? Are other AHL teams just that good? Should Utica being so good and also a Vancouver farm team concern Flames fans in some way?
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Coaching. Coaching was a BIG problem this year. Ryan Huska has had the same list of excuses since Game 1 and we've seen little improvement over the year in the same area's. I think he was in over his head big time with this job and I hope he's not brought back. I don't think he was the right guy for the job. The team needed a Bob Hartley Jr and we got a Dallas Eakins Jr. Just an all around weak coaching staff who seemed to focus more on making excuses and trying to make things sound better then they were rather then correct the issue. With rookies and college guys, you need a coach that helps them through issues and gives them tips to work through it. I recall Huska calling Max Reinhart's situation a matter of luck. He just had bad luck. He seemed lost what to do to help the college wall. And when things went really wrong, he put the onus on the goalies to do a better job and for Ortio to step up and carry the team. It was frustrating to listen to his interviews and see that he had absolutely no answer to how to correct problems and constantly said it was the "ebbs and flow" of the league and that "all teams are really good". He was just as lost out there as our rookies and I think with a stronger coach, we probably see some correction during the season and we probably squeak into the playoffs.
The other main reason would be the sheer volume of new and young players and just not finding chemistry. There was really no core that moved from Abbotsford to Adirondack and it was a brand new team playing. The management in Adirondack tried to bring in some older veteran guys to force a core and I don't think it worked. We were constantly shuffling lines to get chemistry (or sometimes shuffling even when we did find it because Huska wanted to spark other lines and would break up good lines, another thing that drove me nuts), find it and then someone would be called up or injured and we would reshuffle. I think a "long time" line would have been maybe 3 weeks together at best.
We absolutely have great prospects in the system. Missing the playoffs is not an accurate gauge to the talent of our prospects. Utica is of no concern, their lineup only has 4 actual Canucks prospects, Adirondack has triple that. We will probably never seen half that Utica team in the NHL ever.