The trials and tribulations of Glen Gulutzan

[Lucky23]

Has anyone else noticed that Gulutzan is the Head Coach, but doesn't actually do much coaching?

He has a separate coach for each Special Team and for Defense, Forwards, and Goaltending. I know this isn't out of the realm of the norm for the NHL but how about the fact that Gulutzan does NOT even talk his team after a game, Win or Lose.

Another aspect I hate is how after every single play he is looking at the screens on the bench to see the play. Literally every single play.. Did you not watch it with your own eyes? What are you trying to reconfirm. I understand getting another look, but to do it every single play is mind boggling to me.

He also get's out-coached every game with match-ups and line combinations. Frolik has not been great this year, I think it's time to move him down the depth chart and try and fuel the bottom 6 more.

[Krynn]

Ok so who do u wanna see replace GG .since so many want him fired .

[Hey Connor, It's Mess]

Let's fire GG and then bring in a third coach who we can blame for this roster's shortcomings.

[CroFlames]

I'd like to bring in Joel Quenville when he gets fired this summer.

[Red]

Originally Posted by Hey Connor, It's Mess

Let's fire GG and then bring in a third coach who we can blame for this roster's shortcomings.

Or we keep him and continue the success of hopefully being a wild card team and a speed bump for any playoff opponent.

[Hey Connor, It's Mess]

Originally Posted by Red

Or we keep him and continue the success of hopefully being a wild card team and a speed bump for any playoff opponent.

This team is a speed bump regardless of who is coaching it.

[Flash Walken]

Lol.

This thread.

What is the evidence this team should have a better record than they currently have?

What are the tangible explanations for why this team is better than the team that squeaked in last year?

This season has been pretty freakin' predictable as far as I am concerned. The only real departures from my expectations has been the performances of Smith, ferland and gaudreau.

[bax]

Originally Posted by Lucky23

Has anyone else noticed that Gulutzan is the Head Coach, but doesn't actually do much coaching?



He has a separate coach for each Special Team and for Defense, Forwards, and Goaltending. I know this isn't out of the realm of the norm for the NHL but how about the fact that Gulutzan does NOT even talk his team after a game, Win or Lose.



Another aspect I hate is how after every single play he is looking at the screens on the bench to see the play. Literally every single play.. Did you not watch it with your own eyes? What are you trying to reconfirm. I understand getting another look, but to do it every single play is mind boggling to me.



He also get's out-coached every game with match-ups and line combinations. Frolik has not been great this year, I think it's time to move him down the depth chart and try and fuel the bottom 6 more.

Worst post in this thread?

[bax]

Originally Posted by Red

Agreed. They have not been reliable on Gulutzan team.



Same for the bottom 6. Most have down years here. Coincidence?

Well Gio, Hamilton and the top six seem to be thriving under Gulutzan so I’m not sure

[Anduril]

Result wise, this is probably just under what I would've expected out of this team on paper. At the same time I didn't think Las Vegas, New Jersey, LA, Colorado and would be as good as they are so that goes to show that you can never really predict how a season goes or make permanent judgements a quarter into the season.

Our seasons under Gulutzan seem to be going through amazing highs and lows. Last year it was the adjustment period, a season nearly over and then a 10 game win streak.
This season it's how well our top players are (top 6, top pairing and starting goalie) being so heavily contrasted by everybody else. Some things are consistent (Brodie still struggling to look anywhere close to 2015 edition and finding a proper 2nd pairing) and other things have been worse (3rd line scoring disappearing entirely), and some consistently bad now horrible (lack of a nondetrimental 4th line, PK)


Something will give at some point since it's unrealistic for this form to continue. Unfortunately that applies to the positives. Might end up being a dreary winter when games start to even out a little.

[Red]

Originally Posted by bax

Well Gio, Hamilton and the top six seem to be thriving under Gulutzan so I’m not sure

I wouldn't say they thrive.

Gio s on pace for only 30p.
Hamilton is a whipping boy around here and the top 6 was just as good before GG. Although I give credit for Chucky progressing nicely.

[bax]

Originally Posted by Red

I wouldn't say they thrive.

Gio s on pace for only 30p.
Hamilton is a whipping boy around here and the top 6 was just as good before GG. Although I give credit for Chucky progressing nicely.

I would say they thrive. Gio and Hamilton control the pace of the game better than any other duo in the NHL right now. They are possession monsters.

Disagree about the top six too. Johnny, Mony, and Ferland all looked poised for career years and the 3M line wasn’t a thing before Gulutzan was here.

[JerryUnderscore]

Originally Posted by New Era

Hmmmm, start with the standings. Middling result there in the worst division in hockey.

Right now 3 points separates San Jose who holds the third Pacific spot from Minnesota who is sitting in 14th in the conference. This is what parity looks like. There are very few teams at aren't "middling". On the bottom end you have Arizona, Edmonton, Buffalo, Florida and Ottawa. On the top end you have Tampa, St. Louis, Winnipeg. You could maybe throw Nashville, Columbus and Toronto in that mix. Right now we're 4 points away from first in the division.

If current standings are the measuring stick, does that mean Bruce Boudreau, Joel Quenneville and Ken Hitchcock are also bad coaches. Those teams either have the same number of points (Chicago and Dallas) or few points than the Flames (Minnesota).

Then move on to the goals against. Even with Smith standing on his head we suck in goals against.

This is mostly due to our atrocious penalty kill, which I won't try to excuse. It's bad.

However, if you look at 5v5, our goals against are 11th.

Then look at goal differential. Can't be a successful playoff team with a negative differential.

Once again, even we're looking at even strength, our goal differential is currently at -1. Obviously that's not great. However, the problem with looking at goal differential is that it can be heavily skewed by one really good or really bad game.

For example, look at Pittsburgh, they're currently sitting at -15 (and are only two points up on the Flames in the standings). They won back-to-back Stanley Cups. Are you going to say that Pittsburgh is either A) not a well built team? or B) being sunk by a bad coach?

Then maybe go and look at shots against, and then quality of shots. Our goaltenders get shelled on most nights, and a lot of those are from great scoring areas.

Looking at the data from Natural Stat Trick, our shots for are 595 while shots against are 593. That's a +2 in the shots differential. (Again this is for 5v5)

As for scoring chances? 579 for, 518 against (that's a 52.78% scoring chance ratio).

What about high danger scoring chances? 214 for, 187 against. Once again that's a 53.37% high danger ratio.

Then go and look at the production from the bottom of the lineup and efficacy of the lineup. Pretty damning numbers there.

Yeah, the bottom six doesn't seem to be scoring goals. This is in spite of the fact that they're continuing to get shots on net. For some reason their shooting percentage has dropped out. Maybe that's on the coach?

But if that's the case, do we need to give Gulutzan credit for ho well the top line is playing? Or is this the kind of things where all the credit goes to the players and all criticism goes on the coaching staff?

Then go and check out our "top defensive unit in the league" and see their numbers.

So looking at their numbers for this year (and projections) compared to last year:

Gio is on pace for roughly 11-12 fewer points than last year.
Hamilton is on pace for about 12-13 fewer points than last year.
Brodie is on pace for around 11-12 points more than last year.
Hamonic is on pace for 2-3 points fewer than last year.
Stone is on pace for roughly 4-5 fewer than last year.

I didn't bother looking at Bart, Kulak or Andersson for obvious reasons.

However, even when we look at projections we have a problem. All of these players had so few points that one good or bad game can drastically change their projections. If Hamilton gets 4 more points he's back on target to match last year. Currently Stone and Hamonic, with 2 and 1 goals respectively are on pace to score more goals than they did last year. My point is that it's difficult to make try projections about the defence after 24 games.

We live and die on essentially one line and a goaltender.

Is that honestly any different than Tampa Bay who lives or dies on the success of Stamkos, Kucherov, and Vasilevskiy? The main difference is that they're getting some secondary scoring while our bottom six isn't producing.

The Flames are starting to smell very much like a team up the QEII. I don't think it's the talent, I think its the mediocre to bad coaching that is leading to that result. The sum of the parts are way better than the team is producing. Gulutzan is no good.

Once again, I just don't see it. The problems with this team mostly stem from a bad six that, as far as I can tell, are simply snake bit. They're getting shots and scrogdn chances but not getting the goals for whatever reason. I don't see how that's on Gulutzan.

The one fault I will put squarely on the coach is the penalty kill. It's atrocious and has cost us some games. Even though Gulutzan has a special teams coach, leaders take responsibility and if the special teams are failing, ultimately that's on him to fix.

If our penalty kill was going and our bottom six was contributing more than they are we wouldn't be having this conversation at all.

[JT96912]

Once again, I just don't see it. The problems with this team mostly stem from a bad six that, as far as I can tell, are simply snake bit. They're getting shots and scrogdn chances but not getting the goals for whatever reason. I don't see how that's on Gulutzan.

The one fault I will put squarely on the coach is the penalty kill. It's atrocious and has cost us some games. Even though Gulutzan has a special teams coach, leaders take responsibility and if the special teams are failing, ultimately that's on him to fix.

If our penalty kill was going and our bottom six was contributing more than they are we wouldn't be having this conversation at all.[/QUOTE]

Lets talk about "the eye test" for a minute. This team is failing that test. "Snake bit" only goes so far. We have enough data in these games to form opinions on this "experiment". If we look at the data of some players that came from other teams and how they performed for them as opposed to us, we can make a conclusion. For whatever reason our players underperform. When you look at some games this year, you can clearly see this could be a GREAT team. When they all skate and give 110%, they are a Stanley Cup winning type team. I think everyones frustration stems from the team not putting in the effort game in and game out. Its not even the same players night after night, anyone who watches this team has to be able to admit that to themselves. How many goals and grade A chances are given to the other team because of lack of effort? Many. Ive played many team sports through the years and sometimes I would think, "so and so will make the play so I don't have to". Its human to do. But it is the COACH that gets on you to make sure its not a habit. Sometimes it is the COACH that inspires you to play all out. This team is not getting that from GG. Its obvious through the eye test.

[Chonger]

JerryUnderscore: So what you are saying is GG isn't a leader?

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[Five-hole]

Originally Posted by JT96912

Lets talk about "the eye test" for a minute. This team is failing that test. "Snake bit" only goes so far. We have enough data in these games to form opinions on this "experiment". If we look at the data of some players that came from other teams and how they performed for them as opposed to us, we can make a conclusion. For whatever reason our players underperform. When you look at some games this year, you can clearly see this could be a GREAT team. When they all skate and give 110%, they are a Stanley Cup winning type team. I think everyones frustration stems from the team not putting in the effort game in and game out. Its not even the same players night after night, anyone who watches this team has to be able to admit that to themselves. How many goals and grade A chances are given to the other team because of lack of effort? Many. Ive played many team sports through the years and sometimes I would think, "so and so will make the play so I don't have to". Its human to do. But it is the COACH that gets on you to make sure its not a habit. Sometimes it is the COACH that inspires you to play all out. This team is not getting that from GG. Its obvious through the eye test.

I’m going to speculate, but this smacks of a person who only watches one team and forgets there is another very competent team on the other side of the ice that is doin everything it can to also win.

There are very few games where a team looks dominant from start to finish. If those are your expectations, you’re out to lunch.

The best teams lose more than 3 out of every 10 games. And most of the games they win they don’t look dominant from start to finish.

Good lord guys.

[JerryUnderscore]

Originally Posted by Chonger

JerryUnderscore: So what you are saying is GG isn't a leader?

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Nope, I'm saying that as a leader it's his responsibility to get the special teams working. If that means he needs to change assistant coaches, so be it.

And if Gulutzan can't do it, then it's Treliving's responsibility to do whatever needs to get done. Maybe motivating his employee or, if necessary, making a personnel change.

And if Treliving can't do it, it's Burke's responsibility.

In leadership, responsibility roles up hill.

[JerryUnderscore]

Originally Posted by JT96912

Lets talk about "the eye test" for a minute. This team is failing that test. "Snake bit" only goes so far. We have enough data in these games to form opinions on this "experiment". If we look at the data of some players that came from other teams and how they performed for them as opposed to us, we can make a conclusion. For whatever reason our players underperform. When you look at some games this year, you can clearly see this could be a GREAT team. When they all skate and give 110%, they are a Stanley Cup winning type team. I think everyones frustration stems from the team not putting in the effort game in and game out. Its not even the same players night after night, anyone who watches this team has to be able to admit that to themselves. How many goals and grade A chances are given to the other team because of lack of effort? Many. Ive played many team sports through the years and sometimes I would think, "so and so will make the play so I don't have to". Its human to do. But it is the COACH that gets on you to make sure its not a habit. Sometimes it is the COACH that inspires you to play all out. This team is not getting that from GG. Its obvious through the eye test.

Yeah, let's look at that data.

Dougie Hamilton: Before Calgary he had a career high of 42 points. Both seasons here he exceeded that total.

Mike Smith: In the last two years, he's had a GAA of 2.63 & 2.92 and a SV% of .916 & .914. This year he's at 2.67 and .921.

Michael Frolik: Last year he had 44 points which was his highest since 2008-09.

Travis Hamonic has regressed some. (On pace for 2-3 points less than last year) Is that because of coaching or because he's still getting used to a new team and a new city?

Bart, Brouwer, Lazar... none of them were contributing much before coming to Calgary and no one expected them to come in and be difference makers.

Is that the data you're talking about or do you have other data sets somewhere?

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by JerryUnderscore

If our penalty kill was going and our bottom six was contributing more than they are we wouldn't be having this conversation at all.

Oh I highly doubt that. Regardless of what transpires on the ice there are going to be some posters who will still insist GG is a terrible coach.

[memphusk]

Originally Posted by Chonger

JerryUnderscore: So what you are saying is GG isn't a leader?

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Precisely.

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