Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814
And he’s a much better coach.
Peters was a head coach for parts of 5 years. He missed the playoffs every year but one and got his doors blown off the one time he made it, and by the time the Aliu story broke, he had already lost the team and was two weeks from being fired anyway.
Hartley coached the Avs to four 1st place finishes. I know they are the Sakic/Forsberg/Roy Avs, but he still did that. He’s coached 95 playoff games with a .568 win percentage and a championship.
Hartley got the Atlanta Thrashers to the playoffs. Literally an impossible task for everyone else who tried.
Hartley won a 7-game series with the Calgary Flames without his Norris trophy favorite captain and Russell/Wideman playing 30 a night.
I don’t care if he’s an ####### or says one thing to the media and another behind closed doors - so does literally every coach ever.
He knows how to do the job and he belongs in the NHL. I can’t believe anyone would hold Jonas Hiller pulling the chute on his career and Karri Ramo’s shredded knee against Bob Hartley - what else was he supposed to wring out of that group?
|
I agree with most stuff here strongly, with the exception of the bolded.
If Hartley stopped being so 'abrasive' (to put it mildly), then yes, he should absolutely return to the NHL, and I think he is a great coach. I think he could get similar results and get his teams to play just as hard for him if he just toned that part down a few notches. He would still be a tough coach - still very much a 'hard ass' - but not someone who goes 'over the line', and still have success in this league.
I also subscribe to the notion that Hartley isn't a one-trick pony either. I am convinced that his system that he used, which wasn't a system that produces favourable analytics, was probably the right system for this team at the time, but I bet he would have modified it as the talent level on this team increased and the roster matured.
I would love to see him back in the NHL as a head coach of a team that is average on paper and in the standings, just to see how he would do, and see if the underlying metrics support my theory that he is actually a very good coach (again, aside from his abrasiveness).