Quote:
Originally Posted by TheScorpion
Funny, though. Karri Ramo posted a .909 save percentage in 2015-16 as this team's starter. Elliott and Johnson both posted .910 save percentages in 2016-17. That's not an upgrade at all, although Ramo didn't uniformly play in 2015-16.
I'm just saying, Gulutzan is a far better coach than Bob Hartley, whose archaic systems never worked with a number of players. Notice how guys like Mikael Backlund and Matthew Tkachuk and Dougie Hamilton have blossomed under Gulutzan, because he favours a puck possession system.
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There are a bunch of players that blossomed under Hartley too.
The only metric a coach can be judged on are points/ROWs & playoff games won.
The coach has been provided a better 6 dmen to work with, a solid and proven top 6, a 3rd line with plenty of potential, and very good goaltending. Yet, the team has a point trajectory worse than last year and look to be outside the playoffs.
5 on 5 play is good, special teams suck, big game moments sees the team "crumple" as per the coach himself.
Let me know when the league hands out points and cups for Advanced stats, but until then, there us little to debate that Gulutzan has failed in his duties 40 games in this season. He likely would also receive a failing grade last season, saved by 2 lengthy hot/win streaks. Now, he should get credit for those streaks, and maybe even the hope/trust that he can get this team playing that well in the second half of the season to salvage this season.
If not, there is little reason to believe that he can take this team any further and should be canned for the same rationale as Hartley's removal.