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Geoff Ward, Flames 18 th coach


tmac70

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I know Treliving is taking a lot of heat for his coaching hires, and to be fair a lot of it is warranted. Gulutzan, Peters and Ward are probably never going to be head head coaches in the NHL ever again. 

 

I am not going to fully let him off the hook, but I do wonder how much room he has to operate in his budget.

 

As President of Hockey Ops, I am guessing he is given a budget with which to run the hockey team. My guess is that he is probably allowed to hire whomever he wants to coach as long as it fits within the budget.

 

So if he spends too much on coaching money has to either come from players payroll, management, or scouting staff.

 

Firstly he isn't going to cut players payroll for a coaching hire as having better players more often than not is going to have the biggest effect on success. Having the right management in place can make they are getting the right players and at the right prices. Scouting allows you draft the next set of players to help give you extended success.

 

Coaching IMO has less impact on long term success compared to this other positions, so I don't disagree with spending less on coaches than in other areas. 

 

In reality there are only about 5 coaches that really factor in team success. There are coaches that can have a negative  impact on team success, Ward IMO falls into this category. The rest of the coaches don't really impact success in either direction Gulutzan and Peters fall in this category.

 

So really you have to be prepared to pay up for those few coaches that really make difference, and they have to want to come coach your team, as they usually get their pick of teams. Or you have to get lucky and find one these coaches before they become too expensive.

 

 

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Here's the thing.  The team missing out on the playoffs by doing nothing now signals the worst possible decision making.

There can't really be the belief that the coach is going to somehow change the team into a contender.

Big trades can have years of failure tied to it.

 

Give the coach more tools?

Okay, then how exactly is that working after spending 10m to fix goaltending and add a rugged D-man (who isn't the problem).

Get him some new tools?

Unless the skill guys are traded for grit, the style of play will resemble a lunchpail crew.

Less than 100% effort signals a loss.

Bring in skill guys to learn how to play gritty?

 

Can the coach and bring in one that has some clue about modern NHL games and how to actually coach a game.

Not a practice where you play a bunch of music.

Or you toss a stick.

The goal is to hire a guy tht can get any team to win, not just this team.

Maybe an actual NHL coach might come up with something that works.

And maybe 100% of the players buy in.

 

(rant off)

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This is how I approach coaching too. A select few with elevate a team, a select few will sink a team and the vast majority are going to get you to where your going to go. I was listening to a podcast once and the analogy used, believe it was Angles Manager Joe Maddon who said it, was its similar to a pilot. Auto pilot is going to get that plane to the destination and the pilot just determines how quick or smooth that ride is. For me coaching in hockey is very similar 
 

I agree that the flames generally hire in the middle and unfortunately in the case of Ward they have one of the select few who will sink a team. 
 

I don’t think coaching is as a big an issue here for the organization as some. The bigger problem is why we are here today is the core they banked on, in particular Gaudreau,Monahan, Lindholm, Bennett just didn’t take the steps you were hoping for. 

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I don’t think “Wardo” is going anywhere, we are just going to bleed out painfully and slowly this season. I’ve lost all confidence and faith in this team.Tgis could possibly be the most frustrating season of Flames hockey I’ve endured. Somehow this team is actually regressing as the season goes. Not sure if Ward sees the season thru but the Flames are done already , stick a fork in em!

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On 2/27/2021 at 9:32 AM, cross16 said:

This is how I approach coaching too. A select few with elevate a team, a select few will sink a team and the vast majority are going to get you to where your going to go. I was listening to a podcast once and the analogy used, believe it was Angles Manager Joe Maddon who said it, was its similar to a pilot. Auto pilot is going to get that plane to the destination and the pilot just determines how quick or smooth that ride is. For me coaching in hockey is very similar 
 

I agree that the flames generally hire in the middle and unfortunately in the case of Ward they have one of the select few who will sink a team. 

 

I agree with all of this. 

 

Sometimes coaching is overrated.  Coaches can push a few buttons, set the X's and O's that best fits the players the team has, and get the team to play as a coherent unit.  That's about it.

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Calgary has had 7 coaches in the last 15 years, none of them have been head coaches in the NHL after coaching here. This speaks to the quality of the coaches that have been hired here. On the other hand if I am a top head coach am I going to a team where coaching careers go to die? 

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2 minutes ago, JTech780 said:

Calgary has had 7 coaches in the last 15 years, none of them have been head coaches in the NHL after coaching here. This speaks to the quality of the coaches that have been hired here. On the other hand if I am a top head coach am I going to a team where coaching careers go to die? 

 

Very good point. I think Sutter did but good point. I'm just scared they will bring in Torts and make it even worse.

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56 minutes ago, JTech780 said:

Calgary has had 7 coaches in the last 15 years, none of them have been head coaches in the NHL after coaching here. This speaks to the quality of the coaches that have been hired here. On the other hand if I am a top head coach am I going to a team where coaching careers go to die? 

 

Have we had any coaches that were not at the end of their careers?

Or. have we had any new coaches that knew what they were doing?

 

I have to think that an actual coach from this decade might be able to turn around this team.

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So guys,

 

Here's the thing.   I don't mean to say "I told you so", but, well, I did.     By that I mean the whole team and organisation, but most specifically our players on paper, the last 5-7 years, gradually getting degraded.

 

I don't think it was such a matter of others not knowing the reality, I think there's just a high concentration of people on here who believe an honest fan is no fan at all.    That pretending your team is almost a contender is a better way to live than actually being objective of what they are on paper.

 

So guys straight up, we're junk on paper.  Been saying it for a while, been true for a while, and more importantly, it's trending.   We're more junk by the day when you look at our ages and pipeline.

 

Whether Ward is, or isn't a great coach, is entirely irrelevant, and we're likely going to learn that soon.

 

If you venture anywhere outside of this official forum at this point it's common knowledge, common opinion.

 

We're going to  need to rebuild.       Whether Ward is or isn't a good coach has very little impact other than perhaps the speed at which we get there.

 

 

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4 hours ago, jjgallow said:

 

Cool so I guess we just go back to trying to get the coach fired again lol

Well he’s on TSN saying they need Tom find the “answers” well it’s pretty obvious he’s in over his head... never has the same line combos even if he finds some that click he changes then the next night, that’s one of the issues how do you expect player to find consistency when he never has any...then there is the very questionable ice time, plays etc...list goes on and on, clearly what he’s showing so far it’s that he doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing...

 

it’s well over due to say oops! Made a mistake on this one time to find a real coach with some credentials 

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I wish they would fire this guy already! He’s an absolute idiot...can’t put one good line together for more than one game and at this rate it’s pretty obvious he just got lucky on those nights...benched Bennett twice now like wtf? Makes the most ridiculous line changes etc...

 

it’s time Cgy finds a REAL coach the Ward experiment is over bad call BT time to roll up the sleeves and start getting to work on finding a coach...in the short term let Conroy coach least he seems to understand they are playing hockey...not too sure what Ward thinks they are doing..maybe figure-skating?  Either way pretty sure even the equipment boy could do a better job  at this point!!!

 

fire Ward ASAP!!!!

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With the benching of Bennett and the continued use of Nordstrom and the blender of lines yet again I have finally become a glass completely empty person with regard to Ward.

 

I cannot find anything positive to say.

 

Sorry Mr Ward your time is up.

 

 

 

 

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On 3/2/2021 at 12:25 PM, Radster said:

As much as I dislike torts I think he would do wonders in Calgary 

 

 

NO not Torts  he totally suks as a coach, just look at the teams he has messed up in the last 4 years, besides the reality is a coach change is not going to bring this team to a play off contender, they need to make team changes and not just one. its been a long time comming.

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34 minutes ago, robrob74 said:

 

He leaves Gaudreau and Monahan together, but the rest of the line is like this...

I remember when we used to compare them as a Kane and Toews Lite, now they are more like a stale version of the Sedins.

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1 hour ago, robrob74 said:

 

He leaves Gaudreau and Monahan together, but the rest of the line is like this...

 

To be fair, the only thing different is the 4th line.

We are back to the start of season lines, except Ritchie and maybe Leivo over Simon in the top 6.

When I see Buddy or Simon or Nesterov or Rinaldo come in, then I really start to worry.

 

What bugs me the most is I don't understand the reasoning for making any change.

Bennett complains, gets bumped to 2nd line.

Plays a bad game, gets sat.

Kylington plays two solid low event games, he gets sat.

We play a good game, time to change something.

We lose, keep it the same or swap out a guy that played 5 minutes for a player that will play 5 minutes.

 

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1 hour ago, travel_dude said:

 

To be fair, the only thing different is the 4th line.

We are back to the start of season lines, except Ritchie and maybe Leivo over Simon in the top 6.

When I see Buddy or Simon or Nesterov or Rinaldo come in, then I really start to worry.

 

What bugs me the most is I don't understand the reasoning for making any change.

Bennett complains, gets bumped to 2nd line.

Plays a bad game, gets sat.

Kylington plays two solid low event games, he gets sat.

We play a good game, time to change something.

We lose, keep it the same or swap out a guy that played 5 minutes for a player that will play 5 minutes.

 

 

 

I definitely agree. I just said the same thing about Kylington. It's mind boggling. 

 

The thing about all of the keeping things the same but changing the 4th is that keeping the things the same as earlier in the year hasn't worked then, why will  it now?

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