Quote:
Originally Posted by Bingo
My Gulutzan view is this ...
1) didn't always like his utlization
2) frustrated with the powerplay both with whose on it, and how they setup
3) team is fragile and you can't replace the core so the coach likely has to go
so I'm leaning towards him going for the above and especially 3) but ...
to discount measures that suggest the Flames may have been served a heaping of off years, or anomalies or bad luck would be foolish. They have to dig in and make sure they make the right call not based on just the standings or they are foolish.
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I'll discount "bad luck" instantly. In hockey, you can maybe call it bad luck if your puck hits a rut and flips off your blade...if a dump-in takes an 80° bounce of a stanchion and into your net...if you're skating backwards and step on an Oilers jersey that's been tossed.
But what many are calling "bad luck" is no such thing. It's poor execution caused by poor skills or poor decisions (the latter of these being what we might call "systems"). Low shooting percentage over 82 games is caused by taking poor shots. Letting in "pinball" type goals is caused by allowing the shooting lanes to clog up and not letting your goalie see the shot.
An event of pure "luck" might change the outcome of one game, or even one series. But there's no argument that over 82 games a team could be "unlucky" enough to drop 10 or 20 points from their expectation. It's a lazy excuse to say that. The only way you could argue that (bad) luck could have that kind of effect would be if a team lost its franchise player due to an unlucky injury, but then we say it's
injuries causing the failure, not luck.