Player Discussion Alain Vigneault Part VI

[NickyFotiu]

The reason all fanbases complain about coaches is because the majority of them are not very good and all do the same things incorrectly. They keep getting jobs because they have experience and some have won which very often just has to do with the quality of their players.

That's why I've said before whenever we hire a new coach my preference is for it to be someone completely new such that my reaction when it is announced is "who?". Any name you recognize as being a former nhl coach/assistant etc. is almost surely to be more of the same.

Okay lets say hypothetically you are named our new GM. Please submit a list of 5 people to become our next coach (with no prior NHL management, coaching or playing experience) after you fire AV. Please include specific individual reasons for each of your 5 unknown individuals why you believe they will get better results than all the current 31 NHL coaches. Thanks in advance.

 

[Inferno]

Okay lets say hypothetically you are named our new GM. Please submit a list of 5 people to become our next coach (with no prior NHL management, coaching or playing experience) after you fire AV. Please include specific individual reasons for each of your 5 unknown individuals why you believe they will get better results than all the current 31 NHL coaches. Thanks in advance.

I'd hire Sutter personally. Though this personnel isnt really suited to his brand of hockey.

 

[Gardner McKay]

https://www.blueshirtbanter.com/201...s-decision-making-is-now-jeff-gortons-problem

Well.. that was scathing and a lot (not all of it) is very true.

I said it during the off season. If AV doesn't play the players Gorton signed and traded for then it looks bad on Gorton too. I'm wondering how much of a tenure AV really has left with the Rangers?

 

[Inferno]

Since we're into asking ridiculous hypotheticals to prove how smart we are..

Name me 6 coaches who would look at this defensive setup and think to themselves...this is a winner...

McD-Holden, Staal-Shattenkirk, Skjei-Smith

 

[hi]

AV was labelled as a smart coach because he decided to put the Sedin's on the ice for like 85% of the Canucks offensive zone faceoffs one season. He is not smart.

 

[NickyFotiu]

I'd hire Sutter personally. Though this personnel isnt really suited to his brand of hockey.

He has shown he can get it done so you would have a logical reason but he is a former NHL player/coach so he would not meet the dimension that SA 16 laid out regarding experience.

 

[Inferno]

He has shown he can get it done so you would have a logical reason but he is a former NHL player/coach so he would not meet the dimension that SA 16 laid out regarding experience.

yeah i dont care about experience one way or another. im not necessarily thrilled with the idea of getting a coach whose never done it (though id be fine with that being an assistant coach).

i think that coaches are probably a bit overrated as it is. i hated a LOT on Tom Renney in my past, because i hated his system, but in the end, he put the right lineups out there night after night. was he a good coach or a terrible coach? ive probably softened over the years to thinking he was an average coach..because at least i was fine with his roster decisions.

Torts...i absolutely 100% believed in his roster choices night in and night out. LOVE torts..never had an issue with him, never wanted him fired. Torts' personality..system....those things, i get why people hate it..i totally do. but the #1 thing I want from my coach is to put out a lineup, night after night, that makes sense to me. I think Torts had a lot less to work with than AV has..but I rarely thought Torts did the wrong thing with his lineups, or his on ice usage.

AV is the polar opposite of Torts..seems like a good guy, his system makes sense (somewhat) for the "new nhl" (But i hate our d zone system, but thats for another day), but his in game usage, and his lineups in general are awful..just awful..just atrocious, literally look like hes pulling names out of a hat. TO me, thats his first and most important job...and he's just beyond PUTRID at that...everything else is ancillary.

 

[DanielBrassard]

AV was labelled as a smart coach because he decided to put the Sedin's on the ice for like 85% of the Canucks offensive zone faceoffs one season. He is not smart.

So true.

 

[Cassano]

AV was labelled as a smart coach because he decided to put the Sedin's on the ice for like 85% of the Canucks offensive zone faceoffs one season. He is not smart.

Not sure why that's an argument against him. The Sedins won scoring titles under his reign. The Canucks won President's Trophies and made a cup final. Why not give the Sedins those starts when you have Kesler and Malhotra behind them?

 

[Inferno]

Not sure why that's an argument against him. The Sedins won scoring titles under his reign. The Canucks won President's Trophies and made a cup final. Why not give the Sedins those starts when you have Kesler and Malhotra behind them?

its not an argument against him...its acting as if it wasnt a blantantly obvious thing to do...with that said, with the sheer amount of blatantly obvious things to do that AV has not done, i guess giving him credit for not being an idiot would be appropriate in this case.

 

[Cassano]

its not an argument against him...its acting as if it wasnt a blantantly obvious thing to do...with that said, with the sheer amount of blatantly obvious things to do that AV has not done, i guess giving him credit for not being an idiot would be appropriate in this case.

I don't know. There still aren't many players that are getting 70-80% ozone starts like the Sedins did FWIW.

 

[TheDirtyH]

Can anyone tell me what a coach actually does aside from dressing guys and dividing minutes between them that we can all point to and say this guy is trash or is very good?

What is the love affair with other coaches? Babcock is as responsible as Holland for the Ericsson, Kronwall, Abdelkater deals in Detroit. Those were his guys. Toronto fans were enraged when he started Hyman with Matthews over Marleau. Cooper wanted Girardi, plays him top pair with Hedman, and routinely sat better young defensemen last season to play Dotchin, Coburn, and Sjustr(sp?). Sullivan, Torts? They're doing 'great' now, but were they doing good for us?

It's important to let the team grow into itself, but with the league as competitive as ever, we can't afford not to stay at least .500 while we wait. So he's playing the guys he knows what to expect from, knows can play well enough to win for a while. If in December McDonagh and Shattenkirk are not playing together, then I'll be frustrated, but until then, I'll be keeping calm about it.

Buchnevich hasn't left the top line. Everyone berates AV last season for making the line and taking it apart as though he didn't see what it was capable of. Then, voila, it's the very first combo he tries, and since it clicked quickly, it gets time. Shattenkirk and McDonagh did not click immediately, and were a -3 in their first game. That's a tough learning curve to be immediately patient with..

 

[Captain Lindy]

https://www.blueshirtbanter.com/201...s-decision-making-is-now-jeff-gortons-problem

Well.. that was scathing and a lot (not all of it) is very true.

I said it during the off season. If AV doesn't play the players Gorton signed and traded for then it looks bad on Gorton too. I'm wondering how much of a tenure AV really has left with the Rangers?

I've been saying this for at least the last year. Longer, actually. Since Yandle.

 

[SA16]

Okay lets say hypothetically you are named our new GM. Please submit a list of 5 people to become our next coach (with no prior NHL management, coaching or playing experience) after you fire AV. Please include specific individual reasons for each of your 5 unknown individuals why you believe they will get better results than all the current 31 NHL coaches. Thanks in advance.

Probably my least favorite argument out there. My job, surprisingly enough, is not to know all the potential NHL coaching candidates. That also doesn't mean that once I do see a particular coach I'm not going to have an opinion on whether I think he's doing a good or bad job. That is, however, the job of a general manager if he's looking for a coach. He should know about potential college coaches, junior coaches, assistants and the like. So no, I could not give you a list of 5 people who could potentially do a good job but if GM is searching for someone he better be able to give you that information. There's more than the same 30-40 people in the world that are qualified to coach.

 

[NickyFotiu]

Probably my least favorite argument out there. My job, surprisingly enough, is not to know all the potential NHL coaching candidates. That also doesn't mean that once I do see a particular coach I'm not going to have an opinion on whether I think he's doing a good or bad job. That is, however, the job of a general manager if he's looking for a coach. He should know about potential college coaches, junior coaches, assistants and the like. So no, I could not give you a list of 5 people who could potentially do a good job but if GM is searching for someone he better be able to give you that information. There's more than the same 30-40 people in the world that are qualified to coach.

Okay let me ask you a different question then about the same underlying point. Since you said you are against hiring any coach with any NHL experience would you have said no to hiring Sully, Quenville, and Sutter if you were in charge of their teams at the time they were hired?

 

[ManUtdTobbe]

Since we're into asking ridiculous hypotheticals to prove how smart we are..

Name me 6 coaches who would look at this defensive setup and think to themselves...this is a winner...

McD-Holden, Staal-Shattenkirk, Skjei-Smith

Lindy Ruff..... Oh shit, we're in trouble...

 

[SA16]

Okay let me ask you a different question then about the same underlying point. Since you said you are against hiring any coach with any NHL experience would you have said no to hiring Sully, Quenville, and Sutter if you were in charge of their teams at the time they were hired?

I wouldn't have known enough at the time but I probably would not have wanted them. It's obviously worked out well for them. Let's be clear here though first Sullivan hadn't been a head coach in the NHL in over 10 years and he also took over a team that had already won multiple cups with arguably the two best players in the world. Whether or not Johnston was bad I don't really know but they did fine with other coaches prior to Sullivan with similar rosters.

 

[NickyFotiu]

I wouldn't have known enough at the time but I probably would not have wanted them. It's obviously worked out well for them. Let's be clear here though first Sullivan hadn't been a head coach in the NHL in over 10 years and he also took over a team that had already won multiple cups with arguably the two best players in the world. Whether or not Johnston was bad I don't really know but they did fine with other coaches prior to Sullivan with similar rosters.

I included Sully in part because you seemed to be against anybody with coaching or assistant coaching experience at the NHL level. Sully spent some years with us.

 

[Ail]

https://www.blueshirtbanter.com/201...s-decision-making-is-now-jeff-gortons-problem

Well.. that was scathing and a lot (not all of it) is very true.

I said it during the off season. If AV doesn't play the players Gorton signed and traded for then it looks bad on Gorton too. I'm wondering how much of a tenure AV really has left with the Rangers?

All true and every single one of these criticisms when they have been brought up on these boards have been scoffed at or defended, always shifting blame to the players trying to justify and rationalize decisions King Dingus Dongus has made. For what it is worth, maybe some of us were wrong about some of these decisions in hindsight. Maybe McIlrath, Pirri and Etem were not NHL players anyway, but I'm certainly not convinced that AV is some kind of genius wizard of talent evaluation who knew these guys were never going to hack it regardless and hardly gave them any opportunity to prove it, whilst then on the other hand electing to give the ice-time to players who were equally as bad or worse in the next shift, or game. I certainly still can't understand how anyone could attempt to rationalize the way Yandle was handled.

I'm not going to overreact to his handling of players 4 games into the season, but I definitely think Chytil was not given a legitimate look for a 1st rounder they decided not to cut out of camp.

 

[LORDE]

I don’t think people should be so offended by the way Chytil was handled...

They CAN certainly gripe about the D pairs tho and ADA sitting again.

AV has his methods and I’ve said all along that Gorton is (in my opinion) keeping a closer eye on usage. He specifically said that Kirk wasn’t brought here to play 2/3 pair mins... that’s already happening. He didn’t trade Steps for 7OA & ADA so ADA could watch in a suit. Smith may be another issue if the rumors are true about him being in terrible shape.

It’ll get sorted... I have faith in Gorton

 

[Edge]

I'm somewhat torn on one of the issues brought up here.

I think there are a lot of people who think they'd make good coaches and GM's, right up until they actually jumped into the deep end. It's not as simple as trading for guys or sending them onto the ice to play. All the talent in the world doesn't equate to success without a good coach. We've seen that time and time again, in a number of sports.

On the other hand, I do believe that there are some people on here who could, with some training and experience, make for pro-caliber hockey professionals. Hockey, perhaps more than any other sport, tends to be a little incestuous. There are a lot of people who are employed only because they are "in."

 

[Off Sides]

I don’t think people should be so offended by the way Chytil was handled...

They CAN certainly gripe about the D pairs tho and ADA sitting again.

AV has his methods and I’ve said all along that Gorton is (in my opinion) keeping a closer eye on usage. He specifically said that Kirk wasn’t brought here to play 2/3 pair mins... that’s already happening. He didn’t trade Steps for 7OA & ADA so ADA could watch in a suit. Smith may be another issue if the rumors are true about him being in terrible shape.

It’ll get sorted... I have faith in Gorton

Shattenkirk has never played top pair minutes consistently before. ADA has been scratched before, Smith mostly has played 3rd pair.

If AV can get those players to do stuff they never have before, mostly play minutes and in situations they have not, all those Gorton moves make sense.

If not all those moves look like Gorton was optimistic.

This to me at least, this is different than AV is playing vets because he does that, it looks like the players have not performed well enough to be played where the original plan had them.

 

[Gardner McKay]

I'm somewhat torn on one of the issues brought up here.

I think there are a lot of people who think they'd make good coaches and GM's, right up until they actually jumped into the deep end. It's not as simple as trading for guys or sending them onto the ice to play. All the talent in the world doesn't equate to success without a good coach. We've seen that time and time again, in a number of sports.

On the other hand, I do believe that there are some people on here who could, with some training and experience, make for pro-caliber hockey professionals. Hockey, perhaps more than any other sport, tends to be a little incestuous. There are a lot of people who are employed only because they are "in."

Two things...

I agree that there are people here who could do a good job in the pro hockey world. That number though is in the single digits... low single digits and I bet my list would shock people.

Regarding the bold... Maybe it is a tad bit worse in hockey but that is true in any profession, not just professional sports.

 

[True Blue]

yeah i dont care about experience one way or another. im not necessarily thrilled with the idea of getting a coach whose never done it (though id be fine with that being an assistant coach).

i think that coaches are probably a bit overrated as it is. i hated a LOT on Tom Renney in my past, because i hated his system, but in the end, he put the right lineups out there night after night. was he a good coach or a terrible coach? ive probably softened over the years to thinking he was an average coach..because at least i was fine with his roster decisions.

Torts...i absolutely 100% believed in his roster choices night in and night out. LOVE torts..never had an issue with him, never wanted him fired. Torts' personality..system....those things, i get why people hate it..i totally do. but the #1 thing I want from my coach is to put out a lineup, night after night, that makes sense to me. I think Torts had a lot less to work with than AV has..but I rarely thought Torts did the wrong thing with his lineups, or his on ice usage.

AV is the polar opposite of Torts..seems like a good guy, his system makes sense (somewhat) for the "new nhl" (But i hate our d zone system, but thats for another day), but his in game usage, and his lineups in general are awful..just awful..just atrocious, literally look like hes pulling names out of a hat. TO me, thats his first and most important job...and he's just beyond PUTRID at that...everything else is ancillary.

Summarizing how I feel

 

[Edge]

Two things...

I agree that there are people here who could do a good job in the pro hockey world. That number though is in the single digits... low single digits and I bet my list would shock people.

Regarding the bold... Maybe it is a tad bit worse in hockey but that is true in any profession, not just professional sports.

Without a doubt, I'd say hockey is at or near the top of the list. I've even seen reporters vaguely reference it. It's a very close knit culture.

With regards to people who could work well in the industry, I'd more or less agree with that assessment. It's one thing to provide commentary on a subject, it's another thing to actually go forth and execute.