Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaskal
The list of Gulutzan coaching adjustments has shrunk greatly, but there are still things that need to be remedied.
- Special teams still suck
- Too much favoritism towards Vey/Chiasson
- Plays Wideman like 20min a night when he should be in the pressbox most games.
- Still lacking some charismatic leadership
Anyone else think of anything? I'm drawing blanks after that. But he's done a lot of good stuff too, it seems like 3 of our lines are now clicking, and that's with the absence of Johnny. The system actually looks decent when players are executing. |
I believe the structural issues with GG are still the same (as you listed above). A PP goal last night in 5 chances vs the worst PK in the league would have changed the whole game. The quality of competition has also been lower than a Chicago/St Louis/San Jose/LA/Anaheim package we were playing the previous 10 days. This has allowed the system to show a bit better.
The other items that makes me a bit nervous is that while we roll 4 lines, our secondary scoring is still very poor. Great goaltending has masked this during the last week. Its great that we get possession up from our bottom two lines, but until Stajan & Hamilton's line can compensate for the top 2 lines (or the defense can start scoring at last years pace), we will continue to be inconsistent.
The biggest improvement I see in the team the last 3 games is between the mental aspect of the game. Against both Chicago & Arizona, they gave up the first goal, but managed to avoid falling appart and giving up the next one giving them a chance to get back into the games. Part of this has to do with CJ giving them some confidence with his stellar goal tending. Part of this should be credited to GG for getting the team to relax and change their body language/mentality.
One general observation--The team needs to play like they have this week in oder to make the playoffs every game. This is part of growing as a rebuilding team. However, if you get a chance to watch a team like Chicago without a vested interest in the outcome, you can very clearly see the difference in the level of effort required. Chicago works hard, but makes almost no mistakes. Their wins look "effortless" as a result and it allows them to run the table while still being "fresh" for the playoffs. The Flames in comparison make a lot more mistakes and when they play like they have this week are able to compensate by using skating and desperation plays to compensate. It will take the same level of effort for our team to make the playoffs until the core gets to the same mental state as Chicago. The risk is that we run out of steam enroute (similar to last year after our winning streak before Christmas).
Could be an interesting road trip coming up, but for the time being I remain in the "make a fundamental change in the special teams department immediately" camp.