The impossible task, coaching and expectations

[I_H8_Crawford]

Originally Posted by belsarius

So just curious about this ice-time narrative. I used the top 12 ice-time per game for the Flames, the Preds and the Jets; both overall and 5v5. I didn't have time to do more but I would be interested if someone did. I used these teams as I think that's kind of the comparable teams the Flames are trying to build.

Calling the top 3 icetime line 1, etc, the Flames actually use their top end talent move than the other two teams and sit their fourth line more.

CGY NAS WPG
Line 1
OV 32% 30% 31%
EV 30% 27% 29%

Line 2
OV 28% 26% 27%
EV 28% 26% 26%

Line 3
OV 23% 25% 24%
EV 23% 25% 24%

Line 4
OV 18% 19% 19%
EV 20% 22% 21%

There isn't a whole lot of variation, and in today's NHL I wouldn't expect there to be. Individually there are some differences, Nashville didn't have a regular play under 9 mins while both Calgary and Winnipeg had one low man. Winnipeg is the only team with Forwards over 20 mins a game in Scheifele and Wheeler. But overall by the lines the Flames use their top 6 more than the others and rely on their 3rd line a lot less. 4th line is lowest but not by much.

If anything you could rationalize that GG uses players in wrong situations, but timing wise, at least using the Preds and the Jets, he is using his guns more and not relying on the bottom lines to carry the load.

Like I said if I had time to do more I would because it interests me how the eye-test actually matches the utilization. Maybe I'll update with more this evening.

EDIT - Bah formatting.. I will try to fix that later

Just wanted to respond to this - did you in any way account for score effects?

I.E. I am pretty sure NAS & WPG have more multi-goal wins than the Flames, which would naturally lead to them playing their lower lines more - don't need the 1st line out every other shift when you're up 3+ goals in a game.

[Toonage]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

I thought their points were valid. If, at this stage of the season, the coach is having to remind players not to try and beat guys 1:1 at the end of a shift, but to rather get the puck deep, VERY basic stuff, is that the coach's fault or the players' fault?
And moreover, the premise was that not enough of these players are willing to pay the price.
How many guys on the team can you say HATE to lose? The guys they named were Gio, Smith, Tkachuk and Johnny (in his own way - their words not mine).

Sounds like players that have a lot in their heads during the course of a game. Thinking a shift or two ahead, maybe zoning out for a bit or flat out overthinking a situation. Have you ever been driving somewhere and made a wrong turn because you were thinking about a different location for one reason or another? I'm not blaming poor or sloppy play entirely on this but I really do think they have been given too much to concern themselves with. Whether thats what they put on themselves or what the coaches are asking of them, there is just too much on the go.

Sounds outrageous but if we're dealing with the mental aspect of the game, and why they appear to be different players home than away, its worth thinking about.

The radio guys this morning suggested that there was, and this is a direct quote, "too much dur on this team". That implied that the players are stupid.
I disagree with that and thought it was unfair.

If we're going to make those kinds of statements then at least include a coaching staff that took 5 months to make obvious changes to personnel.

As for blocked shots, I can't argue that. Would love to see more of it.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Not advocating that Hartley should be coaching the team but these confidence and commitment issues came with Gulutzan.

14/15 Season is a long way ago from a roster perspective.

Gaudreau
Monahan
Giordano
Brodie
Backlund
Stajan
Ferland

Those are the only guys left on the roster from the good Hartley season, the team under Hartley in 15/16 had a lot of the same issues this team does the next year when they finished low enough to draft 6th overall.

Gaudreau, & Backlund, have really thrived under Gulutzan IMO.

Giordano, and Stajan are largely the same players as they were then for better or worse.

Ferland and Monahan you can question. Career offensive seasons but I do think they showed more emotion under Hartley.

Brodie has pretty much been a disaster under Gulutzan both seasons.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

The team led the league in blocked shots when Hartley coached and we complained they blocked too many shots instead of being in position. A lot of Kings forwards are having much better seasons under a new coach. Was Sutter telling guys like Brown and Kopitar not to score? Of course not but it goes to show that a lot can change from coach to coach. This team did not have confidence issues under Hartley nor did they have commitment issues as they competed to the last seconds of games. Not advocating that Hartley should be coaching the team but these confidence and commitment issues came with Gulutzan.

Indeed I don't think leading the team on blocked shots is great because it suggests you need to block a lot of shots. The Kris Russel thing where the dude has a ton of block shots in part because he coughs up the puck a lot

But the point is I don't see the same level of commitment from this team as I do from others. The GAS level just isn't there across the roster.

Block shots is just an example of this.

And I think the issue is too complicated to simply attribute that lack of commitment on the coach alone.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Indeed I don't think leading the team on blocked shots is great because it suggests you need to block a lot of shots. The Kris Russel thing where the dude has a ton of block shots in part because he coughs up the puck a lot

But the point is I don't see the same level of commitment from this team as I do from others. The GAS level just isn't there across the roster.

Block shots is just an example of this.

And I think the issue is too complicated to simply attribute that lack of commitment on the coach alone.

Russell blocked shots because he played Hartley’s d zone system that gave up the perimeter. And partly because he is a smaller guy that isn’t going to physically move the opposition. That fearlessness and shot blocking is what he brings to the table. Not because he was a turnover machine.

I do agree with your point, Russell did have a high GAS level.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

And I think the issue is too complicated to simply attribute that lack of commitment on the coach alone.

To me it's not lack of commitment and lack of confidence. I don't believe these guys are stepping on the ice thinking they are the better team and are going to win. I also think it's hard to play "win at all costs" hockey when you are being coached to adhere to rigid structure that has sapped some creativity and individual talents of certain players on the roster.

If you look at Gulutzan's four seasons as NHL head coach they are all remarkably similar. It really does appear that what you see is what you get and will always get under his structure as it doesn't allow for anything more or less.

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

14/15 Season is a long way ago from a roster perspective.

Gaudreau
Monahan
Giordano
Brodie
Backlund
Stajan
Ferland

Those are the only guys left on the roster from the good Hartley season, the team under Hartley in 15/16 had a lot of the same issues this team does the next year when they finished low enough to draft 6th overall.

Gaudreau, & Backlund, have really thrived under Gulutzan IMO.

"Really Thrived" is an overstatement. Backlund has seen his point totals go up marginally with vastly superior linemate in Matthew Tkachuk. In fact from 2015-16 to 2016-17 his only "improvement" was six power play points.

Gaudreau is around 6th in scoring, which is what he finished 2015-16 (scoring is up this season leaguewide). I don't think he's the same goal scoring threat he was under Hartley, even though the numbers may disagree with me the goals themselves seem far more lucky for him these days rather than sure bets.

Giordano, and Stajan are largely the same players as they were then for better or worse.

Aside from the lockout season, Giordano produced at a 60 point pace for over ~200 games under Hartley. He's produced at a 41 point pace over 150 games under Gulutzan. Largely the same? Nope, and that's directly tied to the lack of "depth" scoring on roster.

I will agree Stajan is largely the same. I do think his line is better off playing a structured system like Gulutzan's, because wingers like Bollig, Brouwer, etc can't play an uptempo stretch pass system. But I also think that's a roster issue.

Ferland and Monahan you can question. Career offensive seasons but I do think they showed more emotion under Hartley.

I'm willing to say Monahan is vastly improved under Gulutzan due to his improvement defensively. But Ferland was due for a breakout the second 2015-16 ended, as he was a classic victim of shooting percentages.

Brodie has pretty much been a disaster under Gulutzan both seasons.

Essentially.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Aarongavey

The only similarity is that neither of them should be NHL coaches.

True. Let's bring in a proven coach like Mike Keenan he will turn it around from Playfair!

Nevermind....How about Brent Sutter - he is highly regarded, that team will turn around and come back to contender status for sure!

90% of the time coaching always gets too much of the credit when things go well, and too much of the blame when things go poorly.

Really there are a handful of coaches that actually impact the game year to year and have a history of playoff success. (Babcock, Quenneville, Laviolette, add Mike Sullivan to that now).

Then you have a group that looks good in the regular season but no cup wins yet (Boudreau, Cooper, Vigneault).

And others with past success that may or may not still "have it" (Sutter, Hitchcock, Julien).

Outside of that true elite tier of 3-4 guys on the low end, and 10 guys on the top end, coaching is mostly interchangable IMO.

If you can get one of those 10 guys to be your coach then you should fire GG tomorrow, if you can't then Treliving should probably be more cautious about making a change. Even somebody like Gerard Gallant has an identical .548 points percentage to what Gulutzan has in his career.

[belsarius]

Originally Posted by I_H8_Crawford

Just wanted to respond to this - did you in any way account for score effects?

I.E. I am pretty sure NAS & WPG have more multi-goal wins than the Flames, which would naturally lead to them playing their lower lines more - don't need the 1st line out every other shift when you're up 3+ goals in a game.

That's a good point. No I didn't use any kind of score adjusting or anything fancy, just the straight TOI/GP for Overall and EV for the top 12 Skaters. The only adjustment I made is if the player was less than 10 games played I tried to skip them as I thought it might skew the numbers.

As to the score adjusting, I went through Anaheim, St Louis, Colorado for similar standings comparison and Edmonton to see if they had a major shift due to score/McDavid factor.

I am not going to post the results since I can't figure out the formatting and they came out pretty similar to the first batch.

Calgary still tops the list for Overall use and Even strength use of the first line. As a % of total minutes, the Flames play their top guys the most and their bottom guys the least among all 7 teams. (Again this is based on top 3 mins played being first line. Ferland was somewhere near 6-7 for example)

The differences are minor, like someone mentioned earlier 1% is 30 seconds of ice-time, but Anaheim for example played their bottom 3 players 21% compared to 18% on the Flames. That's a minute and a half, quite a lot of time for fourth liners.

St Louis was most comparable to the Flames leaning more on the top 6 than the bottom 6. Edmonton, even with the McDavid factor relied on their top 3 less than the Flames. They also made more use of their bottom 6, they rolled 4 lines like Nashville and Winnipeg without the talent depth.

I was looking for backup that GG overuses his bottom lines, and really the numbers show the opposite. In this sample of half the West teams he does the opposite. Now again, timing of usage is just as important as raw time on ice. Early on in the season putting the fourth line out after a goal, or there was a couple times where a late shift in the 3rd by the bottom 6 cost a game (but I think its actually less than people think it is).

So I don't think this lets him off the hook for anything, but when comparing the Flames to a contender vs a bubble team, you can see how the lack of depth has dictated line use and the contenders rely much more on all 4 lines than the bubbles.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Toonage

Sounds like players that have a lot in their heads during the course of a game. Thinking a shift or two ahead, maybe zoning out for a bit or flat out overthinking a situation. Have you ever been driving somewhere and made a wrong turn because you were thinking about a different location for one reason or another? I'm not blaming poor or sloppy play entirely on this but I really do think they have been given too much to concern themselves with. Whether thats what they put on themselves or what the coaches are asking of them, there is just too much on the go.

I think that's letting them off the hook. When I'm driving and miss the turn it is because I'm not paying attention.
Which is the point
They NEED to have their heads in the game.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

I think that's letting them off the hook. When I'm driving and miss the turn it is because I'm not paying attention.
Which is the point
They NEED to have their heads in the game.

But what happens when you’ve programmed that address into your GPS and it doesn’t give you advanced warning of the impending turn? You trusted the preparation of this facet of your trip on the subject matter expert, and said subject matter expert let you down, no?

I would further add, that while tempting to compare driving to playing for an NHL team the dynamics at play are so very different, that I'm not sure that comparison really holds much, if any value.

All of these arguments are sounding so similar to when Greg Gilbert was the coach. We all remember how that turned out. We’re on the same course.

[Toonage]

Originally Posted by New Era

But what happens when you’ve programmed that address into your GPS and it doesn’t give you advanced warning of the impending turn? You trusted the preparation of this facet of your trip on the subject matter expert, and said subject matter expert let you down, no?

I would further add, that while tempting to compare driving to playing for an NHL team the dynamics at play are so very different, that I'm not sure that comparison really holds much, if any value.

All of these arguments are sounding so similar to when Greg Gilbert was the coach. We all remember how that turned out. We’re on the same course.

I'm bad at analogies. I was trying to draw comparisons to being distracted, thinking about other things when you should be focused on the task at hand. Maybe I should have just said that. Instead I was distracted trying to come up with a decent analogy instead of being focused on the task at hand.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by New Era

But what happens when you’ve programmed that address into your GPS and it doesn’t give you advanced warning of the impending turn? You trusted the preparation of this facet of your trip on the subject matter expert, and said subject matter expert let you down, no?

I would further add, that while tempting to compare driving to playing for an NHL team the dynamics at play are so very different, that I'm not sure that comparison really holds much, if any value.

All of these arguments are sounding so similar to when Greg Gilbert was the coach. We all remember how that turned out. We’re on the same course.

These comparisons are getting more and more distant from what we are talking about. I didn't originally make the driving comparison. Someone else did.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

I think that's letting them off the hook. When I'm driving and miss the turn it is because I'm not paying attention.
Which is the point
They NEED to have their heads in the game.

Fans are far too quick to assume players' heads aren't in the game when they make a mistake.

The game is played quickly, on instinct. If you're thinking, you're going to make mistakes. That's the problem with this team.

And yes of course, on an individual level, if a player isn't focused, they'll make mistakes too. But that is individual. When it's endemic, it's not from a lack of focus, it's structural.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

These comparisons are getting more and more distant from what we are talking about. I didn't originally make the driving comparison. Someone else did.

I agree, they are. I would prefer that we compare the performance of the team to their peers and use the most obvious of measures, like wins and losses, and goals for and goals against. These are the only outcomes that matter in a game and determine who makes the post-season.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Fans are far too quick to assume players' heads aren't in the game when they make a mistake.

The game is played quickly, on instinct. If you're thinking, you're going to make mistakes. That's the problem with this team.

And yes of course, on an individual level, if a player isn't focused, they'll make mistakes too. But that is individual. When it's endemic, it's not from a lack of focus, it's structural.

The concept that players will perform best when executing more naturally on muscle memory is valid. But commitment and execution of a game plan is also important.

For me I don't view those things as being mutually exclusive. The idea that if you are thinking you are going to make mistakes I don't fully buy into. I will though agree that the team looks often like they are "gripping it".
So perhaps it is the nuance between thinking and over thinking.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by New Era

I agree, they are. I would prefer that we compare the performance of the team to their peers and use the most obvious of measures, like wins and losses, and goals for and goals against. These are the only outcomes that matter in a game and determine who makes the post-season.

But only focusing on those metrics, and ignoring the drivers of those outcomes, is in my opinion too simplistic.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by belsarius

Calgary still tops the list for Overall use and Even strength use of the first line. As a % of total minutes, the Flames play their top guys the most and their bottom guys the least among all 7 teams. (Again this is based on top 3 mins played being first line. Ferland was somewhere near 6-7 for example)

The differences are minor, like someone mentioned earlier 1% is 30 seconds of ice-time, but Anaheim for example played their bottom 3 players 21% compared to 18% on the Flames. That's a minute and a half, quite a lot of time for fourth liners.

St Louis was most comparable to the Flames leaning more on the top 6 than the bottom 6. Edmonton, even with the McDavid factor relied on their top 3 less than the Flames. They also made more use of their bottom 6, they rolled 4 lines like Nashville and Winnipeg without the talent depth.

I was looking for backup that GG overuses his bottom lines, and really the numbers show the opposite. In this sample of half the West teams he does the opposite. Now again, timing of usage is just as important as raw time on ice. Early on in the season putting the fourth line out after a goal, or there was a couple times where a late shift in the 3rd by the bottom 6 cost a game (but I think its actually less than people think it is).

So I don't think this lets him off the hook for anything, but when comparing the Flames to a contender vs a bubble team, you can see how the lack of depth has dictated line use and the contenders rely much more on all 4 lines than the bubbles.

Actually I think you proved that GG has no farking idea what he's doing. Calgary's fourth line has no business getting as much ice time as good teams' 4th lines get. In fact because Calgary has been behind so much for so much of the season, the 1 & 2 lines should be getting much more ice time.

The fact that the coaching staff deploys lines like a good team would is... Not good.

[Cube Inmate]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

I think that's letting them off the hook. When I'm driving and miss the turn it is because I'm not paying attention.
Which is the point
They NEED to have their heads in the game.

This was a faulty analogy to begin with. When you're driving, the rest of the cars on the road aren't actively trying to make you miss your turn. Sometimes it seems like that, but that's beside the point.

But suppose they were...and suppose you missed your turn. Would it really help you to have your GPS continuously chirping "do a U-turn, and proceed on 16th Avenue..." ?? I mean, it told you where to go, and you clearly weren't paying attention so you need to be reminded of that. YOU JUST NEED TO EXECUTE THE PLAN! Get your head in the game!

Oh well, you're lost now. We'll try this route again tomorrow.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

But only focusing on those metrics, and ignoring the drivers of those outcomes, is in my opinion too simplistic.

I guess it depends on what you think are drivers of those outcomes? You mean drivers like not allowing the talent corps of blueliners to jump up in the play? You mean drivers like not using team speed and moving the puck forward, rather than moving the puck backward and allowing the opposition to get into position and defend? You mean drivers like always using the same failed method for entering the zone? You mean drivers like bad line matchups or player selection? I agree, those drivers should be discussed, but it seems all too often we end up talking about useless stats about unrelated events on the ice - stats that have zero success in determining any outcomes in any fashion. To me, these fancy stats arguments are application of bad stats to a problem in search of an answer.