Bill Peters: Post-mortem on year 1

[2macinnis2]

An excellent point-total regular season largely erased by a nothing-short-of-catastrophic playoff vs Colorado. This isn't easy to evaluate.

First off, I want to reiterate my point of view that beyond any single player, the head coach is going to be the single most important figure in terms of achieving success. Around the league, this continues to be true (look at Gallant, and how does Trotz win a Cup and then take a team that just lost their best player and produce their best result in recent memory, playoffs included?!) Without Quenneville, I don't believe the Hawks dynasty ever happens. The last memorable Flames season/post-season wasn't driven by a "line-driving #1 center"... it was driven by the best head coach in recent Flames history that went on to win 2 Cups after his departure. No accident.

So, on to Peters. I thought the dynamic he brought in post-GG was more than welcome. GG was a straight-up awful coach. His willingness to adjust in game and blend lines clearly worked well for much of the season. His best players responded well for him, and his Carolina bring-alongs also for the most part produced very well. Keeping shot totals against down all season, especially with questions at goalie, is also to be commended. Peters showed he has potential, he I think he is still very raw.

With that said, my #1 disappointment in the playoffs on this team was Peters. He had absolutely no answers for an Avalanche team that was firing on all cylinders going into the playoffs. No meaningful tactical adjustments, no inspiration to reassure and motivate slumping players. They had been a slumping team for a while, and they ran into a team that caught fire just to make it in. It's easy/popular to point to MacKinnon as the obvious reason the Avs won, but it misses the point that the Avalanche from top to bottom outclassed the Flames. When scrubs like JT Compher, Colin Wilson, and Nieto are having you for lunch, and you can't crack the defense of a team without more than 1-2 guys you'd suit up on your blue line for a full season, the difference in the series is far more than 1 player.

Barry Trotz and Joel Quenneville were outstanding regular season coaches for a long time before they started realizing playoff success, with different teams mind you. Every coach trajectory is different (look how useless some of the older coaches like Hitchcock have become, despite historic success). Sometimes team/fit do have something to do with it as well, but I also don't question these coaches also improve with experience. This was an issue with taking on a coach like Peters (or GG for that matter), in that maybe you have potential, but will the training of the coach waste years of top level players in their prime?

I have legitimate concerns about the damage done to the psyche of core Flames players over the past 2 months, culminating this past week. What kind of season next year can we expect from our best players? Do they have the mindset that 82 games of hard work and success can evaporate quickly in 1 bad week? Do they believe the chatter that they aren't playoff-built anyhow? Adding 1 or 2 UFAs won't solve those problems. And contrary to what is pervasive on these boards, our top players ARE really, really good at hockey (yes, that includes Monahan).

Ultimately, I would grade Peters a C. I thought he showed flashes but was an unmitigated disaster in the playoff series. He had to better recognize what was going wrong early, like after game 2, and shape-shift the team's systemic approach. Whether it be trap, 1-2-2, shot-blocking lanes, whatever the approach, he's the coach and it was his job to find the right formula. He failed to impose any sort of adversity to a streaking Avalanche team. He was a total failure, to sum it up.

Where do we go from here? The roster will be tinkered with, but I doubt we see seismic change. It is a long offseason and Peters will hopefully get some counsel on what went wrong, and how he needs to learn from it. Here's hoping he does... quickly.

[Jiri Hrdina]

I disagree with your basic premise that the coach is the most important figure and continue to struggle why some folks don't want to hold the players accountable.Your proof point for your premise is a couple of singular examples.
You win and lose on the backs of your best players.
The Flames best players were awful.
That's not coaching, in my view.


Coaching is an important ingredient to be sure - but it is far over weighted by some fans.

[Itse]

I would also actually agree that coaching is absolutely key. Especially in the playoffs.

Your best players can only be as good as the situation they're put in. Peters relied too much on our defensive forwards being able to win possession battles against Colorados first line. That proved to be a disastrous plan, and he should have adjusted, but didn't. That put many of our players in a position doomed to fail, so they did.

Sure the players themselves could have been better. Everybody shares a part of the failure.

I'm not too worried. These were, after all, Peters' first playoffs.

(Of course this is the moment where I'm kind of thinking "Darryl Sutters's teams never failed like this in the playoffs." But meh, water under the bridge.)

[BurningSteel]

Meh teams getting better largely because of him. I'd say a b+

[2macinnis2]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

I disagree with your basic premise that the coach is the most important figure and continue to struggle why some folks don't want to hold the players accountable.
You win and lose on the backs of your best players.
The Flames best players were awful.
That's not coaching, in my view.

Fair to disagree, but you have to answer me then...

When the Flames became a more talented team post 2006, why did they worsen by every conceivable performance metric there-after? Explain to me the Islanders and their best players a little, and how they're better than Crosby. And finally, what made a post-prime Ovechkin who in recent years had even been demoted to the 3rd line in a playoff series suddenly good enough to lead a team to the Stanley Cup?

[Vinny01]

I criticized Treliving at the STH event last year for picking Peters over Sutter or AV but this season he proved me wrong that Peters is a good coach. Had they made it deep into the second round I was prepared to apologize when they have the event this year. After the first round loss I am just going to keep quiet.

I will eat crow because I really enjoyed the regular season but it is very disappointing the Flames couldn’t really counter punch the Avs all series and got outplayed every game. A lot of that is on the players but I also think Peters owns accountability here

[GranteedEV]

Peters was at his best when he wasn't satisfied and constantly tinkering and making tough decisions. As soon as he got the idea in his head about what the "right" lineup was, he changed his style. The guy willing to scratch Frolik and Stone early in the season took too long to identify what wasn't working in the cases of guys like Neal, Monahan, and Jankowski. In fact I'm not sure he even values speed at center which is kind of a fundamental tenet of championship teams. Contrast this with Tortorella, who at one point called out his center core with Dubois injured and said "we have no centers". Center is the most important position in ice hockey and Peters will need to rectify his approach to that next year. Even if it means a demotion for a star player to the wing.

My other disappointment with Peters is how much the team stopped skating with the puck as the year went along. A LOT of this series was typified by desperate whacks to enter or exit the zone, while Bednar had his Avs carrying the puck and rarely dumping it after game 1. Dump and chase can't be a primary style of play. It needs to be a last resort but by the end of the year the team was dumping and chasing at every opportunity.

I better see each and every one of Dube, Bennett, Czarnik tried at centre next year.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by 2macinnis2

With that said, my #1 disappointment in the playoffs on this team was Peters. He had absolutely no answers for an Avalanche team that was firing on all cylinders going into the playoffs. No meaningful tactical adjustments, no inspiration to reassure and motivate slumping players. They had been a slumping team for a while, and they ran into a team that caught fire just to make it in. It's easy/popular to point to MacKinnon as the obvious reason the Avs won, but it misses the point that the Avalanche from top to bottom outclassed the Flames. When scrubs like JT Compher, Colin Wilson, and Nieto are having you for lunch, and you can't crack the defense of a team without more than 1-2 guys you'd suit up on your blue line for a full season, the difference in the series is far more than 1 player.

Barry Trotz and Joel Quenneville were outstanding regular season coaches for a long time before they started realizing playoff success, with different teams mind you. Every coach trajectory is different (look how useless some of the older coaches like Hitchcock have become, despite historic success). Sometimes team/fit do have something to do with it as well, but I also don't question these coaches also improve with experience. This was an issue with taking on a coach like Peters (or GG for that matter), in that maybe you have potential, but will the training of the coach waste years of top level players in their prime?

Where do we go from here? The roster will be tinkered with, but I doubt we see seismic change. It is a long offseason and Peters will hopefully get some counsel on what went wrong, and how he needs to learn from it. Here's hoping he does... quickly.

I agree with many of the things you say about Peters in the playoffs. I would have liked to see more passion, fire and motivation from the bench as I do believe that the staff needs to push the players. That being said, I just don't think that the Flames and Peters had the right pieces in place. I think Peters was lost trying to figure out how best to utilize his tools in a playoff environment. I think Peters is good and I think he has the potential for ongoing success but going into the playoffs he just wasn't set up for success. There was only so much that Peters could do to try to turn around the playoff series. I don't put much fault at the feet of Peters.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

Peters was at his best when he wasn't satisfied and constantly tinkering and making tough decisions. As soon as he got the idea in his head about what the "right" lineup was, he changed his style. The guy willing to scratch Frolik and Stone early in the season took too long to identify what wasn't working in the cases of guys like Neal, Monahan, and Jankowski. In fact I'm not sure he even values speed at center which is kind of a fundamental tenet of championship teams.

My other disappointment with Peters is how much the team stopped skating with the puck as the year went along. A LOT of this series was typified by desperate whacks to enter or exit the zone, while Bednar had his Avs carrying the puck and rarely dumping it after game 1. Dump and chase can't be a primary style of play. It needs to be a last resort but by the end of the year the team was dumping and chasing at every opportunity.

I have to agree about that. Complacency definitely seemed to settle in in the latter half.

Of course it's understandable when staying the course got them the best record in the conference, so this is definitely armchair coaching. (...but that's what fan forums are for )

[2macinnis2]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

Peters was at his best when he wasn't satisfied and constantly tinkering and making tough decisions. As soon as he got the idea in his head about what the "right" lineup was, he changed his style. The guy willing to scratch Frolik and Stone early in the season took too long to identify what wasn't working in the cases of guys like Neal, Monahan, and Jankowski. In fact I'm not sure he even values speed at center which is kind of a fundamental tenet of championship teams.

My other disappointment with Peters is how much the team stopped skating with the puck as the year went along. A LOT of this series was typified by desperate whacks to enter or exit the zone, while Bednar had his Avs carrying the puck and rarely dumping it after game 1. Dump and chase can't be a primary style of play. It needs to be a last resort but by the end of the year the team was dumping and chasing at every opportunity.

That's an astute point... and maybe one he can learn from. There probably is some correlation this year between when the lineup became more solidified and when the team lost some of their mojo. I wonder if that translated into their X and O's approach too.

And dump-and-chase can work for some teams, but this Flames group is going to produce much more off of 90's Red Wings' style puck possession (especially with how good their are on the dot), and counter-punch. It felt like we got almost no odd-man rushes in this series.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by 2macinnis2

Fair to disagree, but you have to answer me then...

When the Flames became a more talented team post 2006, why did they worsen by every conceivable performance metric there-after? Explain to me the Islanders and their best players a little, and how they're better than Crosby. And finally, what made a post-prime Ovechkin who in recent years had even been demoted to the 3rd line in a playoff series suddenly good enough to lead a team to the Stanley Cup?

A post prime Ovechkin? You know that he just won another goal scoring title right?

As for the Islanders - their best players can be better than another teams best players. Elite players can have awful series - the question that needs to be asked is whether that is because it is a one-off, or if they are capable of having the extra gear necessary to win in the playoffs.

Coaching is important - but a coach can't teach personality/drive

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by 2macinnis2

Fair to disagree, but you have to answer me then...

When the Flames became a more talented team post 2006, why did they worsen by every conceivable performance metric there-after? Explain to me the Islanders and their best players a little, and how they're better than Crosby. And finally, what made a post-prime Ovechkin who in recent years had even been demoted to the 3rd line in a playoff series suddenly good enough to lead a team to the Stanley Cup?

Each of those has many factors behind them
Lot of confirmation bias at play here

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by 2macinnis2

And dump-and-chase can work for some teams, but this Flames group is going to produce much more off of 90's Red Wings' style puck possession (especially with how good their are on the dot), and counter-punch. It felt like we got almost no odd-man rushes in this series.

I never really paid a lot of attention during the season as a casual fan to the zone entry so I don't recall how often the top line would dump and chase and how effective it was. But I really took notice in the playoffs at how poor they were at dump and chase. Obviously Johnny is a small guy and not meant to grind in the corners for the puck and as such he was useless in dump and chase situations. The Avs figured out how to take away time and space from the top line and they couldn't adjust to it.

[burn_baby_burn]

I don't understand why they kept Monahan in the lineup. He was obviously nursing an injury of some kind. Maybe the wrist again? When he had the puck on his stick wide open in the slot last night and couldn't even attempt a shot. A player like him is pretty much useless when he can't shoot.

Is this a coaches decision to keep putting him out there? Or does it come from higher up? Monahan was definitely not himself after the bye week. Why not sit him and put someone else out there? I don't get it.

[2macinnis2]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

A post prime Ovechkin? You know that he just won another goal scoring title right?

As for the Islanders - their best players can be better than another teams best players. Elite players can have awful series - the question that needs to be asked is whether that is because it is a one-off, or if they are capable of having the extra gear necessary to win in the playoffs.

Coaching is important - but a coach can't teach personality/drive

Ovechkin is 33. He is a rare player and athlete and still has a dynamite shot, but I don't think he's the player that could single handedly lead his team to a president's trophy any longer.

And on the extra-gear question... I hear where that's coming from but I also think that it's a little overblown. Great players are great players, and can be great if they play in the preseason, regular season, playoffs, Olympics, provided they are put in the right position. Sure some players are better under pressure than others, but there are many stories of players with prior playoff failure becoming studs. I remember for years Pronger struggled to up his game with the Blues in the playoffs, and he was absolutely dynamite with the Oilers and Ducks during their runs.

Maybe I'm just making the case that Flames core pieces shouldn't be messed with too much.

[Strange Brew]

Coaching is absolutely important in hockey and maybe we can leave the Gaudreau bashing in another thread. This thread is about Peters.

I said it before but Treliving specifically hired Peters to bring leadership to this team, something that he thought was lacking. That didn’t seem to manifest in the playoffs.

When hired, his critics pointed to the lack of success in Carolina. The defenders of the decision pointed to the lack of talent in Carolina. Well after bringing some of their better players over, Carolina is still playing and we’re not.

Simply no choice but to hope Peters learns from this and is an even better coach next year. Guys like Trotz had tons of playoff failure before achieving success.

[iamca]

It's difficult to judge Peters on one season and one playoff series.

I completely agree that the adjustments were too little and too late in the 5 games against Colorado.

Coming in perhaps the coaching staff and the players were over confident considering the regular season they had and Colorado being an 8th seed.

In terms of grading, that's a difficult question, but if pressed I'd say a C overall.

Have to agree that if the team's best players put up any points, the series is easier on the goaltending and defense, so essentially a completely different series.

The top 6 were awful and it doesn't matter if you are the Lightning, Pens, or Flames, when the production is that poor you are not winning a playoff series.

Coaches are supposed to strategize, have a tactical plan, and motivate.

Players need to perform.


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[Strange Brew]

It is funny that not long ago people thought both Sakic and Bednar were in over their head. We’ll see how the Avs play next round against a more battle tested opponent but maybe Bednar is a decent coach.

[2macinnis2]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

Coaching is absolutely important in hockey and maybe we can leave the Gaudreau bashing in another thread. This thread is about Peters.

I said it before but Treliving specifically hired Peters to bring leadership to this team, something that he thought was lacking. That didn’t seem to manifest in the playoffs.

When hired, his critics pointed to the lack of success in Carolina. The defenders of the decision pointed to the lack of talent in Carolina. Well after bringing some of their better players over, Carolina is still playing and we’re not.

Simply no choice but to hope Peters learns from this and is an even better coach next year. Guys like Trotz had tons of playoff failure before achieving success.

I think the best hope of the players responding to this moving forward is Peters leaning and responding too. Again, I have hope for Peters, and like you said, we don't have much choice...

[Badgers Nose]

Peters is such a good coach.

I never imagined in a million years he would be this good. Also gives probably the best press conferences.

He and BT will figure out some good tweaks for next year, I'm sure of that.