Quote:
Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina
Could be different issues for each team. I don't think the Canes are particularly talented up front. I view each of their lines playing largely higher up in the lineup than they should be. Except Skinner seems oddly utilized - don't understand that.
But I don't know that they actually have a single player that I would say is a top line guy, so all their forwards are facing tougher match-ups than they are probably equipped to do.
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The same can be said for the Golden Knights but Gallant is someone has been able to instill a swagger and confidence on all of his teams.
Great junior record, moved on to assistant for the Canadiens for two years and they were great and they've been downhill since he left, went to Florida and improved them greatly his first season, led them to the playoffs the next season and then was unceremoniously dumped by analytics geeks too early in the season.
I get what Bingo is saying about the fallacies of just looking at coaching records, but I counter and say why not? Records are historical facts, they don't lie. People don't study history because it's fun, it's because they are evidence of past behaviour and results.
A guy like Gallant has been able to inspire and get his players to perform well whereever he has been. Same for guys like AV and Sutter. Sure, the message eventually gets tuned out but they do get the results. These coaches just have an intangible element to them that gets results.
It is that intangible and human element that is the most important part of a leader and coach. That is why those coaches who have that intangible ability to lead can get results even when they fail in other areas such as technical or theoretical analysis. It doesn't work the other way around though. You can have all the great technical and theoretical knowledge but if you can't lead, you are doomed. Everyone loves the Moneyball story about how it helped the Athletics to a pennant and a 20 game winning streak, but everyone skips over the fact that they ultimately did not win the World Series. They didn't even win the ALCS. Analytics can only take you so far and if you are a coach who relies too much on it or bases your style of play on that, and lacks the leadership ability, well you will eventually hit a ceiling or wall. Gulutzan seems like one of those guys. Great analytics and possession stats, good winning records in the minors, but no championships of any kind throughout his career. In the NHL, not even minor success and with the Flames, his teams had no confidence and no swagger and no identity.
Under Darryl, the Flames never had a good roster. In 2004, i knew the roster sucked with the exception of Iggy, Regher, and Kipper, but you just had a sense that the team had it. When the coach can instill that confidence in the players, it fills over to the fans. Same with Hartley, I watched and couldn't believe all the 3rd period comebacks, it was UNsustainable, but as a fan, you could sense that swagger. Sure he lost it the next season, but he at least created that swagger for 1.5 seasons (it started after they traded Iggy).
Under Gulutzan, never once did I feel a confidence in the team and never once did they inspire me as a fan to think that this team had what it takes to go all the way or that they were even a good team. This was despite all the great analytics numbers. Gulutzan just lacked the ability to inspire or instill confidence.
My question is, is Peters the same as Gulutzan? At the very least, Peters has a Memorial Cup championship and a Gold Medal at the worlds in 2016 so he has that going for him. But his record in Carolina is a huge red flag and yes I get the roster limitations, but I don't think the roster is that much worse than the Golden Knights or the Devils, two teams that made the playoffs. You can argue the Knights had better goaltending, but I take the Hurricanes defense core over them. The Devils had a game breaker in Hall but again the Hurricanes had a better defense core. The Hurricanes roster really isn't that bad, the weakest link to me was the goaltending and if that was the reason for Peters failure, well, that doesn't give me much hope for the Flames as i'm a little iffy on Smith and the backups.
