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Originally Posted by GioforPM
I’m not defending Ward, Peters or GG. I’ve been lukewarm to cold on all those hires.
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I don't think anyone praising Hartley is praising him on an absolute level.
But relatively speaking, he was the best coach we've had since, at least probably Mike Keenan.
I will say that I don't believe the team "checked out" on him.
or Gulutzan.
or Peters.
probably not even Ward.
It's too easy to equate poor results with a team checking out.
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And Desjardins was a bad coach, at least that year, we all agree on that. But Hartley IMO would have lost to almost any other team. The Flames lucked out tremendously on that draw. As I’ve said elsewhere, the Canucks had the 4th lowest points of any team in the POs yet they finished second in a really weak division, so they ended up playing the Flames. Their top 3 players were all 33 years old and well past prime. And they were weak in goal. Really - if you were aiming to upset a seed, they were it.
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Maybe, but they still had 100 points.
Those 33 year olds still had a solid season. The Sedins were probably the best players in that series too.
They had solid goaltending. Whether from Lack or Miller.
They had a decent top pairing(their Edler Tanev pair was extremly stifling)
They were healthy.
They had holes, in particular their bottom two defense pairings, and Hartley exploited those holes with his forecheck strategy and line matchups.
They had a sizeable lead on the road in Game 6, and Hartley made all the right moves whether it was the goalie change or his line blender or shortening his bench.
And as untalented as that 2015 Hartley team was, they didn't systemically struggle to break out cleanly like the 2019 Flames against the Avs or 2020 Flames against the Stars. Yeah, the stretch pass was overused and a low-percentage play, but our breakouts the past two postseasons have been no-percentage plays. We had better breakouts with Kris Russell throwing blind passes around than we've had with guys like Giordano, Hanifin and Andersson the last couple of years.