[POLL] Calgary Flames coaching change mega-thread—with poll

[kyuss275]

My gut tells me today it's announced either GG is fired or he got the vote of confidence. I don't think they are going to drag this out like they did with Hartley.

[Poe969]

I actually was actually thinking the same thing, something will be announced before the playoffs start.

I hope they make the right decision.

[kukkudo]

Yup I have a feeling its today.

[Toonage]

Finally (!) morning radio asking if this team took on the persona of the coach.

Took 2 seasons but finally hearing it being asked is gratifying.

Edit - GG coming up on Hockeycentral at Noon on Sportsnet West (sometime within the hour)

[smiggy77]

Naw I doubt it, as per Tre, they're just doing the end of season interview with Gully today. Tre is a process guy and needs to talk to everyone before he pulls the trigger, unless GG is his last interview of the day.

To put into perspective, Bob had his end of season interview and stayed on. It was not until May when Bob was fired.

[smiggy77]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

Gulutzan has to go.

Look at all the players that have underachieved under this coach, especially this year.

Bennett, Brodie, Brouwer - all have had 2 years below expectations
Heck, Gio was a 55-60 point (pace) guy before, that 2 years running is now 38-39 points.

Backlund and Frolik had a tough year this year

You just can’t expect to win with a coach who is getting 70 percent of the value out of a large number of his key assets individually.

I’m ready, Brad.

Drop the Gullytine

I mean, my days of defending GG are done now and I'm fine with moving in another direction for coach, but you can always counter your argument. There were quite a few players (also key guys) who had career years: Monny, Johnny, Tkachuk, Ferland, Janko, Dougie (on goals), Backlund has had his best years under GG.

[tkflames]

Originally Posted by smiggy77

I mean, my days of defending GG are done now and I'm fine with moving in another direction for coach, but you can always counter your argument. There were quite a few players (also key guys) who had career years: Monny, Johnny, Tkachuk, Ferland, Janko, Dougie (on goals), Backlund has had his best years under GG.

I disagree with both of you on this one and I recognize you are only loosely countering the original point. Player individual performance is a poor way of judging coach performance.

High individual stats can be an indicator of an offense-conducive system or high end players that are padding their stats.

Low individual stats can be an indicator of poor play under a coaches system or sacrifice for the greater team good. Have a look at Yzerman and Modano's stats when they made the change in their game to a better team game.

In most traditional team stats, the team failed miserably: PP, GA, GF, Points, Goal Differential.

For the advanced stats crowd, as evident in my previous posts, I am a firm believer in shot related stats being applied to individual players andnot teams. A team of crappy shooters will have lots of shots without scoring, a team of snipers will have few shots and defending a lead. An individual player will regress to the mean of their shooting percentage.

[smiggy77]

Originally Posted by tkflames

I disagree with both of you on this one and I recognize you are only loosely countering the original point. Player individual performance is a poor way of judging coach performance.

High individual stats can be an indicator of an offense-conducive system or high end players that are padding their stats.

Low individual stats can be an indicator of poor play under a coaches system or sacrifice for the greater team good. Have a look at Yzerman and Modano's stats when they made the change in their game to a better team game.

In most traditional team stats, the team failed miserably: PP, GA, GF, Points, Goal Differential.

For the advanced stats crowd, as evident in my previous posts, I am a firm believer in shot related stats being applied to individual players andnot teams. A team of crappy shooters will have lots of shots without scoring, a team of snipers will have few shots and defending a lead. An individual player will regress to the mean of their shooting percentage.

Could not agree more on your observation and your metrics to truly evaluate player performance. It really does illustrate this seasons failure, and even Tre said it, we don't have the skill, ie. strong shooters.

[TheSutterDynasty]

Player individual performance is a poor way of judging coach performance.

And wins-losses is a good way?

[dissentowner]

I still think the assistants will go but GG won't.

[dammage79]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

I still think the assistants will go but GG won't.

Thats a likely scenario. about 50/50. The PP has to be answered for.

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by smiggy77

I mean, my days of defending GG are done now and I'm fine with moving in another direction for coach, but you can always counter your argument. There were quite a few players (also key guys) who had career years: Monny, Johnny, Tkachuk, Ferland, Janko, Dougie (on goals), Backlund has had his best years under GG.

I will agree Monahan had a career year under Glen. I even give GG credit for it as Hartley had Monahan playing very irresponsibly.

Backlund was just as good in 2016 playing with Bennett/Colborne as he was in 2017 playing with Tkachuk at ES. A few more PP points hardly swing the pendulum.

Janko and Tkachuk have never known another NHL coach. I don't think Jankowski's rookie year was up to par to be honest. In fact I felt Jankowski was a worse 3C this year than Bennett the year prior. I say that as a huge Jankowski fan - he underperformed grossly. Even though our blueline was markedly better with a third pair that could drive play.

Ferland was on the verge of breaking out in 2015-16 but a victim of atrocious shooting luck. Hartley never held him back though - he even mentioned Ferland having All-Star upside.

That leaves Hamilton. I don't know what to make of him... he puts up stats but doesn't seem to have a team impact the way Brodie did. I guess you could give Gulutzan credit for Dougie's 'success' but I think it might be the other way around - Dougie is the only player on the team who can execute Gulutzan's cycle-and-point-shot offensive system successfully and masks the issues on a team-wide level. He is a player made for mindless volume shooting and his ability to finish makes it seem like a viable approach. The system feeds Dougie's numbers, but I am unconvinced that it should. Total team goals are the end result we are striving for, I would sacrifice a few from Dougie if it meant twenty, thirty, fourty more from everybody else.

[Calgary4LIfe]

Off the top of my head, I can't remember a season in which the assistants were let go, but the head coach wasn't (other than the assistants moving on for different opportunities). I can think of a lot of examples off the top of my head when the head coach gets replaced, but one or more of the assistants stays.

I don't see it as a likely scenario based on history... but who knows.

[Toonage]

Blackhawks fired an assistant last year but that's a much different scenario.

[Eric Vail]

Originally Posted by kyuss275

My gut tells me today it's announced either GG is fired or he got the vote of confidence. I don't think they are going to drag this out like they did with Hartley.

I think the Flames way is to take at least a month to evaluate. If they decide to change the coach, it will take at least another month, maybe 2 to do a thorough review of all the candidates. Once there, they will hire the best of what is left, after the other teams have snapped up all the really good coaches.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe

Off the top of my head, I can't remember a season in which the assistants were let go, but the head coach wasn't (other than the assistants moving on for different opportunities). I can think of a lot of examples off the top of my head when the head coach gets replaced, but one or more of the assistants stays.

I don't see it as a likely scenario based on history... but who knows.

I've seen some assistants let go, but not all. Goalie coaches for example, have seemed to come and go on this team without wholesale changes in staff.

[Toonage]

Just an FYI - GG on Hockeycentral discussed his trip into Saskatoon this past week and some junior stories. Nothing related to the Flames but some uplifting stories.

[EVERLAST]

The oil had An addition mid.season to the coaching staff did they not?

Having Paul Coffey lurking behind you has to be a little nerve wracking doesn't it?

[Frank MetaMusil]

C'mon Tree, pull the trigger! Hopefully this gets done today.

[tkflames]

Originally Posted by TheSutterDynasty

And wins-losses is a good way?

Yes - in fact, the ability to win is the only metric that matters. I don't care if the Flames have a team of no-names like Vegas and win or a team of all-stars and win. They just need to find ways to develop and win.

However, I think you are getting at using wins/losses as a means of measuring and projecting player & coach performance.

I would suggest that coach tendencies should not be evaluated over a 10 or 20 or even 40 game period. However, coach tendencies do become apparent over a 140 or 280 game sample size. This is why some of the comments related to GGs team in Dallas seem so relevant now (chocking down the stretch, not getting up for big games etc.). Even if Anaheim had not made the playoffs this year, Carlyle would have been difficult to evaluate given the number of key mangames lost this year.

Similarly, groups of players should be judged on the overall result "where context matters". The biggest challenge is that when you remove "context" your sample size becomes fairly small and so a longer evaluation period is required. For example, there is no point in evaluating player performance from the Oilers from January onwards. So when Oilers management goes through the evaluation process they have less than 40 games (early in the season) on which to evaluate their players. While the team's needs are obviously apparent, the quality of their own players is far more complicated to gauge. As a result individual skills need to be used to supplement the assessment.