Quote:
Originally Posted by Macindoc
I think you've got that mixed up. AFAIK, Brodie has only played LD since Gulutzan was hired. He definitely played RD when he was with the Heat, as Flames' management's comments about him back then indicated how impressed they were with his progress in spite of being a first year pro and playing on the off side.
Putting him in a rigid system in which he was forced to play mostly against the boards and always pass laterally to the D on the other side or straight up the boards to set up a break out took away Brodie's greatest strengths, which were lateral movement and creativity with the puck. It made him (and the whole D) very predictable and easy to defend against. If a system called for Gaudreau to be a power forward/mucker, he probably wouldn't be very good at it. Does that make him "not that good to begin with"? You have to develop a system that is suited to and maximizes the strengths of the personnel you have.
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Bingo. And that is 'Coaching 101.'
One of the main criticisms, at least from me, of Gulutzan was that he felt that the system was more important than the players playing it and if they just kept hammering that square peg into the round hole hard enough it would eventually fit.
This is a theory to which I do not hold.
The coach has to maximize the strengths and abilities of his team while mitigating the strengths of his opponents and Gulutzan didnt do this.
He had his way of doing things and thats how it had to be done.
And at the same time, other teams realized that this was a ridiculous weakness and exploited the hell out of it.
I would bet that a lot of opposing coaches would say to their players after the Flames let in a muffin:
"Get the first line back out there and go for their throats because they're notoriously fragile."
And it worked. A lot. Embarrassingly often.
And this is why you see the heavy criticism of Gulutzan for not using his timeout to just give his guys a second to re-group and further the criticism of sending the same group that just was on for a bad goal against back out rather than a new and fresh group.
Its amateur.