Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
Elliott did play awful, but:
- It's Gulutzan's fault he continued to go back to Matt Bartkowski in that series instead of taking full advantage of his top 4 defense. Bartkowski was somehow -5 across those four games - that's the worst on the team and has a lot to do with the fact that he was on the ice.
- It's Gulutzan's fault he went back to Elliott after the total game 3 meltdown.
- It's Gulutzan's fault he had a 35 year old borderline 3rd pairing dman killing penalties against Ryan Getzlaf when he had better options available. You need your top PKers to retrieve pucks.
- it's Gulutzan's fault that he didn't shuffle the lines once over those four games where no line except Versteeg-Bennett-Chiasson was generating any offense at 5v5
- it's Gulutzan's fault he had no strategic versatility (like adding a stretch pass, or forecheck modifications to key in on scrubs like Bieksa, or giving the defense more of a green light to open up scoring lanes on Gibson) to play when a team has locked it down against the Flames.
Elliott didn't do Gulutzan any favors. But Gulutzan getting styled on by Randy Carlyle was pretty independent of that.
|
Gulutzan has the auto pilot on. Roll 4 lines and all D one after another except for special teams. No regard for momentum swings, player abilities etc. Predictable and this is why Vancouver lost to us 2 years ago in the playoffs. Willie took the blame, but it looks like Gulutzan is coaching the same way.
With Gulutzan the 2004 team would have been swept by the canucks. Sutter knew how to exploit weaknesses. This guy seems clueless.