Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperMatt18
The players have to perform but the coach has to put them in the best position to succeed, and I don’t think Ward has done that.
If the Flames had a coach with proven success like the Pittsburgh Steelers had then I’d agree with you but they don’t.
Again tonight there is some stuff I don’t love but wasnt going to come bitch here, actually gave him some credit in the PGT on how successful Lindholm has been at Center.
But since you asked here it goes:
Throwing out weird lines late in the game. Empty net, 5v5, and he put out Mangiapane-Monahan-Lindholm. Mangiapane and Lindholm (who’s hasn’t played wing this year) get crossed up in point man coverage and boom goal against. Just stick with your normal lines in that scenario and stop trying to overcoach it. Still on the players to not make a mistake but maybe don’t have them trying to be thinking about what their role is on a new line.
The defensive structure. Still too passive and still collapsing too much down low although I think they were actually a little less passive than the last couple games so I’ll give him some credit if that was an adjustment. But the big one to me is still defending their own blueline and dmen jumping into the rush.
In the first period passive and dmen not playing aggressive. Go down 2-0 and looks like dmen are given green light to pinch and suddenly they are activating a lot more and closing gaps at our own blueline, jumping up into the play like Andersson did to set up both goals.
Go up 3-2 and defense is back to playing ultra passive (which I do get when protecting a lead but they go a little too far with it and invite too much pressure).
Let the dmen be more aggressive from the first whistle, we have a strong skating mobile d-core. Let them use it.
The forth line...stop dressing Nordstrom-Forese-Whoever if you aren’t going to trust them at 5v5 and only play then for under 5 minutes a night. Use Gawdin and others if that’s the case and you don’t trust these guys.
Oh and on that note these guys don’t play all night and then you throw Froese out with under 5 minutes left because you wanted two centres on the ice for the face off.
And really he doesn’t get any credit for taking until game 15 to try Lucic-Bennett-Dube out again, he was only really forced into it due to Backlunds injury.
So yeah still lots of stuff to nitpick tonight and that’s just off the top of my head.
One thing I’ll say that it looks like they did adjust and I’ll give him some credit on is our zone entires. Feel like they tried to carry the puck in a lot more tonight and a lot more passes across the blueline too. When they did dump it was smarter dumps as well instead of weak dumps into spots with no support.
Overall still not great but do think he did at least try to make some adjustments to the strategy tonight and some things worked.
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Totally agreed. I’ll comment on this.
Late PP is ES once the Canucks go EN. M
You are up by a goal. Treat it as an otherwise normal 5v5 defensive situation. Don’t get weird. I want to give the coaches the benefit of the doubt but that was unnecessary overcoaching