Team toughness > having a tough guy.
Gotta get 'em cranky. No chicken or pasta for pregame meals a week before the playoffs start.
Gotta get 'em cranky. No chicken or pasta for pregame meals a week before the playoffs start.
GDT: 2022-23 season game 71 LA Kings vs Calgary Flames @7:30pm 3/20/23
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Trash Panda
Registered User
- May 12, 2021
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Master Yoda
LA Legends
Most of the criticisms about TMac is his deployment of players especially the young players. We all wanted to see Byfield and Vilardi playing with veterans since last year and getting more PP time. You know, putting young players in a position to succeed.
You can argue that they were not ready to play in those spots but it wasn't even tried last year.
Most of us acknowledge his ability to implement a successful system that works in the regular season. But his ability to make in game coaching decisions/adjustments are still question marks at best. And the obvious lack of playoff success in his career leave a lot up to criticism.
You should see my wife when she doesn't get her favorite food. She's 5' 1" and I saw her pick up a fully loaded stack of pallets to get to a Quesadilla she dropped.
All it takes is a game or two. They aren't going to be brawling, but they certainly won't back down. With their powerplay teams won't take liberties with them, and if they play Edmonton the Kings shouldn't be either.
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Todd is 12th among active coaches in point % in the regular season. He's 13th in the playoffs. Just above the middle of the pack. Getting smoked in a reverse sweep will really twist perception, though. Don't forget how good that Kings team was.
He's not terrible, but he needs to get his teams up for big games otherwise he's always going to have that reputation. It shouldn't be a problem with this group, not sure why it was in SJ. He's got a better win% than Tortorella, Berube, Maurice, and other well-thought-of playoff coaches. He's only a few spots behind Brind'amour.
Interesting fact - a ex-Kings coach holds the record for having the highest points percentage of all head coaches in NHL history. Obviously I'm talking about Cap Raeder. He went 1-0 in his only head coaching gig in SJ, taking over for the fired (surprise!) Darryl Sutter. He retired from NHL hockey undefeated as a head coach. Not one other person in the world can say that. His win percentage is double that of Conn Smythe.
KINGS17
Smartest in the Room
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True, but Cap didn't make the playoffs that season.
Regarding McLellan: he is an above average coach, but I doubt he ever squeezes enough juice out of a team to win a Stanley Cup. Sutter thoroughly outcoached him in 2014 from a strategy and demeanor standpoint. The Kings never panicked during the reverse sweep, and Sutter was able to get Kopitar to play the best hockey of his life in that series.
Axl Rhoadz
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I think that's an interesting take -- the whole concept of TM not being able to get it done in SJ...well can't we say that about EVERY coach for SJ?
Pete DeBoer had the most success, taking SJ to the finals...that's the same coach who embarrassed Sutter in '16....the same coach who you could say Sutter embarrassed in '12. Which coach would you want today?
I get the criticism on TM..the whole 'success in the playoffs' thing....but how much of a sample size has he had with the Kings. He took a team that wasn't even supposed to make the playoffs, to a 7 game series last year, when you look at the overall season...it was outstanding.
Again, I get the criticism, but we owe this dude some praise as well. If you are only going to rip the guy without giving him credit for what he has done, then you are just being a ****. PERIOD.
Just watch, guaranteed, THIS team could go to game 7, WCF and we'd have tons of people bitching that he didn't take the team all the way. It will be all the same people who gave up on this team in November, lol.
Interesting thing about DeBoer - he's one of the best playoff coaches there is. He's 3rd in win% among active coaches, behind Bednar and Cooper. Those guys have only coached for one team - both of which have been loaded when they hit the playoffs. No one who has coached multiple teams right now has a better playoff winning percentage than DeBoer. He's right ahead Lindy Ruff, who is another playoff wizard. Those two are above jerkface Babcock, who gets a ton of praise.
But no cups for those two. The only difference between them and Babcock is that single cup, and I would argue that both Ruff and DeBoer are better anyways, because Babcock absolutely should have won multiples given where he was at.
It's neat to look at how we perceive coaches and how much of that is truly fueled by media and feeling rather than performance.
Sol
Smile
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I don’t know how one can look at Todd and not see the fact that he’s in rare company to be one of the few coaches in history to get reverse swept. that says a lot about him. His system can be good but it’s been historically proven that he’s been a mentally fragile coach that has a very weak concept of deployment and roster use.
But yeah his system can be good despite all the other big flaws that have been proven to exist.
Todd will stop being a failure once he shows some competency in the playoffs. But he hasn’t. And he hasn’t shown any signs of using his brain with the roster either which is why I don’t trust him as a coach.
Lt Dan
F*** your ice cream!
a Koala!
*Thank you to the rando person that photoshopped these years ago, not all heroes wear capes
Edit- WOAH! It was here on HF in the Sharks forum!
Some of this is warranted, but most of it is not. It's using a result to draw a conclusion where the premises don't line up.
It's like this:
There is a very small, rare group of coaches to win the cup right away early in their career. One of those won a cup in his second season, and during his first four seasons his team was extremely successful, winning the division all 4 seasons he coached there.
One of those coaches? Marc Crawford.
Just because you have success like that doesn't mean you are a great, motivating coach with tremendous skill. Just like if you got reverse swept it means you are mentally fragile.
Sol
Smile
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Lmao wow. I never seen this. I need to save this for future photoshops. Lol.
My favorite thing to come out of the Sharks board I believe it was their board, Joe Thornton war flashback gif. But I can’t find it right now.
Lt Dan
F*** your ice cream!
Sol
Smile
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To lose a series while being up 3-0 is a pretty massive feat. There’s a reason why it’s rare. I don’t disagree with the premise coaches can win randomly even if they’re not necessarily a great coach. But it takes a special type of coach to drop 4 in a row. I don’t see a reason why anyone would underplay how significant that is. No one held back on pointing that out on this board and now suddenly since he’s coach “but Crawford won pretty early in his career”. Coaches win and a very few get reverse swept.
Why couldn’t I find this? What did you type? LolThese?
TruKingFan
Two-Time Cup Winner
TM is looking for redemption on a personal level I think. He knows he still needs to validate his career but he’s got mostly respect from the community that matters the most and that is not HF. lol. He and Blake have worked hard to get the team to where it is now.
More importantly you see a solid buy-in from his team playing like he wants them to and I’m excited to see where it goes for the first time in years.
Lt Dan
F*** your ice cream!
Raccoon Jesus
We were right there
If it were ONLy the reverse sweep sure
He's lost quite a few playoff series' while being up, and there's a reason he's lost quite a few series 4-3 and 4-2. The longer it goes on, the worse he looks despite having great success in the regular season and a history of talented high-seeded/favorite teams.
looking at raw stats of course is fine but it's the same thought process that makes one go 'see joe thornton is a fine playoff performer and not at all the problem'
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Whilst I broadly agree, the other factor is the player leadership. Now I don’t know what the room was like in SJ beyond the usual internet guesswork but at 3-2 that’s where the leaders need to lead. If they crumble mentally all the coaching in the world doesn’t matter. I don’t absolve TMac by any means but it’s not that simple.
Great player leadership can also help average coaches over achieve. It’s always a symbiotic relationship for both success and failure. Neither gets all the credit or all of the blame, it’s just about how you carve it up.
Raccoon Jesus
We were right there
He also choked in Edmonton as well as last year here. I know he will get a pass and maybe he should given Doughty and Arvidsson, but yet again, we had a team in an elimination situation and lost 2 straight with some pretty poor decisions, and ironically to the team he previously couldn't get over the hump.
It's not an exclusively lolSJ thing, it's repetitive history he has to dash, and last year's coaching calls did nothing to instill confidence that he'll do better this time.
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Axl Rhoadz
Binky distributor
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Sol
Smile
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To that I can agree with. I never thought SJ had strong leadership. I don’t trust TM though. When the Kings were playing bad his responses to questions were always worrisome because his usual response one way or another was always “I don’t know”. It’s very clear to me and if some of you guys listen to TM talk when the going gets tough you can easily tell he sounds defeated. I think it was this season and last season when the Kings were getting stomped his responses were generally I don’t know
Only to get one upped by a video coach after he was fired. It’s not an SJ thing. He has a reputation as a loser and it exists for a reason.
I know people have a tendency to say “lol people are haters”
There’s a reason why the general NHL considers Todd a mediocre coach at best. Kings fans who are defending him now wouldn’t be making excuses for him if he wasn’t a King
Raccoon Jesus
We were right there
And all that's playing out here is everything that's played out everywhere else. Excellent regular season team looking like a true contender, faceplanting in an early round deep in a series after a series of misjudgments and no adjustments.
I don't think it's haterade to ask the guy to learn. I don't hate him. Great guy, player friendly, well spoken, this is just an observation of objective history. Call it values if you want, his stubborn adherence to things that have gotten him so-close-yet-so-far repeatedly are still his undoing--we need him to demonstrate that you can teach a relatively old dog new tricks because even now he looks determined to put Edler-Walker out against McDavid, for example.
He has. But he's also won more than a lot of coaches in the playoffs. HIs playoff win% is .488 which is right around the middle. Rod the Bod has coached some damn good teams and he's right at .500 in the playoffs. The differences are slight.
He does need to redeem himself and prove that he can take a team to the next level. Right now he's right in the average to above-average category, but he'll never elevate that unless he overcomes that next step. He's certainly not as terrible as is made out by a few around here and he's a good fit for this roster composition. He's got this team playing well and calm, but we will see if that continues. He's got guys who have won obviously, and guys like Danault who have been close. Something about the leadership on those Sharks teams were off. I will say if TM gets clearly outclassed with this group, the problem is definitely mostly him.
With 5 minutes left in game 7 when the score is 1–1. Offensive zone draw. Arvidsson takes the draw. Walker and Edler at the point after an Oilers icing.
