[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by timbit

That’s a lot of questions. Bear with me.

The receivers decide how good a play the puck carrier will make, frequently. Are they working to use speed and get available? A lot of times they make the D-D pass inevitable.
You have to work to be available and be a receiver.
Play slows down when receivers aren’t committed to getting available.
Obviously, the D have to be quick , also, in recovering and reading.

A good player is able to make good reads approaching the opposition BL on the rush....can I skate it in and maintain possession?....make a play( pass) to a teammate and maintain puck possession with speed ? Or chip to a place where a teammate or I can retain or regain possession.?

Individual confidence, IQ, skill and ability , not primarily coaching, IMO, decide the decision more times than not . A BL turnover can lead to countering an odd man rush against... Those can be trouble.
On the positive side, the right decision can lead to a quality scoring chance for..

I can guarantee there a very few to zero restrictions re when the Flames have the puck.

Players are playing in the NHL because they make good decisions .
Coaches are responsible for explaining what they should expect from the opposition.


The more times you make smart decisions the more confidence you acquire. Also , the harder you work to GET available, the easier decision you make re execution for yourself and/ or your teammate.

The players are responsible for making a lot more good decisions than mediocre or bad ones. Too many of the latter, you watch. Rightly so..

Confidence is tough to acquire...easy to lose. You build layers of confidence by doing things right. The more layers you have, the tougher it is to lose.

Are their defensive systems ?

For sure.

Go back to the offensive concepts and principles...as well as individual and team tactics.
Reverse them and you have the defensive side of it...
Limit time and/or space, protect mid ice corridor, D side positioning...etc.

I want to concentrate on the game.

Answered the best I could.

Thanks for the effort and answer. What I'm getting out of this, as you didn't directly answer the questions, is the players are to blame for lack of execution. It seems that coaches don't do a #### of a lot in the NHL and the players are really just out there doing what they want when they want. Players have been taught to do certain things during the junior and minor league careers and once they get to the NHL there isn't much coaching left to be done, the coaches' jobs are to stay out the way and call time outs here and there. The coaches don't have much responsibility for anything that goes on and really don't have much of an impact on the game. The players know what they are doing and coaches only provide minor inputs. The NHL must be the only league where coaches have such little control?

I appreciate the technical aspects of the answer but I think the avoidance of the core questions is telling. Coaches do have a great deal of control in what happens out on the ice. They ARE responsible for team preparation before the game. They ARE responsible for setting lines. They ARE responsible for establishing systems and enforcing how they are played. The ARE able to force players to stick to the game plan (welcome to the bench or the pressbox). They ARE able to influence the game by making in-game adjustments to the systems being used.

Coaches are supposed to be amplifiers of talent, not inhibitors. Good coaches coach to the strengths of the players at their disposal. THEY adjust to players, not the other way around. All the technical aspects in the world don't mean a hill of beans if the guys don't understand the base function of the coach, which is to help the players achieve optimum performance. That to me is the core problem with Brad Treliving and his selection of coaches. The coaches don't make the players better, them make them worse because they do not take their games to a different level. The coaching staff has inadvertently sabotaged the team by not using the player's talents in the best ways possible.

How can a team with much of the same lineup (a better lineup right now) be the second best team in the NHL for 3/4 of a season and then hit the skids so hard? We know how because we can pinpoint the moment in time and the events that precipitated the fall. There was an observable change in playing style and systems the team employed. The team floundered because they were cast into a system that relied on their weaknesses instead of strengths. Was execution part of the problem? You bet. But when you take Eddie Van Halen, hand him the tuba and say make music, the outcome is predictable. This is the type of coach the Flames have hired over the years. The only coach they have had any success with went out and remade the team in his own image, building the club to meet his style of play. This team needs to find a coach that can work with the talent and be the amplifier of that talent, not the inhibitor by expecting the players to excel in systems that do not allow them to use their skills.