Personally I find exciting teams and successful teams to not have much of a correlation.
Want a recent example? Look at the Penguins under Johnston and Sullivan. Which was the more 'boring' team?
The boring Mike Johnston team had naysayers saying that the Pens were too top-heavy and had to play a structured system to balance it. When that started failing, people thought that trading Malkin was something that didn't just need to happen, but most assuredly would happen.
Out goes Johnston, in comes Sullivan, and suddenly the Pens are playing a much more up-temp and suitable system to their composition.
I find very structured or rigid systems are more for teams that are less skilled and slow, especially when the defencemen are not proficient puck movers. Keep them moving as a 5 man unit and the passes are not only shorter, but the forwards are closer in case the puck gets turned over.
The Flames, IMO, have the horses to play a more up-tempo aggressive system. Stone is without a doubt the worst puck-mover on the team, and even he can move the puck decently.
I firmly believe there are two considerations and two considerations ONLY to what constitutes 'the best system' in the NHL:
1) What your team is composed of - tailor a specific system to make use of the strengths and limit the weaknesses on the roster
2) How capable a coach is of deploying the system and getting the players to play it
A coach like Darryl doesn't use complicated systems. He is just a task-master and motivator with a penchant for playing it safe. His teams go through the wall for him until they simply have shattered all the bones in their head, and then it is over.
Hartley SEEMS to be too much of a task-master, but his system was offence oriented by deploying a counter-attack that relied on passive defensive positioning and an attempt to clog up every single lane imaginable, and running the wingers a bit ragged coming back hard on defence and then skating hard for offence (which is why he demanded players get fit).
Brian Sutter was a task-master but overly committed to defence. Demanded everything up the wall, demanded everything offensive be generated off the cycle. This was his system, and it didn't matter what the composition of the team seemed to be. Team was either not able or not willing to play that system consistently (your guess is as good as mine - and I am guessing both).
Keenan allowed for offensive creativity... and I am not sure what else. Wasn't much of a task-master while he was here, and certainly didn't actually coach all that much sitting in the stands watching practice and not having the PP practice. His system seemed to revolve around "the highest paid players get more ice time, and everyone just do your thing".
I have no idea if Playfair was a solid systems guy (I think he was), but the team didn't respect him and he couldn't ever be that task-master.
What I see is a constant Yo-Yo on this team that burns through too many good years of having a decent team.
Sutter - great coach - defensive.
Playfair - not respected - waste of a season
Keenan - offensively 'fine', didn't really coach much
Brent Sutter - defensively over-committed, poor task-master/systems
Hartley - Offensively a god, system designed specifically for team, cracked too many heads
Gulutzan - offensively challenged (at least at production), defensively not very strong except for spurts
It seems that with the Flames hiring/firing of coaches, they get a guy that is somewhat the opposite of the previous guy, instead of just getting another guy to get them to play the same type of hockey and create that lasting culture.
But hey, the Pens made that big adjustment and won two cups in a row (and counting). It just seems like huge swings to me at times, and then a guy gets prematurely (arguably) fired and the pendulum swings so far the other way you end up starting from scratch instead of building on the existing foundation.
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