I've been wondering how I feel about Gulutzan for a while. My thoughts are:
- His line combinations, scratches, and D pairings have actively cost the team wins. The biggest mistake Treliving made was bringing in guys Gulutzan coached in Dallas or Vancouver (Grossmann, Chiasson, Vey, Higgins) because he simply can't be impartial to these players.
- His offensive philosophy in my opinion is not the best for this team, because our best players want to pass the puck and skate and he wants them to shoot it rather than thread the needle and grind in the corners - resulting in a dissonance of styles. The problem is that our team doesn't have those kind of elite shooters - no Laine, Stamkos, Ovechkin, Malkin, Giroux. Nor does it have those kind of elite screen/deflection guys - no Pavelski, Crosby, Kucherov, Hudler. This is a team that
has to "pass the puck into the net" so to speak.
- The team
is in fact slowly picking up his system. A few breakdowns tonight by individuals that have breakdowns often, don't change that. Anyone saying his system is the Dallas Eakins swarm is ignorant. Yes there is a strong side overload, that is a tactic used by some very good teams.
- The team's breakouts under Gulutzan so far neuter the great outlet passing of our defensemen. Unsurprisingly, the D who's best suited to this system is Engelland, who can just shut his brain off and wire the puck along the boards, because in this system there is always a burly winger posted to battle for the puck and chip it out.
- As for whether they're a good breakout technique in general - as much as I want to say it's the system failing, I can't help but wonder if our wingers (except for Tkachuk and Ferland) are just...
bad at completing the break out play. This sort of breakout done right
usually has the winger tip or collect and float a lateral pass to a streaking teammate in stride, but I don't think our wingers have executed at all. Obviously Johnny has some physical limitations that made him better suited for Hartley's system, but it was a necessary evil to be a good team (Patrick Kane and Phil Kessel have similar issues on their own teams). But I feel Frolik, Brouwer, Chiasson, etc have just not been "completing the play".
- His penalty kill is a lot better than the results suggest. I am willing to be patient with it.
- He is
terrible at coaching from behind. Doesn't shorten his bench or pull goalies or mix up line combinations. This leads to what most of us consider boring, uninspired hockey.
- He is pretty good at coaching with a lead or tied. It's just not happening often enough this year.
16 games in, I still don't have a clue what I actually think about Gulutzan. I don't really have a defense of him for how the team has played, but I also don't know definitively if this is just growing pains for a new coach. Some things that drive me nuts about his coaching won't change. But it's possible others will, and it's possible they don't. I still need more time.