The trials and tribulations of Glen Gulutzan

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

I know...I see people saying Brodie but my gut actually says Hamilton.

If I was an opposition GM I would absolutely be looking to take advantage of the Flames organization this summer.

[Cube Inmate]

Originally Posted by Bingo

My Gulutzan view is this ...

1) didn't always like his utlization
2) frustrated with the powerplay both with whose on it, and how they setup
3) team is fragile and you can't replace the core so the coach likely has to go

so I'm leaning towards him going for the above and especially 3) but ...

to discount measures that suggest the Flames may have been served a heaping of off years, or anomalies or bad luck would be foolish. They have to dig in and make sure they make the right call not based on just the standings or they are foolish.

I'll discount "bad luck" instantly. In hockey, you can maybe call it bad luck if your puck hits a rut and flips off your blade...if a dump-in takes an 80° bounce of a stanchion and into your net...if you're skating backwards and step on an Oilers jersey that's been tossed.

But what many are calling "bad luck" is no such thing. It's poor execution caused by poor skills or poor decisions (the latter of these being what we might call "systems"). Low shooting percentage over 82 games is caused by taking poor shots. Letting in "pinball" type goals is caused by allowing the shooting lanes to clog up and not letting your goalie see the shot.

An event of pure "luck" might change the outcome of one game, or even one series. But there's no argument that over 82 games a team could be "unlucky" enough to drop 10 or 20 points from their expectation. It's a lazy excuse to say that. The only way you could argue that (bad) luck could have that kind of effect would be if a team lost its franchise player due to an unlucky injury, but then we say it's injuries causing the failure, not luck.

[Igottago]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

What in the actual #### makes you believe this? Is this your first season watching the Flames? They barely made the playoffs last year after deadline acquisitions and got swept once they got there. The year before that, they were TWENTY SIXTH in the league. They've made the playoffs ONE TIME in the last SEVEN seasons. What on earth compels you to think this roster is a foregone conclusion as a playoff competitor?

I mean, honestly here, what is the critical analysis that suggested a team that didn't score enough last year to be a contender was going to score enough this year after adding zero offense? Other than platitudes about the best defense in the league, it's been crickets on that question for months on this message board. Is this just a message board for homers now? Calgaryflames.com?

Why is your opinion that they should be a playoff team more valid than mine that they weren't going to be when my analysis bears fruit and yours doesn't?

Actually they made it 2 of 3 years before this season. Did you block one out because it didn't fit your narrative?

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Igottago

Actually they made it 2 of 3 years before this season. Did you block one out because it didn't fit your narrative?

You're right.

Poorly worded, was trying to illustrate pre-GG being with the club to point out it's not just a GG problem, it's an organizational problem. It's 2 for 8 if you include GG's last year. 2 for 9 if you include this year as well.

Suffice to say, I don't think it's coaching in and of itself.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I'd hate for these advanced stats to be used as an excuse to keep Gulutzen, because hey, look at how the Flames dominate them! They are what they are, what matters is standings.

One of the reasons that I wasn't a big fan of initially signing Gulutzan is because everyone said that he was such a great stats and analytics guy. Gulutzan has the team playing for some very good advanced stats but unfortunately that doesn't translate into good hockey or wins. I don't believe that advanced stats are very important in hockey and I will never get fully behind them.

[NewFan]

So how the low shooting percent can be fixed? Improve shooting skill? I think this goes back to changing system.

[Macindoc]

Originally Posted by NewFan

So how the low shooting percent can be fixed? Improve shooting skill? I think this goes back to changing system.

Almost every single player's shooting percentage has become worse under Gulutzan than it was under Hartley. The system is broken.

Just goes to show that possession isn't everything. It's what you do with it that counts. The Flames need to stop taking all the low percentage shots/attempts and concentrate on setting up opportunities with a high probability of success.

[Kovaz]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Dallas is also out of the playoffs right now. So, their glaring weaknesses are contributing to them not being a playoff calibre roster. You'll note, they also missed the playoffs last year. So, if the criteria is to be as good as a non-playoff team that is top heavy on offense, then that's great, the Flames are right there with them.

Fine, ignore Dallas then. Colorado, San Jose, and LA are also flawed teams that are in the playoffs, and if one of them misses it's because Dallas passed them.

There's no question in my mind that Backlund and especially Frolik are underperforming this year. The lack of goals from Backlund is a huge factor in the Flames being out of the playoffs right now. But, you're starting to get dishonest here to try to paint me as irrational, i never mentioned backlund or frolik in my post, but I DID mention specifically the players I thought weren't good enough. Interesting that there is no response about that...

Of the players you mentioned:

Glass and Hamilton played a total of about 130 minutes in 17 games allowing a total of 4 goals against
Versteeg has played 24 games, with 4 goals for and 5 against
Jagr's lines had 12 goals for and 6 against in his 22 games.
Brouwer's played just about every game and he's -1
Bartkowski has played 14 games, with 4 goals for and 7 against

So the players who weren't good enough add up to a total impact of -3 goals. Hardly a season-ruining performance from the bottom of the roster. If that's "by far the biggest weakness on the team", you're in pretty good shape.

But since you're blaming our poor season on the lack of NHL talent, surely the players without NHL talent would be the ones getting out-scored, right? That's why I brought up Backlund and Frolik. If we're losing because of a lack of talent, surely the guys at -15 and -12 are the culprits?

So is the argument here that the Dallas Stars should be a playoff team if Hitchcock wasn't such a bad coach? Is he not getting the most out of his subpar players? You brought up the comparison to Dallas and are saying the coaches job is to get the most out players under the cap, does that mean Ken Hitchcock is a bad coach?

Maybe he is, I'm not sure. I only brought up Dallas because they're ahead of us with an at least comparably flawed roster. I haven't looked nearly as closely at them. Maybe Hitchcock's coaching is the reason they're 25th in 5v5 scoring, and that's the culprit. But like I said above - ignore them, because LA, San Jose, and Colorado are better examples.

My personal opinion is that there aren't many options for the coaching staff to utilize. If you play Hamilton as the lone D on the top unit you're probably going to have bad SHG numbers. I don't know that Hamilton is a terrific passer in all situations consistently. Brodie is a better option for gaining the zone with possession. Playing Brodie on the top PP lets you play hamonic on the PK and keep their numbers similar. Having Brodie out on the first unit allows you to have a solid pairing of Hamilton/Gio on the second unit for when the PP ends and defending becomes more necessary. Hamilton and Gio are far and away the best pairing on the Flames, so it makes the most sense to have them out in situations where they will be expected to defend. Brodie has shown to be completely unreliable defensively this year which is why he doesn't often get that kind of treatment.

I don't think anything in the paragraph above is either groundbreaking or controversial.

They may be mistakenly using players in situations they shouldn't be, but I'm not naive enough to think that's because 4 or 5 coaches with over a thousand games of NHL experience don't know what they are doing. I think they are doing the best they can to get this subpar group into the playoffs based on the marching orders of ownership/management.

Sure, they have an impact, but changes cascade through the lineup. Put Bennett on the 1st line and the third line completely falls apart. Put Tkachuk on the first line and the second line produces basically zero. Put Brouwer on the first line and the team falls apart.

Ferland gets the top line wing spot by freakin' default because at least he doesn't neuter the other two guys like every other option they've tested with them this year (WHICH INCLUDES Bennett).

There aren't any good options. The team is filled with not good enough on basically every line they have.

I'm not trying to suggest there's an obvious answer here with no drawbacks. If there was, there wouldn't be nearly as much arguing going on here. But chemistry isn't a predictable thing, and they've tried so few options that we just don't know if the good outweighs the bad for some of them. Sometimes there are combinations out there that can be more than the sum of their parts.

My point is that when the team as a whole isn't succeeding, is the best course of action really to throw our hands in the air and say "we're not good enough!" At least if we'd tried a bunch of different things and failed at all of them, we'd be able to more confidently say the roster isn't good enough. As it stands, I'm terrified of a lot of potential moves that may happen this summer, because I think there's a good chance that the guy we move out dramatically outperforms his trade value once he's in a better situation.

What in the actual #### makes you believe this? Is this your first season watching the Flames? They barely made the playoffs last year after deadline acquisitions and got swept once they got there. The year before that, they were TWENTY SIXTH in the league. They've made the playoffs ONE TIME in the last SEVEN seasons. What on earth compels you to think this roster is a foregone conclusion as a playoff competitor?

I mean, honestly here, what is the critical analysis that suggested a team that didn't score enough last year to be a contender was going to score enough this year after adding zero offense? Other than platitudes about the best defense in the league, it's been crickets on that question for months on this message board. Is this just a message board for homers now? Calgaryflames.com?

Why is your opinion that they should be a playoff team more valid than mine that they weren't going to be when my analysis bears fruit and yours doesn't?

I'm honestly shocked that that's the statement you reacted most strongly to. There are 30 other rosters in the league that have flaws. Half of them will make the playoffs.

A lot of those arguments don't really matter when evaluating the quality of the roster right now. Who cares where we were in the standings two years ago? That year, Winnipeg was 25th, Columbus was 27th, and Toronto was 30th. All three are good teams today that will make the playoffs. And again, when the majority of our core was acquired in the last 3-4 years, why does it matter that we missed the playoffs 6 years ago? Should Chicago feel good about where their team is at right now? They've made the playoffs 9 years in a row. Should we be writing off Boston? They've missed 3 of the last 4 years. How about Winnipeg? They've also missed in 6 of 7 and haven't won a playoff game in franchise history.

As for our scoring - obviously that was a concern. That's the biggest weakness our team has. But the point I'm trying to make is having flaws doesn't immediately make you a bad team. Every team has flaws. You have to quantify those things and evaluate them in the context of the team as a whole. Obviously we weren't going to score 300 goals this year. But we were still roughly average last year, and we scored more goals than either of LA's cup winners. 220 goals is plenty if you're great defensively.

We're not debating about whether or not they should be a playoff team, we're debating why they aren't. You're arguing that the roster isn't good enough. I'm arguing the roster is good enough, but the coaching falls short. I'm not trying to say "your opinion isn't valid," but when you post things like:

this is NOT a contending roster. That is absolutely nuts to think

What on earth compelled the management of this team to be as deluded as a fanbase full of homers?

This organization is terrible

it doesn't really leave a lot to debate against.

[Vinny01]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

If I was an opposition GM I would absolutely be looking to take advantage of the Flames organization this summer.

A lot of teams massively underachieved this year. Treliving is hardly going to be the most desperate GM. He is the one with the Dman he can dangle in a trade. One will try to take advantage when another will make a deal the Flames are comfortable with.

My thoughts are until Treliving loses a blockbuster I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt. I won’t declare Hamonic a loss until I know where the pick lands. If it is 12-14 then I still like the deal. Top 3 it is a huge loss

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Dallas is also out of the playoffs right now. So, their glaring weaknesses are contributing to them not being a playoff calibre roster. You'll note, they also missed the playoffs last year. So, if the criteria is to be as good as a non-playoff team that is top heavy on offense, then that's great, the Flames are right there with them.

The Flames and Stars actually have a lot of parallels:

• Both teams hung onto the core of their last really good rosters for too long without a realistic shot at contending, until the players lost their value and couldn't be used to jump-start a rebuild.
  
• Both teams never did a full rebuild with stockpiled picks and a patient draft and develop strategy, but got impatient once they had two or three really nice pieces and started taking short cuts.
  
• Both now have middle of the road rosters with limited prospects of growth from within, and have to hope they get really lucky with a diamond in the rough prospect or a goalie playing out of his mind to really have a shot at contending in the playoffs.
  
• Both have struggled to find the right coach.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

The Flames and Stars actually have a lot of parallels:

• Both teams hung onto the core of their last really good rosters for too long without a realistic shot at contending, until the players lost their value and couldn't be used to jump-start a rebuild.
  
• Both teams never did a full rebuild with stockpiled picks and a patient draft and develop strategy, but got impatient once they had two or three really nice pieces and started taking short cuts.
  
• Both now have middle of the road rosters with limited prospects of growth from within, and have to hope they get really lucky with a diamond in the rough prospect or a goalie playing out of his mind to really have a shot at contending in the playoffs.
  
• Both have struggled to find the right coach.

Both had Gulutzan...

[Strange Brew]

Boy I have a hard time attributing much of the season to bad luck. 82 games should be long enough to even things out, and in any case, this team looks like it will miss the playoffs by a healthy margin.

I think for the most part what we’re seeing is a team good enough to play well when the other team is not at their best. But in crunch time, when both teams know the game is in the line, Flames are often the poorer team. This was evident in series vs Ducks IMO. The gaffes by Elliott masked the fact that in third period and OT of close games, Flames were outplayed.

That’s not luck. This is a team that needs to get better.

[Pointman]

FWIW, I just read an article about Houston Rockets system and this stroke me:

You don’t have to think, just play,” Mbah a Moute said. “The way we play really simplifies it for you. Space the floor, shoot it, drive it. It’s pretty simple. Those are kinda the main skills in basketball. If you’re skilled enough, you’re gonna succeed in our system.”

https://www.sbnation.com/2018/3/20/1...tyle-isolation

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

There has been a lot of graphs, spreadsheets, and charts that show the Flames are analytically one of the better teams in the league under Gulutzan. That begs the age old question of the eye test. Personally I rarely see the Flames dominate a game from start to finish. Rarely does it seem like we just punish other teams by owning the puck all game.

This has been the worst on ice product since Brent Sutter dragged a bottom 5 roster on paper to 90pts 3 years in a row. Gulutzan has turned a top 10 team on paper into a bottom third group.

The charts don’t show the lack of identity, or how fragile this group is.

Not sure I agree on this.

I think the eye test has matched the statistics pretty well for the most part. A team that generates a lot of outside and inside shot attempts, but doesn't finish near enough when the chips are down.

They make even more sense when you see them get down, throw the kitchen sink at the opposition while leaving themselves susceptible to odd man rushes that put them further behind.

The eye test confirms the powerplay is junk as well.

Clearly an eye test is subjective, and we all see the game differently.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Cube Inmate

I'll discount "bad luck" instantly. In hockey, you can maybe call it bad luck if your puck hits a rut and flips off your blade...if a dump-in takes an 80° bounce of a stanchion and into your net...if you're skating backwards and step on an Oilers jersey that's been tossed.

But what many are calling "bad luck" is no such thing. It's poor execution caused by poor skills or poor decisions (the latter of these being what we might call "systems"). Low shooting percentage over 82 games is caused by taking poor shots. Letting in "pinball" type goals is caused by allowing the shooting lanes to clog up and not letting your goalie see the shot.

An event of pure "luck" might change the outcome of one game, or even one series. But there's no argument that over 82 games a team could be "unlucky" enough to drop 10 or 20 points from their expectation. It's a lazy excuse to say that. The only way you could argue that (bad) luck could have that kind of effect would be if a team lost its franchise player due to an unlucky injury, but then we say it's injuries causing the failure, not luck.

Disagree.

The league if full of players and with that teams that have seasons where everything goes in followed by seasons where nothing does.

It's the reason I (and others) kept stating Oshi would be a terrible free agent signing (23% shooting with 33 goals, back to career average 13% this year) and why William Karlsson (24% this year) is going to make the Knights look foolish this summer ... unsustainable shooting percentage.

When things go up they usually go down.
When things go down they either come back up or said player has hit a wall and it's over.

The Flames are young so their down players probably bounce back to some degree, and all I'm saying is it would be wise to do a deep dive on those matters before you make a rash decision.

[Erick Estrada]

It takes years to build your roster to a point where you like it enough to say make an "all-in" trade for Hamonic and you don't just blow that up after a single disappointing season. There's no doubt the team needs a scoring RW bad as well as some improvement in the bottom six but that should be attainable. The quality of free agents available this summer is abysmal so I don't know if they will want to get into a bidding war for a guy like Kane but the organization has several defensemen and defensive prospects which can be moved to improve via trade. I expect Treliving will be extremely busy at the draft.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

It takes years to build your roster to a point where you like it enough to say make an "all-in" trade for Hamonic and you don't just blow that up after a single disappointing season. There's no doubt the team needs a scoring RW bad as well as some improvement in the bottom six but that should be attainable. The quality of free agents available this summer is abysmal so I don't know if they will want to get into a bidding war for a guy like Kane but the organization has several defensemen and defensive prospects which can be moved to improve via trade. I expect Treliving will be extremely busy at the draft.

Agreed ... we're hockey fans so it's natural to get pretty despondent over a bad season, but they have to be rational.

They have three excellent young core forwards (Monahan, Gaudreau, Tkachuk), an emerging forward support core in Backlund, Bennett and Jankowski with hopefully Foo and Dube on the way, perhaps Mangiapane or Phillips.

They have a core defense group that is deep and a very deep prospect pool, including one of the best defense pairings in the league at the top.

The issue is scoring up front and goaltending ...

It's clearly a move a defender for a winger summer, and they need to decide if they have the goaltender in house, or if Smith can handle the load for another season in net.

When you look at the mess in other Canadian cities the Flames have a lot to work with.

[Resolute 14]

Rationally, we have three areas that are in severe need of improvement: Bottom six, top six RW, coaching staff.

[Toonage]

I would suggest the Flames go shopping for a veteran backup (of higher quality than Lack) as we saw what happens when Smith goes down for an extended period and really, given his age, we could expect to see this play out again next season.

On topic, yes many of the issues that plagued this team will likely be corrected when the system is changed.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Rationally, we have three areas that are in severe need of improvement: Bottom six, top six RW, coaching staff.

And I think the bottom six needs to be fleshed out a little more as to how that looks.

Ideally they get a trickle down from the top six RW pushing Frolik to the third line.

If that's the case you have ...

Jankowski, Bennett, Ferland, Frolik which is actually a very good start to the bottom six with the addition of that top line winger. With Brouwer back that's 5, and a push from Dube/Foo to add to Hathaway, Lazar and Shore ...

there really isn't a bottom six issue with the top six winger added.