Quote:
Originally Posted by AustinL_NHL
Everyone in the analytics community hated Hartley. I was especially mad at him winning the Jack Adams trophy because that was a season filled with incredible luck and unsustainable play. Forced Treliving's hand to keep him an additional year.
However, while his systems sucked, the one thing Hartley did incredibly well was motivate his players and send out a team that gave it their absolute all every. single. night. You would never question the Flames' work ethic when he was coaching.
Glen Gulutzan had a poor system in place his first year but had the Flames playing excellent hockey in the Playoffs (one of the most undeserved sweeps I've ever see). Come his second season, he adjusted his system to one that put the Flames in position to succeed but was a terrible motivator and also suffered some bad luck.
Bill Peters had a great system and played to the Flames' strengths his first year and then completely changed it after 5 games of it not working out.
Geoff Ward has a terrible system and is a terrible motivator. This is the most boring, uninspired hockey I've seen played from the Flames in I don't know how long.
|
I questioned the team’s work ethic and effort under Hartley in both his first and last year.
I’m not an analytics guy, but it was pretty obvious both at the time and in hindsight that 2014-15 was a combination of luck, out of nowhere career years from a couple vets like Hudler and Wideman, good young players hitting an early stride (and the league not figuring out Johnny yet) and some really funky goaltending where neither Hiller nor Ramo were consistently good, but each had good stretches when the other sucked.