Glen Gulutzan-16th Flames Coach

[Carty]

8 minutes ago, tmac70 said:

When Gully was 1st hired many were excited about the style of play he preached. Which was great if we had those type of players, this was why I believed the hire was wrong to begin with. He has watered down so many players, taken the edge of this team and has the attitude that if you play well and lose its satisfactory, its about winning and the hatred for defeat.  Give me a ribbon and pat me on the back for trying is a recipe for what we have failure.

 

Reminds me of the teacher that let's the kids in their classroom slide when they keep getting mediocre marks but lets them think it's ok as long as they get some decent marks some of the time and on occasion a pretty good mark...   Enough to squeak by with a barely passing grade......   Then when it looks like they might fail the year, and the teacher starts to take heat from the principal they have a fit, throw a ruler at the chalkboard and manage to get their students attention for a couple of days...   But all too soon the teacher falls back into their stubborn ways of repeating their mistakes because it's the only way that they know how to teach...   Because they don't know how to adapt their teaching methods, they have to continue settling for mediocre results...   Some of the kids are actually pretty intelligent and they decide the teacher is an idiot...   The teacher has lost the room...

[DHT]

11 minutes ago, Carty said:

 

Reminds me of the teacher that let's the kids in their classroom slide when they keep getting mediocre marks but lets them think it's ok as long as they get some decent marks some of the time and on occasion a pretty good mark...   Enough to squeak by with a barely passing grade......   Then when it looks like they might fail the year, and the teacher starts to take heat from the principal they have a fit, throw a ruler at the chalkboard and manage to get their students attention for a couple of days...   But all too soon the teacher falls back into their stubborn ways of repeating their mistakes because it's the only way that they know how to teach...   Because they don't know how to adapt their teaching methods, they have to continue settling for mediocre results...   Some of the kids are actually pretty intelligent and they decide the teacher is an idiot...   The teacher has lost the room...

I wish I could give you ten likes for this. Pretty much describe GG and the season. LOL

[phoenix66]

3 hours ago, Carty said:

 

Reminds me of the teacher that let's the kids in their classroom slide when they keep getting mediocre marks but lets them think it's ok as long as they get some decent marks some of the time and on occasion a pretty good mark...   Enough to squeak by with a barely passing grade......   Then when it looks like they might fail the year, and the teacher starts to take heat from the principal they have a fit, throw a ruler at the chalkboard and manage to get their students attention for a couple of days...   But all too soon the teacher falls back into their stubborn ways of repeating their mistakes because it's the only way that they know how to teach...   Because they don't know how to adapt their teaching methods, they have to continue settling for mediocre results...   Some of the kids are actually pretty intelligent and they decide the teacher is an idiot...   The teacher has lost the room...

It goes back to what I was saying about Player management , that appears to be the skill he lacks, which is too bad because I do like his system,  but I think we are cutting him too much slack by always saying " he doesn't have the players".. he does

 

50 Games to get Hamilton on the power play , and only then because Brouwer was injured

Mangiapane, Janko and Hathaway had chemistry and played at a top clip in Stockton .. they should have been glued together here when all 3 were here 

Playing the 3rd line late in games when we need a goal

Brouwer in every single situation .hes the goto guy in every situation 

Struggling players still getting high Ice time, players playing well still getting low ice time..

We should be like Boston , and Vegas. they dont stop coming at you until the final horn.. we get leads in the 1st period and try to protect them for 40 minutes  

and on and on and on 

 

They've shown they know how to play his system, when they do , we whip Tampa , hes lacking the ability to get the most out of them each and every night .. there's only so many sticks you can throw..

Dave Cameron should not be running the power Play ?  thats on Gully to Fire him , ..Monahan or TJ , or whoever .,having a bad game?  then its on Gully to bench him..  its like watching the definition of insanity in action .. doing the same thing and expecting a different result 

 

again , Im typically not the "fire him "  kinda person , but by the level of frustration BT was showing before the TDL, if we miss out on playoffs, I dont know how how he stays 

 

[tmac70]

There was talk of system and maybe I am bind there is no systems. Gully's systems are eerily similar to Hartley's. Is there any reason to speak of the Special teams cause they are extremely special. This whole thing was a disaster since day one.

 

1st you hire a coach with no track record of ever having a winning record over better selections

2nd Coach wants to play a systems but the roster make up is no where near capable

3rd Our GM, Scouts and player personal seem to constantly have the inability to find players in trades or scouting to make us better

 

I was never a Gully fan and as much as he is and should be accountable for the results on the ice, BT and other staff need to be responsible for their decisions as well. IMHO for an organization of this caliber you would think they would have a better vision or plan moving forward

 

[rickross]

It's not all Gullys fault, I agree the players/coaches and management share the blame. However, I do believe the GG era has ran it course. Think we've seen enough to know what to realistically expect from this team under GG's watch. Flames showed small samples of being able to play amongst the high and elite levels of the NHL...but they've been marred by inconsistencies. We've done the beer on the train, the public shaming and stick throwing in the stands and it all worked...for a short time. Good coaches don't need to constantly pull antics or publicly shame their players for motivation. The players should be self motivated under a great coach. 

 

Our defence should be top of the league with no questions asked. We paid a considerable sum to acquire elite talent and it hasn't paid off for the Flames yet. Flames have played undisciplined hockey. Remember the Anaheim playoff series? Or the start of the year when we couldn't stay out of the penalty box. The reason why we're still on the verge of this playoff hunt is because of Mike Smiths play,

 that's not the signs of a good TEAM. There aren't many spectacular choices for coaches right now but there are better options than Gulutzan. 

[JTech780]

https://www.nhlpa.com/player-poll/2017-18

 

In the newest NHLPA players poll, they were asked which current assistant coach should be a head coach and D.J. Smith with the Leafs was the highest vote getter followed closely by Todd Reirden with the Caps.

 

They were also asked which current head coach would you want to play for and Coach Q was the highest vote getter in that category, that combined with his $12m left really leaves me to believe he isn't going anywhere.

[MAC331]

51 minutes ago, rickross said:

It's not all Gullys fault, I agree the players/coaches and management share the blame. However, I do believe the GG era has ran it course. Think we've seen enough to know what to realistically expect from this team under GG's watch. Flames showed small samples of being able to play amongst the high and elite levels of the NHL...but they've been marred by inconsistencies. We've done the beer on the train, the public shaming and stick throwing in the stands and it all worked...for a short time. Good coaches don't need to constantly pull antics or publicly shame their players for motivation. The players should be self motivated under a great coach. 

 

Our defence should be top of the league with no questions asked. We paid a considerable sum to acquire elite talent and it hasn't paid off for the Flames yet. Flames have played undisciplined hockey. Remember the Anaheim playoff series? Or the start of the year when we couldn't stay out of the penalty box. The reason why we're still on the verge of this playoff hunt is because of Mike Smiths play,

 that's not the signs of a good TEAM. There aren't many spectacular choices for coaches right now but there are better options than Gulutzan. 

There may be better choices than GG however 2 years with a team that is still building is hardly an era. You can say what you want about our defense "supposedly" one of the best units "on paper" in the NHL but sometimes these dream match ups don't work. We have found this out the hard way. Our forward group went into the season on a hope and a prayer first by trying Ferland top line RW, fortunately it worked mostly. We witnessed IMO some regression and stagnation with the 3M line and once again left Bennett scraps to work with while expecting big things from him. Which left anything and everything for most 4th line set ups game to game.

I would have to say BT shared in the failures with poor roster management and GG compounded the problem with limited imagination for positive changes. There is always some good that also comes out of any season but I see this as a situation for both BT and GG to get corrected. Move out the weaknesses and strengthen the roster with some proven production.

[travel_dude]

17 minutes ago, MAC331 said:

There may be better choices than GG however 2 years with a team that is still building is hardly an era. You can say what you want about our defense "supposedly" one of the best units "on paper" in the NHL but sometimes these dream match ups don't work. We have found this out the hard way. Our forward group went into the season on a hope and a prayer first by trying Ferland top line RW, fortunately it worked mostly. We witnessed IMO some regression and stagnation with the 3M line and once again left Bennett scraps to work with while expecting big things from him. Which left anything and everything for most 4th line set ups game to game.

I would have to say BT shared in the failures with poor roster management and GG compounded the problem with limited imagination for positive changes. There is always some good that also comes out of any season but I see this as a situation for both BT and GG to get corrected. Move out the weaknesses and strengthen the roster with some proven production.

 

Trade options this summer will be limited, considering what we have to offer.

Moving Stone, Brodie, Bennett makes some sense.  It doesn't set us back so much.

Moving prospects sets us back more.  Valimaki, Fox, Andersson, Kylington, Dube, Mangiapane would leave us that much worse off.  We don't 

have picks to make up for the shortfall.  

 

That leaves creative signings in FA.  And draft-day trades.  The later the trades get done, the more available runner-up prizes from FA are there as options.

 

Getting off topic here.  Whatever BT decides to do about coaching, he needs to make sure the players are the right ones to be here.  In other words, don't hire a coach that plays a certain type of game unless you have the player (or plan getting them) that can play that way.

[MAC331]

6 minutes ago, travel_dude said:

 

Trade options this summer will be limited, considering what we have to offer.

Moving Stone, Brodie, Bennett makes some sense.  It doesn't set us back so much.

Moving prospects sets us back more.  Valimaki, Fox, Andersson, Kylington, Dube, Mangiapane would leave us that much worse off.  We don't 

have picks to make up for the shortfall.  

 

That leaves creative signings in FA.  And draft-day trades.  The later the trades get done, the more available runner-up prizes from FA are there as options.

 

Getting off topic here.  Whatever BT decides to do about coaching, he needs to make sure the players are the right ones to be here.  In other words, don't hire a coach that plays a certain type of game unless you have the player (or plan getting them) that can play that way.

I posted my suggested trades in the other thread.

I agree BT needs to make the right decisions surrounding our prospects as we will need a proper succession plan for graduating players into positions on the team over the next 3 years. I also agree it would be great if we could have our European scout come up with a few quality signings like this Mikel Lundquist (example).

I guess we will find out BT's thoughts on GG but I do agree if the plan is to stay the course we need some better players to carry it out.

[JustAFlamer]

Do not know how so many people are defending GG

I honestly have never seen ANY coach at the professional level refuse to adapt until forced to change, keep putting out the same thing that does not work. (for periods of months at a time)

I have never followed a team where EVERY (wins/losses) game, you sit there and there is a serious "WTF" about some "COACHING" decision. 

- get a goal, ok lets put out 4th line and 3rd pair against their top line and let them have some momentum

- timeouts?  nah, lets save them up all year we can stockpile and use later right? (i understand keeping on principle of possible goal review BUT comon that not their MAIN reason for existing)

- player ice-time, player motivation, etc etc etc ...

The get rid of GG movement is NOT just because of underachieving season, is coming from multiple years of same garbage.   Yes when he came in was cut some slack for new systems, new coach player relations, etc.  BUT enough is enough

Even if we were currently sitting in playoff positioning i would be calling for his head.

 

Does BT deserve some of the blame? YES, F grouping not as strong as anyone would like it to be

However, entering last off-season known holes on F and weakness on 4th D and Goalie issue .  At least he took care of 2/3 THAT why i cut him some slack.  (even if i think he over payed for Hamonic)

 

Does "some" players deserve blame?  i would say yes, more for compete level and emotion (or lack thereof)  However i have noticed this shifting out of this team since GG was brought on board, so am unsure where blame for that falls.

 

Only reason i would suggest an interim is (however i can see sticking it out until off season as well.

A) see if it sparks team at all for final push.

B] show that change coming,

- lets fans know that this season is not acceptable to the team as well them

- lets "potential" coaches know we are looking/interested (so we do not miss out like when we got stuck "settling" for GG)

- nothing "great" out there in terms of replacements currently.  BUT may put the team on radar for any that come available (hesitation with Hartley kind of screwed us)

 

Sorry for the rant, but many seem to think the whole feeling behind getting him gone is based on a bad season.  Understandable as this is generally the case; If we were "training" our Head coach, why not "train" them in AHL and then move them up internally.  "Project Players" i can handle, "Project Coaches" as assistants=ok NOT head

[MAC331]

13 hours ago, phoenix66 said:

It goes back to what I was saying about Player management , that appears to be the skill he lacks, which is too bad because I do like his system,  but I think we are cutting him too much slack by always saying " he doesn't have the players".. he does

 

50 Games to get Hamilton on the power play , and only then because Brouwer was injured

Mangiapane, Janko and Hathaway had chemistry and played at a top clip in Stockton .. they should have been glued together here when all 3 were here 

Playing the 3rd line late in games when we need a goal

Brouwer in every single situation .hes the goto guy in every situation 

Struggling players still getting high Ice time, players playing well still getting low ice time..

We should be like Boston , and Vegas. they dont stop coming at you until the final horn.. we get leads in the 1st period and try to protect them for 40 minutes  

and on and on and on 

 

They've shown they know how to play his system, when they do , we whip Tampa , hes lacking the ability to get the most out of them each and every night .. there's only so many sticks you can throw..

Dave Cameron should not be running the power Play ?  thats on Gully to Fire him , ..Monahan or TJ , or whoever .,having a bad game?  then its on Gully to bench him..  its like watching the definition of insanity in action .. doing the same thing and expecting a different result 

 

again , Im typically not the "fire him "  kinda person , but by the level of frustration BT was showing before the TDL, if we miss out on playoffs, I dont know how how he stays 

 

I think we witnessed a combination of not having a great roster but also GG's reluctance to move a few players around for the sake of possible better results. It became obvious to most that Brodie and Hamonic were not good together. We need to better arrange the top 9 not just be dependent on the top 6 for our scoring. The emergence of Bennett with his own producing line just didn't happen and replacing him with a rookie C was not going to be the answer. Then you have the 3M line that really didn't get it going this season hurt.

Our special teams didn't get the job done at all this season and if I was changing up coaches I would start here.

I know there has been a lot of talk regarding systems however if being honest our overall 5 on 5 play wasn't bad really. I would say the lack of whatever you want to call it, identity or chemistry amongst the players was not good.

[cross16]

1 hour ago, JustAFlamer said:

Does "some" players deserve blame?  i would say yes, more for compete level and emotion (or lack thereof)  However i have noticed this shifting out of this team since GG was brought on board, so am unsure where blame for that falls.

 

 

Started under Hartley though. I get we tend to only think of the Hartley Flames as the 14-15 season but if you go back and look at the 15-16 season a lot of the complaints about this year's team were there in that year. Soft effort, inconsistencies, cracking or backing down when games get tough, lack of an emotional response etc etc.

 

That's not a shot at Hartley as I don't blame him for that, I just think its proof that the Flames need to having more evaluations about their roster that go beyond just the bottom 6, scoring, depth dman etc. 

 

heck outside of that 1 season for Hartley you can go back to Brent Sutter and find the same issues. 

[The_People1]

GG didn't coach Gillies to give the puck away to Malkin and didn't coach Gaudreau and Monahan to go on a 2-on-0 and not even register a shot on goal.  Sometimes, the players just dont get it done.  What we should judge GG on is team flow and 5 players working as one unit.  For the most part, we see this.

[cross16]

51 minutes ago, The_People1 said:

GG didn't coach Gillies to give the puck away to Malkin and didn't coach Gaudreau and Monahan to go on a 2-on-0 and not even register a shot on goal.  Sometimes, the players just dont get it done.  What we should judge GG on is team flow and 5 players working as one unit.  For the most part, we see this.

 

The exercise i'm trying to go through as well is how many times do we want to fire the coach for the same reason? I went back and looked through some of the Hartley threads and i'ts interesting that you can look at some of the reasoning and explanation in those posts and just replace Hartley with Gultuzan and you'd have this thread. 

 

I know you and I have mentioned this before but perhaps we just don't have a great handle on what impact coaching can, and can't, have on a team? I don't follow other organizations enough to know but it just seems to me that we'd have alot of coaches here, all different background/personalities but the same results. So are we just that bad at hiring coaches or are we as fans missing something else?

 

I'm not really advocating for GG and won't anymore. I'd keep him if I were BT (pending the team keeps playing had down the stretch here) but I don't really care either way what the Flames do. I'm just more interested in looking deeper. I don't see coaching as the primary issue with this team. 

[YounGuns]

I wouldn't say Gully is the only reason we're where we're at, but I would put him far and away at the top of that list.  There is zero excuse for where we're at right now: we have numerous players having career years, we had exceptional goal tending for the first time years, yeah our defense didn't pan out to the "best in the NHL" as we had hoped, but it's decent.  I believe our problems stem from the coaches and particularly Gully's inability to adapt - as has been said previously.  He just can't adapt.  He seems unable to, or at the very least unwilling to.  I agree with the comment made about taking over half a season last year to realize that Hamilton is a good option on the back end for the PP was absurd.  Look at this year, Tkachuk is one of the LEAGUE leaders in power play points, yet for the 1st half of the season he never saw PP time because of Gully's inability to remove Brouwer from the front of the net.  Yet Brouwer was seeing both power play and penalty kill.  All of a sudden Brouwer gets injured, Tkachuk goes in out of necessity, and scores in bundles and all of a sudden we have a hot power play.  Tkachuk spends time after every practice deflecting shots...a skill that is awesome to have on the pp...and Gully sticks with Brouwer even when it's not working for 5 months.  Not only can he not adapt in a season, he can't adapt in a game either.  He gets out coached in nearly ever facet of the game.  Home ice advantage is only a real benefit when your coach can take advantage of the other team's line-up.  Gully is incapable of that.  He's stubborn, believes he's got the secret formula, believes you can play that formula in every situation of every game, and isn't willing to adapt.

 

The best thing for our team this year might be missing the playoffs if it means that Gully gets fired.  I don't think we ever amount to much as long as he's in charge of the bench.  We have too many players having career years for us to be where we're at with the talent on this team.  In fairness, I do place some blame on Treliving for not addressing our bottom 6 properly, and I do place the blame on the bottom 6 players for not capitalizing on chances, but far and away my blame goes mostly to Gully.

[MAC331]

28 minutes ago, YounGuns said:

I wouldn't say Gully is the only reason we're where we're at, but I would put him far and away at the top of that list.  There is zero excuse for where we're at right now: we have numerous players having career years, we had exceptional goal tending for the first time years, yeah our defense didn't pan out to the "best in the NHL" as we had hoped, but it's decent.  I believe our problems stem from the coaches and particularly Gully's inability to adapt - as has been said previously.  He just can't adapt.  He seems unable to, or at the very least unwilling to.  I agree with the comment made about taking over half a season last year to realize that Hamilton is a good option on the back end for the PP was absurd.  Look at this year, Tkachuk is one of the LEAGUE leaders in power play points, yet for the 1st half of the season he never saw PP time because of Gully's inability to remove Brouwer from the front of the net.  Yet Brouwer was seeing both power play and penalty kill.  All of a sudden Brouwer gets injured, Tkachuk goes in out of necessity, and scores in bundles and all of a sudden we have a hot power play.  Tkachuk spends time after every practice deflecting shots...a skill that is awesome to have on the pp...and Gully sticks with Brouwer even when it's not working for 5 months.  Not only can he not adapt in a season, he can't adapt in a game either.  He gets out coached in nearly ever facet of the game.  Home ice advantage is only a real benefit when your coach can take advantage of the other team's line-up.  Gully is incapable of that.  He's stubborn, believes he's got the secret formula, believes you can play that formula in every situation of every game, and isn't willing to adapt.

 

The best thing for our team this year might be missing the playoffs if it means that Gully gets fired.  I don't think we ever amount to much as long as he's in charge of the bench.  We have too many players having career years for us to be where we're at with the talent on this team.  In fairness, I do place some blame on Treliving for not addressing our bottom 6 properly, and I do place the blame on the bottom 6 players for not capitalizing on chances, but far and away my blame goes mostly to Gully.

How many players would you say are having career years out of the say 25 that have dressed for us this season ?

[travel_dude]

2 hours ago, cross16 said:

I know you and I have mentioned this before but perhaps we just don't have a great handle on what impact coaching can, and can't, have on a team? I don't follow other organizations enough to know but it just seems to me that we'd have alot of coaches here, all different background/personalities but the same results. So are we just that bad at hiring coaches or are we as fans missing something else?

 

 

What you said earlier about different coaches and different team ending up with the same results makes you wonder.

We've swapped out Iggy, GlenX, JBow, Regher, Conroy, Cammi, Jokinen, etc.

We've brought in JH, Monahan, Hudler, Hammy, Ferland, etc.

We get a year of results, then start to fail.

The top players do well, but the 3rd and 4th lines usually are crap.  Almost to the point where they undo everything good done elsewhere.

 

I can think of a few games where a set of bonehead plays results in a loss.

A Brodie miscue.

A pass from Frolik.

Smith making a pass to the other team.

Gillies giving it to Gino.

Stone having a -5 night.

Taking a penalty late in a game.

 

I can;t explain why the team can't win on home ice.  The team falls apart after a bad sequence.  They can't score when they need a goal.  The PP goes cold.

Some of it comes from bizarre player usage.  Some of it is unexplainable.      

 

[MAC331]

1 hour ago, travel_dude said:

 

What you said earlier about different coaches and different team ending up with the same results makes you wonder.

We've swapped out Iggy, GlenX, JBow, Regher, Conroy, Cammi, Jokinen, etc.

We've brought in JH, Monahan, Hudler, Hammy, Ferland, etc.

We get a year of results, then start to fail.

The top players do well, but the 3rd and 4th lines usually are crap.  Almost to the point where they undo everything good done elsewhere.

 

I can think of a few games where a set of bonehead plays results in a loss.

A Brodie miscue.

A pass from Frolik.

Smith making a pass to the other team.

Gillies giving it to Gino.

Stone having a -5 night.

Taking a penalty late in a game.

 

I can;t explain why the team can't win on home ice.  The team falls apart after a bad sequence.  They can't score when they need a goal.  The PP goes cold.

Some of it comes from bizarre player usage.  Some of it is unexplainable.      

 

I don't think you can let any of our players off the hook if you want to list bonehead plays or just playing bad some games. This is what is meant when we say this team isn't ready to be consistent winners. The ones we depend on still have some experience to gain and maturing to go through PLUS we need to add some better players yet.

[travel_dude]

2 hours ago, MAC331 said:

I don't think you can let any of our players off the hook if you want to list bonehead plays or just playing bad some games. This is what is meant when we say this team isn't ready to be consistent winners. The ones we depend on still have some experience to gain and maturing to go through PLUS we need to add some better players yet.

 

Nobody is letting people off the hook.  A few examples of them is all.

 

[YounGuns]

17 hours ago, MAC331 said:

How many players would you say are having career years out of the say 25 that have dressed for us this season ?

Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, Matthew Tkachuk, Mike Smith, Mike Ferland.  Heck I'd even throw in David Rittich in there up to the point when Smith went down.  Even Gio and Hamilton are playing elite hockey.  Then players like Kulak and Hathaway (when he's in) are playing effective hockey...you can't expect those types to be difference makers, but they are being effective in their limited roles.  How many players can you expect to have career years in a given season?

 

When your goalie is playing Vezina worthy, and your top players are being legitimate stars, and you even have a few other players stepping up and contributing, and your defense is strong...then there's no excuses for where we're at.  Do you disagree?  I mean yeah Smith went down, but even that I kinda put some of the blame on Gully.  Why make Smith the busiest goalie in the NHL, when Rittich was lights out as a back up?  With Smith playing every game an injury was inevitable at his age and with his record of injuries.  It's no surprise that he's injured now; he didn't need to play every game when Rittich was playing incredible as a back-up.

 

Our bottom six have been frustrating, but if we can't be a playoff team - let alone a dominant team - in a year when everything else BUT our bottom 6 has gone incredibly well, then we're screwed.  We either have to face facts that it's the coach that needs to change, or we need massive changes to our line-up.  I'm going with the coach, because if its the core, then we're doomed for another 10 years of mediocrity.

[JTech780]

I think people are way over stating a coaches impact on motivation. Basically a coach needs to motivate his guys a handful of times a year, but if he has to do it every game or every other game, you have the wrong players. These are grown men, making millions of dollars, they need to be able to get themselves motivated and ready to play the big games. 

 

The coaches job is to make sure the players know the system, and know the game plan for a specific night. He might sit down with a player once in awhile and tell him that he needs more from him.

[MAC331]

6 minutes ago, YounGuns said:

Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, Matthew Tkachuk, Mike Smith, Mike Ferland.  Heck I'd even throw in David Rittich in there up to the point when Smith went down.  Even Gio and Hamilton are playing elite hockey.  Then players like Kulak and Hathaway (when he's in) are playing effective hockey...you can't expect those types to be difference makers, but they are being effective in their limited roles.  How many players can you expect to have career years in a given season?

 

When your goalie is playing Vezina worthy, and your top players are being legitimate stars, and you even have a few other players stepping up and contributing, and your defense is strong...then there's no excuses for where we're at.  Do you disagree?  I mean yeah Smith went down, but even that I kinda put some of the blame on Gully.  Why make Smith the busiest goalie in the NHL, when Rittich was lights out as a back up?  With Smith playing every game an injury was inevitable at his age and with his record of injuries.  It's no surprise that he's injured now; he didn't need to play every game when Rittich was playing incredible as a back-up.

 

Our bottom six have been frustrating, but if we can't be a playoff team - let alone a dominant team - in a year when everything else BUT our bottom 6 has gone incredibly well, then we're screwed.  We either have to face facts that it's the coach that needs to change, or we need massive changes to our line-up.  I'm going with the coach, because if its the core, then we're doomed for another 10 years of mediocrity.

First off let me say I don't think we are doomed either way for the next 10 years. What BT does this offseason will be important in order to take the next step forward with this team. You say career years I say progressive years from players 3 years in the League. Giordano is playing as expected and he is bring Hamilton's game to where it should be now. Kulak has shown progress while the other 3 have simply been OK at times, not the performances we were expecting. Smith was providing what was a much needed requirement given the past but hardly Vezina  results mostly due to the team in front of him.

As for our forward group I don't think we have had any more than one line going at a time. When the top line was hot, Backlund's line including Tkachuk were not. Tkachuk gets things going and the top line goes quiet and Ferland gets injured. Our 3rd and 4th lines have had to get reacquainted almost every game so take away any chance of consistent play.

Some of this is coaching no doubt, some is bad roster construction but mostly these players have not taken it upon themselves consistently to show up for 60 minutes and play for each other. This is what I mean by being ready to win as a team and this has to come from the players. Do we have the right group of players ? My answer is not yet.

[travel_dude]

39 minutes ago, JTech780 said:

I think people are way over stating a coaches impact on motivation. Basically a coach needs to motivate his guys a handful of times a year, but if he has to do it every game or every other game, you have the wrong players. These are grown men, making millions of dollars, they need to be able to get themselves motivated and ready to play the big games. 

 

The coaches job is to make sure the players know the system, and know the game plan for a specific night. He might sit down with a player once in awhile and tell him that he needs more from him.

 

Was watching the Buffalo feed.

They talked about Gully and how he is very passionate.

They also said that the stick throwing incident made players step back and think, "Whoa, I need to be careful around this guy.  He seems to have a screw loose". Or something like that.  

[phoenix66]

31 minutes ago, JTech780 said:

I think people are way over stating a coaches impact on motivation. Basically a coach needs to motivate his guys a handful of times a year, but if he has to do it every game or every other game, you have the wrong players. These are grown men, making millions of dollars, they need to be able to get themselves motivated and ready to play the big games. 

 

The coaches job is to make sure the players know the system, and know the game plan for a specific night. He might sit down with a player once in awhile and tell him that he needs more from him.

effective coaches have all had one trend.. if you're not playing well, you dont play .. ice time 

When BH was on a roll, he was benching players like Wideman.. Bennett.. johnny was on his way to the AHL before a night of popcorn and he never looked back.

GG i think needs to learn and apply that.. i get hes a players coach, but he has too much loyalty to some people.  "Letting them work it out " is fine at times, but it hurts the team if its done to extreme

yes he drops Ferland down a line from time to time.. he rotates the 4th line all the time ,   but there are players , at least at times, who get far too much ice time when they are dragging it .. and others who don't get rewarded with more when they're on a roll.. it was the one aspect of BH's good years that needs to come back.. earned not given

 

I forget which coach it was that Rhett Warrener referred to on 960, might have been LIndy Ruff.. who every game told his D core, that by the 2nd period he'd be rolling 2 pairs consistently , and it was up to them in the 1st period to show him which 2 pairs were gonna get it 

[MAC331]

12 minutes ago, phoenix66 said:

effective coaches have all had one trend.. if you're not playing well, you dont play .. ice time 

When BH was on a roll, he was benching players like Wideman.. Bennett.. johnny was on his way to the AHL before a night of popcorn and he never looked back.

GG i think needs to learn and apply that.. i get hes a players coach, but he has too much loyalty to some people.  "Letting them work it out " is fine at times, but it hurts the team if its done to extreme

yes he drops Ferland down a line from time to time.. he rotates the 4th line all the time ,   but there are players , at least at times, who get far too much ice time when they are dragging it .. and others who don't get rewarded with more when they're on a roll.. it was the one aspect of BH's good years that needs to come back.. earned not given

 

I forget which coach it was that Rhett Warrener referred to on 960, might have been LIndy Ruff.. who every game told his D core, that by the 2nd period he'd be rolling 2 pairs consistently , and it was up to them in the 1st period to show him which 2 pairs were gonna get it 

Easy to say but GG hasn't had good options to go to for those measures. Versteeg when healthy would have allowed GG to make some adjustments and when Jagr didn't work out he was sunk IMO.