Management Claude Julien - Mod Warning post 643

[CharasLazyWrister]

Funny thing is, that was my original point to Lonnie - that there really are only a few (relatively) options, so firing Claude without having identified at least a couple of those options would be silly.

Gallant could possibly be a good, qualified option. But see, there's still so much I don't know. I didn't watch Florida much (who would that's not a Panther fan?) and I didn't see anything he did before that. I won't interview him, so how am I to know his specific ideas as they relate to this Bruins team? Surely you can see why it's tough for me to simply drop names. So much that I don't actually know and something I (unfortunately) have to trust to the higher ups.

I think what Lonnie was getting at (and hopefully he sees this post and corrects me if I am wrong) is that you can certainly want change and want to give another option a chance (as you did with Mr. Lewis), yet not have the knowledge or confidence to name a particular replacement or viable options. Surely, solely based on logic, one would have to think there are some worthy candidates. It's just very difficult to know exactly who as a fan. In this case, given all that we've seen of Claude, it is far easier and reasonable as a fan to say he should either a. stay or b. go.

 

[BBB24]

[Tweet]811973745338437632[/Tweet]

I'm not sure you could put together a worse set of line combos if you tried.

I'm not sure you could put together a better set of lines and not get people complaining.

 

[ReggieMoto]

[Tweet]811973745338437632[/Tweet]

Just saw a tweet from @NHLBruins that said Vatrano and Pastrnak are "highly likely" to play tonight.

Edit: Here it is.

 

[Glove Malfunction]

Gallant could possibly be a good, qualified option. But see, there's still so much I don't know. I didn't watch Florida much (who would that's not a Panther fan?) and I didn't see anything he did before that. I won't interview him, so how am I to know his specific ideas as they relate to this Bruins team? Surely you can see why it's tough for me to simply drop names. So much that I don't actually know and something I (unfortunately) have to trust to the higher ups.

I think what Lonnie was getting at (and hopefully he sees this post and corrects me if I am wrong) is that you can certainly want change and want to give another option a chance (as you did with Mr. Lewis), yet not have the knowledge or confidence to name a particular replacement or viable options. Surely, solely based on logic, one would have to think there are some worthy candidates. It's just very difficult to know exactly who as a fan. In this case, given all that we've seen of Claude, it is far easier and reasonable as a fan to say he should either a. stay or b. go.

Honestly, Gallant and Cassidy were the only two realistic options I knew about. But whatsbruin posted this:

http://www.thehockeynews.com/news/a...g-free-agent-coaches-not-named-bruce-boudreau

Bound to be one or two in this list.

and it has a few interesting names, even though it's from May.

 

[LSCII]

Also, you haven't provided a name because you can't.

No, I could. But it's a waste of time because again, you can't prove or disprove it. Any response to any name I provide would literally be nothing more than like your opinion, man.

 

[Spanky185]

So basically you're arguing for change for the sake of change?

It might work - see last year's Penguins. It might not.

I've thought they needed to get a new voice since the first choke job down the stretch in spring of 15. It's not change just to make a change. It's change because change is needed.

 

[CharasLazyWrister]

Honestly, Gallant and Cassidy were the only two realistic options I knew about. But whatsbruin posted this:



and it has a few interesting names, even though it's from May.

Would have been interesting to see how much this Bruins team, made up as it is, would have changed with Bruce Boudreau at the helm. Maybe not the greatest idea, but the juxtaposition in style from Claude would have been mighty interesting. Certainly seems to be paying off so far with him in Minnesota. Though, as we know, his greatest failure has been his lack of playoff success.

 

[PatriceBergeronFan]

The easiest, laziest, uninformed thing to say is "Get rid of him! Somebody else would do better!"

Pretty much. Replacing a top five coach for the sake of change with a not-top five coach only makes the team worse, albeit different.

 

[pierre gagnon*]

Put it this way in the Metro division he would have been fired. He is lucky and unlucky this year, the vets are not great as a hole but he does not hold them accountable, good old boys club. Rask, Pasta, Carlo, Chara and Moore have carried the team. No one expected any of them to do that. Cassidy has worked magic with the dee but the powerplay is bad, they miss Eriksson bigtime. Some vets should be leading this team and are under perfroming. Florida can tie the Bruins tonight with a win and take the last spot. The wild card positions are going to be owned by the Metro division. Lucky for them the Wings/Florida have been worse. Tampa has Stamkos out and the Leafs and Sabres are rebuilding. This talented group of players with vast stanley cup and international play should not be in this position. They have elite players and Sweeney gave him his checkers/pluggers in the mold he loves and understands. Vatrano will help but how will the coach use his lines. Will he let them try and score or back up and trap again. Rask cannot do it all by himself. I do not see them letting him go until it gets really bad. Change will be needed but hopefully not for a change but for a different direction/tactics, style of play to shape the next core, which has not been done yet. Kevan Dineen or Nate Leaman next year would be perfect for me. Hakstol is doing great with Philly

 

[Mpasta]

The easiest, laziest, uninformed thing to say is "Get rid of him! Somebody else would do better!"

I feel the same way about people who say, "Keep him! Nobody else would do better!"

Fact is, nobody knows.

 

[PlayMakers]

I'm not sure how you can hear things like "we're creating shots", "we're creating scoring chances" out of Claude's mouth and not get enraged. There is a reason we take 40-50 shots a lot of games and still lose. It's because they're weak, ****** perimeter shots. They rarely put guys in the center of the ice (unless it's directly inf front of the net) and force the D to come out high. This is a trademark of almost every good team. Especially on the PP. Move a guy out high in the center of the ice to open up down low plays. Oh...but wait, we just want perimeter shots "with traffic" so don't bother doing any of that. We have a great system that can get us up to 50 shots a game. So why stop that? Why would we ever want to stop that???

This post is full of fail but perhaps the most untrue statement is what I quoted.

They don't put guys in the middle out high? Bergeron got his best chance of the game against LA in that exact spot on a feed from Marchand. Hell, that's his role on the PP. That's all he does is set up out high in the middle as the bumper where he can shoot or draw D out and pass off. They frequently have 3 guys out high, 2 D and a F in the middle to draw out D.

And the idea that all they do is take perimeter shots is also pure fantasy. Look at the shot charts for this team, they're heavily HEAVILY weighted in the slot.

 

[LSCII]

Gallant could possibly be a good, qualified option. But see, there's still so much I don't know. I didn't watch Florida much (who would that's not a Panther fan?) and I didn't see anything he did before that. I won't interview him, so how am I to know his specific ideas as they relate to this Bruins team? Surely you can see why it's tough for me to simply drop names. So much that I don't actually know and something I (unfortunately) have to trust to the higher ups.

I think what Lonnie was getting at (and hopefully he sees this post and corrects me if I am wrong) is that you can certainly want change and want to give another option a chance (as you did with Mr. Lewis), yet not have the knowledge or confidence to name a particular replacement or viable options. Surely, solely based on logic, one would have to think there are some worthy candidates. It's just very difficult to know exactly who as a fan. In this case, given all that we've seen of Claude, it is far easier and reasonable as a fan to say he should either a. stay or b. go.

That is the general gist of what I was getting at yes. And to take it even further, I would add that there are a number of posters who ask for a replacement name not to have a valid discussion about that person's merits, but just to shoot it down. I don't think Trevor was doing that in this case, though. No matter how misguided his view is...

 

[LSCII]

This post is full of fail but perhaps the most untrue statement is what I quoted.

They don't put guys in the middle out high? Bergeron got his best chance of the game against LA in that exact spot on a feed from Marchand. Hell, that's his role on the PP. That's all he does is set up out high in the middle as the bumper where he can shoot or draw D out and pass off. They frequently have 3 guys out high, 2 D and a F in the middle to draw out D.

And the idea that all they do is take perimeter shots is also pure fantasy. Look at the shot charts for this team, they're heavily HEAVILY weighted in the slot.

I think a more relevant way to look at this would be overall shots attempted for the entire roster and not just the unblocked shots from a handful of forwards. That would at least show where the majority of shots attempted were coming from (especially since most of their shots from the point are blocked). To make that even more relevant, you'd have to contrast that to the league average. If you did that, then you could draw a valid conclusion, IMO.

Since that's time consuming and most people don't get that granular in their analytics like that for a message board, I doubt it would happen. So what you get is the eyeball test. And you cannot be saying that their main offensive ploy is to dump and chase, setup the cycle down low, get it up to the point for a shot, and hope for a screen or a tip, can you? I mean, it's pretty much how they set up shot 5 on 5 or on the PP. That's not something I can see as being dismissed via a small subset of shot charts either. It's fact.

 

[TheBigBadB]

This post is full of fail but perhaps the most untrue statement is what I quoted.

They don't put guys in the middle out high? Bergeron got his best chance of the game against LA in that exact spot on a feed from Marchand. Hell, that's his role on the PP. That's all he does is set up out high in the middle as the bumper where he can shoot or draw D out and pass off. They frequently have 3 guys out high, 2 D and a F in the middle to draw out D.

And the idea that all they do is take perimeter shots is also pure fantasy. Look at the shot charts for this team, they're heavily HEAVILY weighted in the slot.

Maybe I am not understanding this, but it looks to me that the slot is the biggest area, which it should be. They are a point shot rebound team. So most will be in this area. That is not considered out high though. High would be middle of the ice if you drew a line straight across from top of the circles. That is the out high third.

 

[DarrenBanks56]

I think clode should go with the pat burns stache the rest of the season

 

[PlayMakers]

Responses in bold.

I don't agree on the Cassidy and the D. I think this team tried to do a lot of the things we're seeing now last year. The difference is this year Carlo is in your top pair instead of Kevan Miller. Colin and Morrow are a year older, wiser and much improved. They had Liles for a long stretch of the first 30 games... I talked about this last year with MMB, and I remember Eriksson saying that he was very comfortable with the new breakout patterns where the forwards leave early and slash across the Nzone and the D try to get the puck up ice off the walls... He said it was very similar to what they did in Dallas. The less D to D and more up ice movement started last year. They still go D to D. Chara and Carlo made 3 in a row against the Isles the other night, but I think they also have more speed up front this year and are better at collecting those indirect area passes.

We agree on the lineup discussion. Look at the lines that came out today. Pasta and Vatrano are in, and still nobody's happy. Everybody thinks their version is the secret sauce.

Heinen played a game when he was called up and he went 0-0-0 -1. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that while Nash isn't going to win any scoring titles, he might help you win a game more than a kid who's still trying to find his way, especially when the margin for winning/losing is 1 goal.

I don't agree that "Spooner and Czarnik are centers." Maybe in the 80's they'd be perfect, but they're not the guys I'd want as my centers in today's NHL. Every team in the league asks their centers to play like 3rd defensemen in their own zone now. Every single one. Every college team. Every junior team. Every single one. Defenses have evolved and this is how the game is played. It's why there's been a movement to bigger centers. There's also been a movement to put more skill on the wings, because those are the guys who get to fly the zone, who carry the puck through the neutral zone. That's where I think they can be most effective.

Fwiw, I like Backes better at C. If we make a trade, I'd like to see them get Hanzal (another Backes, basically) to be the 3C. As far as that 46/42 pair goes, I think they've bee together a lot because they're two of the teams better players and they didn't want to break up a line that was so effective. That leaves the only other option as putting Backes as the 3C which comes with a reduction in ice time. Folks can say it doesn't but I've looked at the numbers of this team over time and the 3rd line has always played less. This team has been injured. It's been starved for talent because of those injures, so they made the decision not to reduce the ice time of one of their more talented players. I can understand that. I also think they have had some really good games. Backes played on Bergeron's RW for two games recently and when they switched him back to Krejci's wing I remember saying they suddenly started dominating possession. I just don't think 46/42 are so strong that they can carry a 3rd wheel who's not clicking. Maybe that impression is wrong and we'll find out when Vatrano gets up to speed. If it is, I have no problem seeing Backes go down to the 3rd line with the added depth off IR.

Lastly, I don't agree with the sentiment that all this team does is take perimeter shots. Or that they pad their shot totals with perimeter shots. I watch the games, and the guys who do most of the shooting on this team do it inside the house.

 

[PlayMakers]

Maybe I am not understanding this, but it looks to me that the slot is the biggest area, which it should be. They are a point shot rebound team. So most will be in this area. That is not considered out high though. High would be middle of the ice if you drew a line straight across from top of the circles. That is the out high third.

The point of those charts was to show that most of this teams shots are not from the perimeter.

I am not saying they take most of their shots from above the circles in the middle of the zone (borderline perimeter IMO). We were talking about an offensive scheme where a forward rotates out high to draw the D and/or low C out of the slot. I was saying that the Bruins do that also, but the point of that play isn't necessarily to take all your shots from out there, it's to open things up underneath.

 

[LSCII]

The point of those charts was to show that most of this teams shots are not from the perimeter.

I am not saying they take most of their shots from above the circles in the middle of the zone (borderline perimeter IMO). We were talking about an offensive scheme where a forward rotates out high to draw the D and/or low C out of the slot. I was saying that the Bruins do that also, but the point of that play isn't necessarily to take all your shots from out there, it's to open things up underneath.

So your goal was to disprove that the majority of offensive shots emanate from the defense and to accomplish that, you decided that shots by 5 random forwards that were unblocked would be the best sample size??

Nothing against the effort you made, but no **** their top 6 forwards are generally shooting from in closer. Which is why I said team wide including blocked as well as unblocked would be a fairer representation than a random snippet of 5 forwards.

I asked before, but I'll ask again. Are you suggesting with these charts that they don't dump and chase (including on the PP) to set up the cycle, then funnel the puck back to the point for a shot, while hoping for a screen, tip, or rebound? Because that's exactly what they do, imo, charts aside.

 

[CharasLazyWrister]

Pretty much. Replacing a top five coach for the sake of change with a not-top five coach only makes the team worse, albeit different.

I won't argue with you on quantifying Claude as a "top 5" coach.

I have no clue how you can call someone, who's never been given a chance, a "not top 5" coach. We have next to no idea, especially as passive fans, how a given coach would perform with this team.

Given this argument, it also would seem that we are forever tied to Claude which is just not how pro sports works.

 

[CharasLazyWrister]

This post is full of fail but perhaps the most untrue statement is what I quoted.

They don't put guys in the middle out high? Bergeron got his best chance of the game against LA in that exact spot on a feed from Marchand. Hell, that's his role on the PP. That's all he does is set up out high in the middle as the bumper where he can shoot or draw D out and pass off. They frequently have 3 guys out high, 2 D and a F in the middle to draw out D.

And the idea that all they do is take perimeter shots is also pure fantasy. Look at the shot charts for this team, they're heavily HEAVILY weighted in the slot.

That chart does not represent where they set up to take shots and actually take them, but rather where the shots THAT DON'T GET BLOCKED come from. I feel like this chart works exactly to my point that they do need to be taking less perimeter shots. This display does not dispute that at all, rather asserts that most shots that get through are coming from down low.

As far as the slot...I was certainly speaking out of generalities. I realize they do, at times, have someone out high in the slot for a shot. However, what I am stressing is to not set up two guys at the point, two to the perimeter down low, and one "screener" who is right on top of the crease. Collapse your points in, pull out your screen guy to almost in between the circles (not that far out), and press in toward the crease with your down low guys. The man constantly standing right on top of the crease collapses the defense to the net and prevents the play by the forwards on the right and left sides to take it to the net cleanly.

I really don't see how my post was "full of fail". I find that to be a rather unnecessary statement and hyperbole, and am particularly appalled you're saying it as a mod. I don't mind you disputing my theory. Because that is what it is. But "full of fail". Unnecessarily insulting.

edit: I want to stress as well, in this post, that by "out high" I don't mean all the way out high. I simply mean taking your guy who would sometimes be exclusively used as a screener and bringing him out to in between the faceoff dots.

 

[CharasLazyWrister]

The point of those charts was to show that most of this teams shots are not from the perimeter.

I am not saying they take most of their shots from above the circles in the middle of the zone (borderline perimeter IMO). We were talking about an offensive scheme where a forward rotates out high to draw the D and/or low C out of the slot. I was saying that the Bruins do that also, but the point of that play isn't necessarily to take all your shots from out there, it's to open things up underneath.

Especially if you're going to come after me, you seriously need to have a little more thought.

Those are UNBLOCKED SHOTS. That DOES NOT include all shot attempts. I am perfectly okay with the theory that most of the shots from the point rarely get through/are blocked. This display does nothing to dispute that theory. It may even support it.

That chart does not support or prove your assertion AT ALL.

 

[TheBigBadB]

The point of those charts was to show that most of this teams shots are not from the perimeter.

I am not saying they take most of their shots from above the circles in the middle of the zone (borderline perimeter IMO). We were talking about an offensive scheme where a forward rotates out high to draw the D and/or low C out of the slot. I was saying that the Bruins do that also, but the point of that play isn't necessarily to take all your shots from out there, it's to open things up underneath.

Gotcha, like I said loss in communication for me.

 

[EverettMike]

Most unblocked shots come from in front of the net?

Yeah, obviously.

What am I missing here? Seriously asking. I might just be missing the point.

 

[Number8]

Most unblocked shots come from in front of the net?

Yeah, obviously.

What am I missing here? Seriously asking. I might just be missing the point.

Does anyone have a chart like this the shows team wide total shot attempts? I wonder how Boston compares to similar teams (I say similar because if you have a stud d-man from point that gets shots through, that'll skew things).

 

[bruinsfan1970]

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=2166241