Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnyB
It's a team that's got a bunch of guys who had a very successful season last year under a coach who is a multiple cup winner and who everyone knows is there to specifically try to win another one with this team and is dedicated to that, and you've got a small number of new guys who came in on big contracts to help the team reach that level but who have underperformed badly. If they dump the coach because those new guys joined the team and didn't perform on their big new contracts, it's basically like saying to the players and to any future coach that this team runs through those new guys - guys who have done nothing since joining the Flames to earn that.
It strikes me as a bad message to the preceding players about the trustworthiness of the organization to stick to a vision of what they're supposed to be building together, and a bad message to any incoming coach about who's in charge of the team.
I don't think the organization should let any of them off the hook that easily. They should have to work through it as a team, even if that sucks. If they can't, then blow everything up, including dumping those new guys for whatever can be recuperated because they can't be part of building a new core.
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I just want to point out that the team didn't do very well under Sutter at first either, but last year you had 2 superstars who were entering contract years, and played out of their minds to elevate them from a solid playoff team to a great one...and then they fizzled in the playoffs.
I just think that you cannot be too wistful about the past. It's all about what have you done for me lately, unfortunately. I'm not keen to show Sutter the door because I know he can be a good coach, but let's face facts here, he's done a very, very poor job handling this team this year. You only have to look at the inconsistency from night to night to understand what's wrong. Either he doesn't know what buttons to push, or simply refuses to push those buttons out of stubbornness, or even worse, the team simply doesn't respond to any of his methods any longer and have tuned him out. No matter the reason, the things you see from this team indicate a broken relationship with the coach. Maybe it can be fixed, but knowing Sutter's history in other locations, I doubt it can.
It's all about assessing the problems with the team's performance and making the appropriate changes, even if that means firing a 2 time stanley cup winning coach who is coming off a Jack Adams award. If you see his methods as being a distinct issue that cannot be corrected, the only prudent thing is to fire him and find another strategy. It's just the way it goes sometimes.