Quote:
Originally Posted by Freeway
Risebrough was a damn fine hockey player, a decent coach, a pretty solid scout, and a very bad GM.
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That's very true. Flames fans got hurt so much by his work as a GM, we tend to forget how good he was at those other jobs.
I think his work as a coach is particularly underrated. I especially remember how he kept using cute little strategies to keep the power play fresh. They were always a threat with MacInnis and Suter on the points, of course, but penalty-killers could limit their effectiveness by boxing out the forwards.
Risebrough had a number of tricks that I've never seen another coach use. For instance, he would get MacInnis to telegraph a point shot – just wind up and hold his stick high for a split second. If the defenders didn't break formation, he would take the shot. If they committed to block his shooting lane, he would hammer the puck into the end boards and it would bounce out at an angle into the slot, where his teammates could pick it up for a grade-A scoring chance. That move resulted in a number of goals that would otherwise have been easy saves.