All-Encompassing Tortorella/Sather Thread

[Blueshirt Believer]

Guys, the dump and chase isn't the major the problem or even our offensive zone schemes(although those are certainly symptoms).

The main problem with Torts coaching is our breakouts. Our transitional game is probably the worst in the NHL.

We don't use the middle of the ice on short breakouts, and we overuse the stretch pass constantly.

The team can't even effectively establish a forecheck because of the lack of cohesion on the transition.

This was a problem last year, it was a problem the year before. It is yet again a problem this year...

In fact, this was a problem for Torts even when he was in Tampa after the lockout. Torts has not figured the transition game post '05.

He still runs a transition game that is predicated on league wide trapping systems. Even when teams don't play it anymore...

He views the transition game today as "pinball." He believes as long as the puck is moving up ice, it doesn't matter how it gets there. That is the problem. The best teams in the league are controlling the pill on their transitional play with purpose...

 

[Ola]

How can you watch games this week and think "oh, just a few X and O adjustments would change things"

Thats just bizarre

Maybe because 3rd and 4th lines on Winnipeg, Ottawa, Malkin less Pittsbrugh, are creating tremendously much more then our team combined over 60 minutes

We had zero shots even strength in the first. What the F is that?

And you obviously don't have a clue what you are talking about. This is a game of X and O's and it takes years -- if litterary not decades -- to reach perfection. "Just a few x and o adjustments" lol.

Any coach who comes here has to start from scratch, because Torts and Sullivan hasn't had this team execute a breakout in 3 years. SICKENING.

 

[nyr2k2]

Whatever, just fire him. Team is going nowhere with or without him.

 

[HockeyBasedNYC]

Haven't felt this way since Jokinen was on the club, I blame Sather.

 

[GeoNYR]

He needs to be fired, we need someone who can take this team over and show significant difference in our play.

 

[The Gloaming]

Can we trade Torts to Detroit for Babcock? pretty please?

 

[haveandare]

Last season, I thought he was a great motivator. He fielded a team that competed every single shift. Thats not there this season - complaints about that and musings about how he might have lost this team carry a bit more weight than the generic and ignorant talk about a system/style of play problem.

With that said, Torts is not the guy who rebuilt a roster by virtually ignoring the bottom 6. Perhaps more importantly, Richards and Gaborik, who played pretty damn well in the same system last season have stunk beyond belief.

Theres so much blame to go around. Those calling for Torts' head would simply get a new name, but a lot more would need to change to get different results.

I agree with all of this.

Also, it's kind of huge to say "ignore last season" since he was the coach last season and it was the best run this franchise has been on in years. The team wasn't great on paper, but they were more than the sum of their parts. That was good coaching.

 

[Bleed Ranger Blue]

Maybe because 3rd and 4th lines on Winnipeg, Ottawa, Malkin less Pittsbrugh, are creating tremendously much more then our team combined over 60 minutes?

Sure sounds like that has more to do with inherant talent. If we can grab a coach whose X's and O's make players more creative, I'd love to have him. Good luck finding that.

 

[Section311]

Last week this team was on fire...they have one bad game in Buffalo and the coach humiliates them to the public over one game. They haven't won since...I think he lost the team. He now has to go

 

[JimmyG89]

I had approved of Torts when the poll came out. Now, idk about that. The board play system is not working. They have players with skill. They do not need to muck it on the boards. The Penguins play a skilled game on the boards and they skate. The Rangers do not do that. The Rangers can do that, but it appears Torts does not want them to move in the zone. It makes it difficult to defend.

 

[Ola]

Guys, the dump and chase isn't the major the problem or even our offensive zone schemes.

The main problem with Torts coaching is our breakouts. Our transitional game is probably the worst in the NHL.

We don't use the middle of the ice on short breakouts, and we overuse the stretch pass constantly.

The team can't even effectively establish a forecheck because of the lack of cohesion on the transition.

This was a problem last year, it was a problem the year before. It is yet again a problem this year...

In fact, this was a problem for Torts even when he was in Tampa after the lockout. Torts has not figured the transition game post '05.

He still runs a transition game that is predicated on league wide trapping systems. Even when teams don't play it anymore...

He views the transition game today as "pinball." He believes as long as the puck is moving up ice, it doesn't matter how it gets there. That is the problem. The best teams in the league are controlling the pill on their transitional play with purpose...

Yeah, this is how you could beat a trap before the redline offisde-rule was removed.

Torts got such big EGO that he can't look around the league and figure out that -- all teams -- are being tremendously much more creative now than during the trap era. All good teams, whether the more hard nosed teams or the more skilled teams, are really well drilled and use the entire ice to keep possession of the puck. We just throw it away. If we don't have it, we can't make any misstakes.

Thats how it was done 2003. Not 2013.

 

[Bleed Ranger Blue]

Maybe because 3rd and 4th lines on Winnipeg, Ottawa, Malkin less Pittsbrugh, are creating tremendously much more then our team combined over 60 minutes

We had zero shots even strength in the first. What the F is that?

And you obviously don't have a clue what you are talking about. This is a game of X and O's and it takes years -- if litterary not decades -- to reach perfection. "Just a few x and o adjustments" lol.

Any coach who comes here has to start from scratch, because Torts and Sullivan hasn't had this team execute a breakout in 3 years. SICKENING.

Yea, right. Hockey is more of an X and O game than basketball or football. Give me a break with that stuff.

Its too fast of a game to have more than a couple of set plays and X and O dominated game play. What you're saying is silly.

 

[Ola]

Sure sounds like that has more to do with inherant talent. If we can grab a coach whose X's and O's make players more creative, I'd love to have him. Good luck finding that.

With the way we play, we can't have players on the team who aren't great along the boards. A player with size and skill is expensive in a cap environment. Of course we end up with little talent.

We have a ton of "value" on this team though, but Torts getting extremely little from it...

 

[FATCHAMALA11]

it's awesome to go out and get more offense only to play more defense. Tell him to take his hero Richards with him.

 

[ImIdaho]

Just you wait you guys when this team heats up and starts winning..two games. You guys will have so much egg on your faces for not believing.

 

[OverTheCap]

Last season, I thought he was a great motivator. He fielded a team that competed every single shift. Thats not there this season - complaints about that and musings about how he might have lost this team carry a bit more weight than the generic and ignorant talk about a system/style of play problem.

With that said, Torts is not the guy who rebuilt a roster by virtually ignoring the bottom 6. Perhaps more importantly, Richards and Gaborik, who played pretty damn well in the same system last season have stunk beyond belief.

Theres so much blame to go around. Those calling for Torts' head would simply get a new name, but a lot more would need to change to get different results.

The fact that this roster changed so much in the offseason is something that often gets ignored around here. I never anticipated that this team would have so much turnover a season after making the ECF.

You look at a team like the Chicago Blackhawks who went from the WCF to cup champions the following season, and they didn't shake up the team as much and adequately addressed their needs. They replaced Havlat with Hossa, added some depth in Madden and Kopecky. We may have gotten Nash, but we have less depth than we did before and some holes were never addressed. Combine that with the fact that Richards and Gaborik are playing horribly, as well as losing our best defenseman in Staal, and it's no wonder we are struggling. I may disagree with constant line-changing and some of his coaching methods, but to pin this solely on Torts is short-sighted.

 

[Ola]

Yea, right. Hockey is more of an X and O game than basketball or football. Give me a break with that stuff.

Its too fast of a game to have more than a couple of set plays and X and O dominated game play. What you're saying is silly.

Of course its not.

 

[Bleed Ranger Blue]

Of course its not.

The team is timid - their battle level isnt there most of the time. And you think learning a couple of new plays is going to fix this? Its off base.

 

[NYR Sting]

Yea, right. Hockey is more of an X and O game than basketball or football. Give me a break with that stuff.

Its too fast of a game to have more than a couple of set plays and X and O dominated game play. What you're saying is silly.

BRB, I've grown to respect your opinion more often than not, but you're the one that's being silly.

There is A LOT more strategy in hockey then you seem willing to believe. Much more strategy in hockey than football, as far as I can tell.

I'm one of the people saying that to fire Tortorella right now would be ridiculous, but how can anyone deny that he's a weak tactician? Forget about the stuff that Ola has been saying (although it is on target), all you have to do is listen to some of the things Tortorella says over and over and over: "I don't worry about the other team" or "We don't spend much time talking about the other team."

That's not something to be proud of, John. Certainly, you should focus on taking care of your own business first, but making adjustments when facing different teams and different players is just smart strategy. You don't play the Penguins the same way you play the Senators.

No, you can't teach brains or creativity, but while the Rangers don't have any Lidstroms or Datsyuks, they are not devoid of players with above-average smarts. What a coach can do is put the brains and the creativity to use through tactics, and I don't think Tortorella likes to or knows how to do that.

 

[The Gloaming]

BRB, I've grown to respect your opinion more often than not, but you're the one that's being silly.

There is A LOT more strategy in hockey then you seem willing to believe. Much more strategy in hockey than football, as far as I can tell.

I'm one of the people saying that to fire Tortorella right now would be ridiculous, but how can anyone deny that he's a weak tactician? Forget about the stuff that Ola has been saying (although it is on target), all you have to do is listen to some of the things Tortorella says over and over and over: "I don't worry about the other team" or "We don't spend much time talking about the other team."

That's not something to be proud of, John. Certainly, you should focus on taking care of your own business first, but making adjustments when facing different teams and different players is just smart strategy. You don't play the Penguins the same way you play the Senators.

No, you can't teach brains or creativity, but while the Rangers don't have any Lidstroms or Datsyuks, they are not devoid of players with above-average smarts. What a coach can do is put the brains and the creativity to use through tactics, and I don't think Tortorella likes to or knows how to do that.

This. He seems to think that his system can beat any team in the league. It cannot. And other teams have caught on to us, and are exploiting our system.

But he'll just keep saying to "stick with the game plan."

 

[poeman]

No one is responding to Torts and his method of coaching...Horrible play. Mike Sullivan is a bigger piece of garbage

 

[Gordon Bombay]

GrindJamDumpChaseTurnoverBlockShotJamGrindDumpChaseTurnoverBlockShotJamGrindGrindJamJamDumpChaseTurnoverBlockShotJamGrindDumpChaseGrindJamTurnoverLose.

There is more to the sport of hockey then this.

 

[NYR Sting]

I said this when he was first hired: Tortorella is not a tactician, he's a motivator. And motivators should be hired when teams are on the verge, but need an extra push. The mistake Sather made (what? Sather making a mistake? Shocker) is that he hired the wrong sort of coach for the wrong group of players. It would be great if they hired a guy like Tortorella now, after the "developer" coach that they should have hired when they hired him. Everything with this club is done backwards.

 

[Bleed Ranger Blue]

BRB, I've grown to respect your opinion more often than not, but you're the one that's being silly.

There is A LOT more strategy in hockey then you seem willing to believe. Much more strategy in hockey than football, as far as I can tell.

I'm one of the people saying that to fire Tortorella right now would be ridiculous, but how can anyone deny that he's a weak tactician? Forget about the stuff that Ola has been saying (although it is on target), all you have to do is listen to some of the things Tortorella says over and over and over: "I don't worry about the other team" or "We don't spend much time talking about the other team."

That's not something to be proud of, John. Certainly, you should focus on taking care of your own business first, but making adjustments when facing different teams and different players is just smart strategy. You don't play the Penguins the same way you play the Senators.

No, you can't teach brains or creativity, but while the Rangers don't have any Lidstroms or Datsyuks, they are not devoid of players with above-average smarts. What a coach can do is put the brains and the creativity to use through tactics, and I don't think Tortorella likes to or knows how to do that.

Maybe we're caught up in mixed verbiage here. Because, to me, "strategy" and X's and O's are different things. You have a great point about the strategy Torts employs and as far as Im concerned that word is more tied to his system. X's and O's - again, to me - have more to do with set plays. Hockey is too fast of a game to spend too much time on set plays outside of maybe the breakout and the powerplay.

With all that said, I find it very difficult to believe that Torts is telling his players to grind it out on the boards at all costs. Maybe he does, Im not in the lockerroom.

What I do know for sure, is I see plenty of forwards out there that simply arent moving their feet and aren't competing. The reason hockey is my favorite sport is because wanting it more than the opposition plays a huge role in a game's outcome.

Im not going to discredit strategies, systems, X's and O's, or whatever you want to call it -- but when I see a team thats not competing very hard every shift, I think that needs to be addressed first and foremost.

 

[The Gloaming]

Of you watch the Rangers a lot, you'll see that other teams never give them any space in the offensive zone, and so they have to use the boards and go behind the net.

Then you realize that the Rangers are just boxing themselves into these corners and boards. No one ever goes to the slot. It's always "fire the shot from a bad angle."

Also, I pray that he is not coaching Team USA's offense in Sochi.