Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
If the huge discrepancy between the home and road records is primarily a coaching issue, then I should expect that ALL the numbers—and not just the results—would point clearly to a fundamental discrepancy that is exploited by line deployments. In other words, IF the issue is coaching, then how does one explain the actual data?
The biggest problem with this team is psychological—I firmly believe that, and I think it serves largely to explain why the Flames's shooting and save percentages are so dramatically different at home and on the road, and it helps to explain why they struggle so much on the powerplay. At home, players are too often looking more for pretty finishes and have a tendency to overplay the puck. Mike Smith seems far less impregnable at home. The powerplay as a whole is neutralized by the players' own poor puck movement and slow decision making.
I am encouraged because I think these issues are all easily resolved—certainly moreso than by shuffling players or coaches. |
So, say if a team plays a road style where they know they aren't getting favorable line match-ups, so they play a very disciplined defensive system, block lots of shots, keep the shots to the perimeter, clear up the rebounds and patiently wait to capitalize on the other team's mistakes for their offense. A team could find success with that approach but probably would have really crappy possession and shot attempt based stats.
Now if the same team plays a style at home where they are the ones trying to dictate play and get lots of shots off, but are turning the puck over a lot for counter attacks and fast breaks without enough coverage dropping back, they might end up with good possession/shot stats, but not such good results on the score board.
In that example, wouldn't you agree that the coaches need to figure out a way to turn things around?
You can argue that this isn't the case with the Flames, but I don't buy that there is not a system or strategy problem just because the results don't live up to the contrived possession stats.