Quote:
Originally Posted by taxbuster
While there is some truth to what you say, there are a couple of issues I'd take with it, and I'm thinking only after the first 20 games - forget the start:
1. Yes, they improved their breakouts at times. And, they forgot all about how to break out when they got pressured or flustered. They forgot their game or they'd get lazy if they were winning by 3 goals, say (cf Anaheim game 3) and start playing "cute". It is absolutely incumbent on a coach to stop the team in its tracks when it's doing that, however he needs to. GG never, ever did so in my view - not even once the entire season.
2. Puck possession: again, at times they were good - but as a European team would NEVER do, they often gave possession away to change lines - and it burned them time and time again. Either get it deep and keep someone back while you change, or keep possession back of your own net and change. Making half-assed attempts to clear is a teachable moment. Not sure that lesson got translated to the team, based on how often it happened.
3. Puck distribution: better, but WAY too few shots. Too much focus on control when they needed to score. And, they'd eventually lose possession, so distribution doesn't really matter then, does it?
4. Special teams: again - at times better. But too often there were significant breakdowns where guys on the PP would try to do it all by themselves. The boneheaded stubbornness in keeping certain players on the PP (Brouwer eg.) when they weren't producing, and the failure to adapt to strategic changes suggests that they were out of ideas. Gio is the s-l-o-w-e-s-t passer; great shot when he makes it, but too often was blocked. Dougie has a terrific release from the back end and was a much better choice.
PK improved most of the time. Broke open a few games and that was good.
Biggest problem is not mentioned: failure to prepare the team to be ready to GO at the beginning of games and stay focused at the END of periods. The first failure could be on Sigalet/goalies, or on GG and the team. But too often they gave up goals in the first minute or two of games, and too often in the last minute(s) of periods. That's on the coach to me.
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Most of this is anecdotal and a product of your own impressions. If you had hard numbers or quantitative indications to support your notions then I would be more inclined to agree. Whether or not the team's improvement was linear or achieved in groups of games doesn't really matter when all is said and done—the results on the whole were very good. People get fixated on these sorts of things because we are so focussed on what is happening with THIS team, but I suspect that similar sorts of criticisms abound from most fanbases when things do not go as planned for their favourite team.
Quibbling about player selection or "failures to adapt" are also opinions based on conjectures from a fan's perspective outside of any real experience with what is happening in the dressing room, in practice, or on the bench. In the end, very little has changed from the beginning of the year: posters who disliked the hire continue to forward these fairly trivial to downright meaningless criticisms, and I suspect that nothing outside of winning the Stanley Cup will ever change their minds. It is not that I think Gulutzan is perfect or an infallible coach; I just tend to think that the amount of criticism he endures is unreasonable. I am sure there are things he can improve, but on the whole I don't think there is much in his repertoire to complain about.