Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
You know, I get that people are upset at GG, and that's fine he deserves some of the ire that's sent his way.
But honestly people that think that coaches have to stand up at the start of the game and make grand motivational speeches to get players fired up to go out on the ice are following a fictional narrative.
This is called professional hockey for a reason, these are professional players that are lavishly played and coddled, they are peak athletes and they shouldn't need a coach to do the motivating. So when are we going to start criticizing the players and taking them to task for coming out soft and playing brain dead hockey. When are we going to start calling out the leadership core of this team, you know the guys that need to set the pace, and either lead by example or lead by doing.
Because I'm not seeing a lot of that this year.
And no I don't believe that GG's system includes terrible pinch choices and decisions that led to 5 breakaways.
But while its fine to complain about this coach and that's fine, this is the same leadership group that were extremely happy to see Hartley get fired because he was a hard a$$ and he was too hard on the players and too demanding.
They wanted this kind of coach, they wanted that systems guy, player coach, buddy cop Captain coach.
The leaders and veterans on this team need to eat a big poop sandwich for this loss, because frankly they shouldn't need a coach to make a rousing speech to get the players ready for the Battle of Alberta.
I'm almost more disgusted with the players then the coach for their soft starts.
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I don't expect a grand motivational speech every game, but maybe some form of emotion could help.
Also, I think not being ready is on the systems side of the game. Why can we not adjust our system against the Oilers to employ more forechecking on a pathetic d core? Why can we not pressure more in the neutral zone to slow opposing teams down?
I firmly believe he reason we see bad pinches so frequently is the players know if the puck gets across he offensive blue line GG's ultra passive system means the other team is walking it right into our end. This forces players to push harder in the offensive zone.
Babcock talked about howuch video he watched of Gaudreau to try and figure out how to shut him down. He adjusted his system according to what he saw, and guess what? It worked. GG's "one size fits all" approach to coaching is the epitome of basing your game plan entirely on theory and ignoring real world realities.