The trials and tribulations of Glen Gulutzan

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by Gaskal

I remember it especially being a big focus of complaint during the 2014-15 playoffs. Just rolled 4 lines and people were angrily pointing at the lack of the Sedin twins icetime while they were being sat in favour of the 3rd and 4th lines.

I'm thinking it's a remnant of coaching under Desjardins. One coach I'd much rather he didn't take after one bit whatsoever.

I know we rag on the Oilers and their overplaying McDavid, but McLellan does what he needs with his misfits to get wins where he can. Could you imagine how bad the Oilers would be if they rolled 4 lines evenly and had their 100 million dollar man sit for 75% of the game?

McLellan double shifts McDavid, and all of a sudden the Flames are reeling because in GG's mind, it's not about playing the Backlund line against McDavid whenever he's on the ice, it's about playing the #2 line against the # 1, and the #4 shift needs its 15 minutes of icetime.

I mean the 1st line has accounted for what, 60-70% of the flames total goals? And they play only 25% of it, 30% max? And this is against the other teams shutdown line each night because Gulutzan refuses to adapt until the game has been long decided.

[curves2000]

I remember listening to the post-game show on 960 following the Edmonton loss and the guys kind of went to bat for the coaching staff. They mentioned things like it's the players who need to understand the level of play, execute on chances, make sure they are prepared and to stay disciplined etc.

Following the Philly loss though I found that there was a marked difference in tone with regards to the coaching staff. It almost seemed like they couldn't find any positives in some of the same exact decisions that may be leading to some of these losses. The tone I got from it was "Man, this and that ISN'T WORKING, why are you doing it over and over?"

It brings me back to the beginning of last season when Frolik was leading the team in goals with I believe 6 or 7, he wasn't on the power play but was on the PK. The PP was close to the bottom of the league in terms of goals or percentage. In all the interviews and stuff GG kept mentioning the PK, defending the decision, talking about this and that etc. Finally on one game there was Frolik on the PP. It almost seemed like the decision was made FOR HIM. Murray Edwards picking up a phone or sending an email telling him that our leading scorer needs to be scoring power-play goals cause I am sick of hearing about MY team being bottom feeders on the man advantage. That's how I saw that!

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

So the Flames have worse depth than other teams, yet play their depth on average more than other teams.

This is baffling. The Flames went out and acquired Hamonic and re-signed Stone in order to give themselves the deepest blueline in the NHL. They did almost nothing to help an already thin forward group. Then they underplay the bottom-pairing defence and overplay the 4th line. Are Treliving and GG even on the same page here?

[GioforPM]

The actual ice times I've looked at tell me that the Flames fourth line gets the same or less time than the fourth lines of other teams, including the Oilers. Especially in close games, when it supposedly matters. Look at the ice times for the last close game - the Avs. The highest fourth line guy was Stajan at kist over 10 minutes (and that includes PK time). Familton had 7 and Brouwer had 9. The Avs played their fourth about the same.

In the Oilers game (which ended up close) the "ride the top lines hard" Oilers gave more time to the fourth line than the Flames did. Against Dallas (another close game) Lazar got 8:51, Versteeg got 9:54. Brouwer had over 12 but there were 5 penalties to kill. The Stars played their fourth line between 8 and 11 minutes.

It's seriously not that difference from team to team in close games (and in non-close games the situations are different and the concept of using the top guys more isn't as important.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Firebot

I know we rag on the Oilers and their overplaying McDavid, but McLellan does what he needs with his misfits to get wins where he can. Could you imagine how bad the Oilers would be if they rolled 4 lines evenly and had their 100 million dollar man sit for 75% of the game?

McLellan double shifts McDavid, and all of a sudden the Flames are reeling because in GG's mind, it's not about playing the Backlund line against McDavid whenever he's on the ice, it's about playing the #2 line against the # 1, and the #4 shift needs its 15 minutes of icetime.

I mean the 1st line has accounted for what, 60-70% of the flames total goals? And they play only 25% of it, 30% max? And this is against the other teams shutdown line each night because Gulutzan refuses to adapt until the game has been long decided.

Just not true.

McDavid played 20 minutes against Calgary. Gaudreau played 19 minutes. Backlund was matched against McDavid and played the same time accordingly. RNH played 15, Draisaitl played 16. Monahan played about the same, so did Tkachuk and Frolik (Bennett too, because he was playing well). GG rode Gio and Hamilton pretty hard, and Kulak got minimal time.

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Just not true.

McDavid played 20 minutes against Calgary. Gaudreau played 19 minutes. Backlund was matched against McDavid and played the same time accordingly. RNH played 15, Draisaitl played 16. Monahan played about the same, so did Tkachuk and Frolik (Bennett too, because he was playing well). GG rode Gio and Hamilton pretty hard, and Kulak got minimal time.

You are right for this game and the McDavid line goals were all scored against Backlund's line, but it goes against my rant against Gulutzan, I will stick to my story.

[IgiTang]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

This is baffling. The Flames went out and acquired Hamonic and re-signed Stone in order to give themselves the deepest blueline in the NHL. They did almost nothing to help an already thin forward group. Then they underplay the bottom-pairing defence and overplay the 4th line. Are Treliving and GG even on the same page here?

Bang on! I’m curious to know their response.

[FanIn80]

So has he been fired yet, or what?

I'm teetering on the edge of not even bothering with the Flames anymore until they get a proper coach. Been bleeding red white and gold since they came to this city in 1980. I've lived through the "Fire Sale" era, the "Save the Flames" era, the "Young Guns" era, the "Find Iggy a Center" era... but I'm not sure if I can stomach a "Johnny and Monny wasted for nothing" era just because we refuse to hire a coach that can actually manage a game.

All the previous eras had some kind of a "we're the underdog" aspect to them, but this era coming up is nothing but a big, giant "**** YOU DON'T TELL US WHAT TO DO" more than it is anything else.

Who has time for that crap?

[Looch City]

We played sorta well but still lost, can we still fire GG?

[ForeverFlameFan]

It's clearly not GG, it's the players when they actually want to play.

If they play with that effort every game, we'll win more. I'm not a huge fan of GG, but I know for a fact that he is not the problem.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by ForeverFlameFan

It's clearly not GG, it's the players when they actually want to play.

If they play with that effort every game, we'll win more. I'm not a huge fan of GG, but I know for a fact that he is not the problem.

do tell

[kukkudo]

Wondering if the Hawks are going to make a change soon or at the end of the season if things stay the same. Would be a bidding war for Joel Quenneville.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by ForeverFlameFan

It's clearly not GG, it's the players when they actually want to play.

If they play with that effort every game, we'll win more. I'm not a huge fan of GG, but I know for a fact that he is not the problem.

Well part of the coaches job is to motivate his guys to play each night so that’s one thing.

I do think the players need to take more of the blame though, the system doesn’t encourage the stupid mistakes and brain farts that are the teams biggest issue. Shows in games like tonight where they play a pretty clean game.

Also our top two lines, and the Gio pairing seems to have no issue with the system and have had / are having career seasons in GGs system, so it works for our top players.

Issue is bench management is another fault in GG at times so the lack of depth becomes a bigger issue than it should be.

[midniteowl]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

do tell

Please...

[Jason14h]

My guess is knowing for a fact is not using “fact” correctly

[ForeverFlameFan]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

do tell

Play well, get good results.

He’s not the greatest coach, but we can see that the effort level isn’t consistent.

[activeStick]

Really good complete game tonight by the team where the players abandoned the coach's system for the full 65 minutes.

[Kovaz]

Originally Posted by ForeverFlameFan

Play well, get good results.

He’s not the greatest coach, but we can see that the effort level isn’t consistent.

The problem I have with that assessment is it ignores the other team. They're also paid $70M to have a consistent effort level, play well, and get good results. More often than not, the other team does show up.

Tonight vs. the Leafs, the Flames showed up and put in a good effort, and the Leafs put in a mediocre effort. That's not evidence that what we're doing is working. If Arizona shows up and Tampa Bay doesn't, Arizona's going to win that game 80-90% of the time - regardless of how bad Arizona's talent and coaching is or how good Tampa's are. Every team has 10-20 games per year where they win easily because only one team showed up, and every team has 10-20 where they lose for the same reason. It would be foolish for the Coyotes to beat Tampa in one of those games and conclude that all they need is a consistent effort level.

Our stated goal is to be a 100 point team, which means coming away with 60% of the available points. There are a number of ways to tilt the scales. Sometimes you can up your effort level over a long period of time, whether it's from something outside of hockey (e.g. Vegas at the start of this year), a strong motivational coach (Sutter), or a swell of confidence from a run of good luck (Flames in 2015), but eventually that runs out. Alternatively, you can acquire better players. Or you can improve the coaching, both in terms of systems and game management.

I just don't believe that any team can reliably work harder than the rest of the league. Sometimes you can catch lightning in a bottle (see: 2004, 2015), and when that happens you run with it. But you can't plan that. The parts you can reliably control are acquiring quality players, and playing a system that puts them in a position to succeed.

Do I believe that we have the players to be a 100 point team and win playoff series? Absolutely.

Do I believe we're playing a system that will allow us to be a 100 point team? I'm not sure. I like parts of it, but I see flaws that I think are really holding us back. I think that to evaluate it, you have to look beyond "did it work tonight?" and look more generally. Will it work against a team that's skating better? Will it work if we're not skating as well? Will it work when both teams are playing at the top of their games?

• I think our system does a good job of neutralizing dump and chase zone entries. Having our first D eat the fore-checking contact buys us time for our forwards to recover, and prevents quick scoring chances against. We also settle the puck well against passive to moderately aggressive forechecking with the reverse play.
• I think our system does a good job recovering loose and bouncing pucks in the slot. We often collapse 5 players into the slot and outnumbering the other team increases our odds of winning those battles if a rebound bounces between the circles.
• I think our system is pretty good at getting zone entries once we've settled the puck down. We get the puck in the hands of a good puck handler with speed and gain the blueline consistently.
• I think once we settle in defensively we defend the neutral zone and our blueline very effectively. We've had a ton of 0-0 third periods with few shots against when we take a lead into the 3rd period.

HOWEVER,

• We struggle to break the puck out of our zone under pressure. Our only play is to force the puck low along the boards and have the winger bump the puck to the center. When that play gets shut down by pinching D with good support, we can't escape our zone until the other team has to make a line change.
• A consequence of our breakout is we don't have a very strong counterattack. The strong side winger starts the breakout either stationary on the boards, or even skating towards our net. But the weak side D can't jump up too aggressively because if the puck is turned over, none of the forwards can get back. So we have at most 2 players with speed, and often 3 opponents back
• We're not very dangerous when we're set up in the offensive zone. Our D play very statically in the offensive zone, often leaving us outnumbered down low. This also causes a lot of 3 on 2's against. In order to have an effective cycle you need all 3 forwards supporting the puck, which sometimes gets us caught with 3 down low.
• Our PK is too passive. They fake pressure on the puck carrier but stop short of fully engaging, so we rarely win a puck without first giving up a shot attempt.

If we win a game where we never face a heavy forecheck, stay out of the box, and go up 3-0 early and sit back all game, obviously I'll be happy for the win. But that won't allay my fear that our flaws won't be addressed. However, if we play a game where we're under heavy forecheck pressure from the drop of the puck but break out of our zone reliably, we take 6 penalties and kill them all off without giving up a shot, and we have multiple shifts where we spend 30+ seconds in the O-zone generating dangerous chances, I'll feel good about the team even if we lose. I want to see signs that we'll be able to beat an elite team at the top of their game, because that's what I think we're capable of.

[SportsJunky]

I definitely thought Glen was more animated last night. The cameras caught him cursing and calling out the refs more than once. It's a start?

[TheFlamesVan]

Originally Posted by SportsJunky

I definitely thought Glen was more animated last night. The cameras caught him cursing and calling out the refs more than once. It's a start?

A start for the camera crews? Because this is nothing new.