Bill Peters: Post-mortem on year 1

[TOfan]

Originally Posted by 2macinnis2

No offense but I think that is a brutal oversimplification. The reason the Flames were the heavy favorite was not because our first line was expected to outperform, or I’d argue even keep up with the Avs first line. The advantage the Flames have is a much deeper lineup with a significantly better back end. There’s really no aspect to any of these matchups the Flames won. The Avs D was better than the Flames. Guys like Ian Cole and Zadorov looked like Stalwarts. Barrie was error proof it seemed. Depth? Guys like friggin JT Compher, Nieto, Wilson, even Soderberg ... honestly totally average players on any planet, were somehow unstoppable and getting chances all over the place. They were all basically on fire NBA Jam style.

The Avs first line probably was good enough to win this series by themselves, but not this convincingly and not this fast. That’s a close 6-7 game series. When you’re dominated and out in 5, it’s way way more than 3 players on their team and 3 on ours.

Or is it possible the Av's depth is better than they were given credit for? They certainly gave the second best regular season team in the league more than they could handle. Are Frolik, Neal, Jankowski, Ryan, Bennett, Hathaway better than Compher, Soderberg,Wilson, Neito? Evidently not.

As for the D, TJ Brodie, in my mind, was hands down the poorest performer of any top 4 on either team.

The playoffs are a different game. No one should be getting too hung up on regular season records. The Av's won because they were the better team, both on and off the ice. That said, of all the guys who should shoulder blame Peters is fairly far down the list. I'm not sure if there was any player who distinguished themselves as some who commanded special attention from the Av's.

Monahan ,Gaudreau, Brodie all fell well short of where they should have been. Backlund & Gio were also disappointing. If you're getting that level of performance from that many of your core, you're not going to win. Period.

My hope is the Flames build from this. I think they will, but it's also clear they need to make some adjustments to the roster.

We have a good coach with a good staff who guided the team to their second best regular season ever. No point in getting on them now.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally Posted by Meers

The fact that Carolina is still playing says a lot about Peters.

No, it really doesn't say much at all. What do you think it says?

[2macinnis2]

Originally Posted by TOfan

Or is it possible the Av's depth is better than they were given credit for? They certainly gave the second best regular season team in the league more than they could handle. Are Frolik, Neal, Jankowski, Ryan, Bennett, Hathaway better than Compher, Soderberg,Wilson, Neito? Evidently not.

As for the D, TJ Brodie, in my mind, was hands down the poorest performer of any top 4 on either team.

The playoffs are a different game. No one should be getting too hung up on regular season records. The Av's won because they were the better team, both on and off the ice. That said, of all the guys who should shoulder blame Peters is fairly far down the list. I'm not sure if there was any player who distinguished themselves as some who commanded special attention from the Av's.

Monahan ,Gaudreau, Brodie all fell well short of where they should have been. Backlund & Gio were also disappointing. If you're getting that level of performance from that many of your core, you're not going to win. Period.

My hope is the Flames build from this. I think they will, but it's also clear they need to make some adjustments to the roster.

We have a good coach with a good staff who guided the team to their second best regular season ever. No point in getting on them now.

If you released all the Flames and Avs depth players (2nd line and on) and top 6 D into UFA, the Flames players would rightfully have far more value. I am talking about players like Backlund, Tkachuk/Lindholm, Bennett, Ryan, Jankowski, Neal, Frolik and even Magiapane. Yes, those players are a lot better than Kerfoot, Soderberg, Compher, Nieto, Adrighetto, Brassard, Jost etc. The defense? It's not close on paper. There's a reason the Flames did well in the regular season.

The coach did a great job during the regular season. The post-season was absolutely not the same story.

[The Boy Wonder]

Avs had 8 of their top 12 play their best hockey of the season for 5 games.

Flames had 1.

To me that equation is pretty easy to compute.

Now add in our D completely forgetting how to defend and Ian Cole and Za’Darius becoming studs overnight and you are lucky it wasn’t a sweep to be honest.

What were peters’ options?

The only guys who were trying to get things going were Bennett, sometimes lindholm, mangiapanne and that’s about it for forwards. Tkachuk, Johnny and mony disappeared while mackinnon elevated to top in the world status.

I don’t care who you are but you can’t win a coaching battle when your best don’t show up

[Spinach]

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.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.

Exactly. And the only truly objective way to measure whether a head coach is "better" than another would to have them each face each other while rotating the rosters they manage. In short, it's preposterous.

And then, of course, the bench boss isn't the only guy giving input. The front office, the assistant coaches and the scouts also have a big influence on results, teaching, adjusting, tactics etc.

Obviously some coaches are more knowledgeable, hardworking, or better leaders. But it's more about finding the right fit than finding "the best." Trotz has had multiple early exits. Quenneville got fired by the same organization he won championships with. How "good" were they in those years? You give them teams full of players whose give-a-crap meter is in the negative, and they don't win Cup titles. However, you give them rosters capable of winning, along with a great support staff, and those knowledgeable, hardworking leaders flourish. It's symbiosis.

[Spinach]

Originally Posted by The Boy Wonder

Avs had 8 of their top 12 play their best hockey of the season for 5 games.

Flames had 1.

To me that equation is pretty easy to compute.

Now add in our D completely forgetting how to defend and Ian Cole and Za’Darius becoming studs overnight and you are lucky it wasn’t a sweep to be honest.

What were peters’ options?

The only guys who were trying to get things going were Bennett, sometimes lindholm, mangiapanne and that’s about it for forwards. Tkachuk, Johnny and mony disappeared while mackinnon elevated to top in the world status.

I don’t care who you are but you can’t win a coaching battle when your best don’t show up

Those are all good points; just one thing: Ian Cole has won two Cups, and played his heart out for the Pens. His performance vs the Flames isn't all that surprising.

[gamesaver]

You do not always have to be the better team to win a series, let alone the hockey game. The question is, had the Flames been coached by Trotz or Torts in game 2 and 4, would they blow the lead away like they did? I can't see Tortorella using James Neal in game 4 scenario, being up by two, especially not in OT. Yes, Neal sucks, but it's the coach who gives him ice-time.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by 2macinnis2

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.

I just wanted to address these examples for a second.

Gallant had a 107 point Panthers team that looked prime to take the next step, only to be ousted in the first round by the Islanders due to Tavares going beast mode. This is not unlike what we saw this round with the Flames and Avs with MacKinnon exerting his will. They panicked, made some big changes to management and the roster, and had a slow start. That led to a hasty firing of Gallant and he landed in Vegas where he had success yet again.

I guess all I'm saying here is that we should not panic and trust that this is part of the learning process to have an early playoff exit. Peters will learn from this, as will the players on this roster.


Don't even get me started on Trotz's playoff failures for years before finally having success with the Caps. The Predators had 5 straight first round exits before finally making it past that point, and then had a couple more 2nd round exits before finally becoming a real threat. Trotz heads to Washington where they have 3 straight 2nd round exits. Last year was the anomaly for Trotz's post-season career, not the norm.



Quenneville has had more playoff success, but he was also blessed with an incredibly talented roster for over a decade. Not saying he doesn't deserve some significant amount of credit, but he didn't always have major playoff success during those Chicago years. A couple of key first round exits were in there during prime years of those players. I will say this, he has missed the playoffs just twice in his coaching career that begin in 1996. Thankfully he's with the Panthers now, so hopefully he makes them a perennial playoff team.