Quote:
Originally Posted by The Fonz
Keeps being said though, why hire a guy and hope that he turns out to be a great coach, when there are coaches on the market for hire who have proven they are great.
It's the Family Guy mystery package/boat scenario playing out in real life. Vigneault, Sutter, and Trotz, are boats. We're going to hire Peters, because he could be anything, he could even be a boat!
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Coaches are not boats, they're human beings.
No, seriously, the game is fluid and there are many factors at play. How a coach fits can be absolutely unpredictable. Coaches have many roles, winning 45+ games out of 82 in a season is just one measure. Things like
- working in the video room on developing strong habits and mitigating poor ones
- implementing successful systems that fit the personnel's strengths
- utilizing players in a manner that will make those players successful
- dealing with human being face-to-face
are not as simple as good-coach bad-coach.
Let's consider Alain Vigneult. He's near the top of my coaching list and I think there's a fit there. But that doesn't make him a family guy proverbial boat. He utilizes a man-to-man defensive system that is not utilized by pretty much any team that has actually won a cup in the last, I dunno, since the 09 Penguins. That's nine years ago. Yes, he's had success with his system - two cup finals, three president's trophies, but he's always hit a wall and there's probably a reason why. In 2014 the reason was obvious. The Kings absolutely rag-dolled and suffocated the Rangers with Darryl Sutter's puck possession game. It was as close to a sweep as a cup finals can be, and Lundqvist was the only reason it wasn't a sweep. And the 2012 Canucks-Kings upset wasn't so far off. So we already know that Sutter's system is an instant counter to Vigneult's system. That doesn't make AV a bad coach, but it's worth considering as a risk to his style of play.
On the flip side of that is Darryl Sutter. He's an excellent coach himself. But his teams have always won 2-1 nailbiters. Is our team built for that kind of game? I'm not talking about size and grit here, I am talking about how our team is not full of elite shooters who can beat goalies clean. Winning 2-1 nail biters with snipers like Jeff Carter or Jarome Iginla is different from trying to wring that out of uptempo playmakers like Gaudreau. That's magnified when it comes to depth scoring. Did the Kings get much depth scoring under Sutter? No, because the depth's job was to create offensive zone faceoffs for the stars, rather than to create chance and risk rushes against. Do you want the Flames to continue to be a one line team?
What is the real trend in the NHL right now? It's teams with three and a half legitimate scoring lines throwing endless wave after wave. Well every coach would like three scoring lines, but not every coach can utilize their personnel to actually arrive at that.
What Hartley did for us a couple years back was utilize the offensive ability of Mark Giordano, TJ Brodie, Dennis Wideman, and Kris Russell to create extra attackers - true 5 on 5 offense that created opportunities that typical 3rd and 4th liners couldn't create - and this gave us a depth scoring. Hartley's systems were far from ideal but that's besides the point - he was to some extent the right coach for this group because he understood what was needed. I think in the long term firing him was the right play, not because he was a bad coach - he was absolutely a "boat" with a Stanley Cup, a series win, and even a strong understanding of his roster (far stronger than Gulutzan ever got) but I believe Treliving identified correctly that Hartley wouldn't be the coach to take us to the promised land for other reasons. One of those reasons was the stagnating development of Sean Monahan. Mony took more strides in his 200 foot game in 2016-17 than he did in his first three years combined. That's not a knock on Hartley - it's more a reality that there is no such thing as a perfect coach. Every good individual player in the NHL has probably played for at least two coaches along with some pretty good coaches before they hit the NHL.
You gotta figure out what's right for your team at a given time and winning coaches can still easily be a terrible fit. Mike Sullivan was the right coach for the Penguins and absolutely the wrong coach for the Bruins at a different point in time. The Canadiens went after a so-called boat in Claude Julien couple years ago and what exactly did that accomplish? meanwhile the Bruins fired a "boat" in Claude Julien and look at how impressive they are now.
It's a fluid game and you have to be a step ahead just to keep up. I don't know if Peters is the right guy. My eyes tell me Lindy Ruff is the coach who fits this roster at this present point in time and even that doesn't mean I believe he will take us to the promised land, although I think he could. That's not because Ruff is more of a boat than Sutter but because I think the best fit is there. And that best fit may only last for a couple years before a different coach is suddenly a better fit. That's how quickly things change.