Coaching is a serious problem.

[Lafleurs Guy]

it’s worse than that. Gallagher is playing great. Evans is playing great. Anderson is playing decent. Caufield is among the league leaders in goals. Suzuki is producing. We have a kid challenging for the Calder. There is no three goalie carousel.

These are things we have more than last year. Yet somehow the team looks worse. There is a serious problem and ignoring it doesn’t make it go away.

Again.... I don't know why you ignore this - the team had been playing much better before this game and was coming off our best win of the year.

Nobody denies it's been a brutal year. But the team was trending in the right direction. Let's see where it goes from here.

 

[Gravity]

We got off to a horrific start. No question about that.

But we seem to have turned a corner about seven or eight games ago. No, we weren't perfect but the defensive play was so much better. Now we just suffered a blowout again. Is this a blip or was the short stint of improved play the blip? We need to play this out and see.

This is not a great team. Even when I was predicting us to be a better club I wasn't penciling us in for the playoffs. We knew there'd be ups and downs. Even if we go .500 the rest of the way we will still have games like this.

We're coming off our best win of the season. Then we shit the bed. That's what .500 teams do. We are consistently inconsistent.

Imo, we haven't turned the corner at any point this season. The players who need to develop are regressing and/or being stifled. Hutson is a remarkable talent but he's not developing much and Slaf is regressing. Suzuki looks off despite producing and CC has gone cold after carrying the team. Looking at D, only Guhle looks stable. Goalies have been ass too.

We can live with losses and team regression so long as the important pieces are developing. That's not happening atm and is alarming.

 

[le_sean]

Those problems are Dach and Matheson, not the coach.

Who keeps putting them in positions to fail over and over again?

If you seriously think the problem is two players, then the coach that keeps giving them infinite opportunities is to blame.

I don’t think the issue is those two specifically though they are part of the problem.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Imo, we haven't turned the corner at any point this season. The players who need to develop are regressing and/or being stifled. Hutson is a remarkable talent but he's not developing much and Slaf is regressing. Suzuki looks off despite producing and CC has gone cold after carrying the team. Looking at D, only Guhle looks stable.

We looked brutal to start. Then a six game losing streak before the season was even 20 games old.

But we we've played better since Calgary. That's a measurable quantifiable fact. Were we perfect? No! But we were better. I don't disagree this is a disappointing year. But it's very early. If we get curb stomped repeatedly going forward then it's a different story.

 

[Gravity]

We looked brutal to start. Then a six game losing streak before the season was even 20 games old.

But we we've played better since Calgary. That's a measurable quantifiable fact. Were we perfect? No! But we were better. I don't disagree this is a disappointing year. But it's very early. If we get curb stomped repeatedly going forward then it's a different story.

I edited my message to state that disappointment for me lies not in team outcomes but key player development. That's the regression that's concerning and has not really changed for me.

I don't care if the team gets curb stomped every game so long as key players are producing and growing (which inevitably will lead to less losses).

 

[ryan callahan]

Who keeps putting them in positions to fail over and over again?

If you seriously think the problem is two players, then the coach that keeps giving them infinite opportunities is to blame.

I don’t think the issue is those two specifically though they are part of the problem.

Lmao these guys are not GOOD. Could give these guys Scotty Bowman or Jon Cooper and they wouldn't play good.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

I edited my message to state that disappointment for me lies not in team outcomes but key player development. That's the regression that's concerning and has not really changed for me.

I don't care if the team gets curb stomped every game so long as key players are producing and growing (which inevitably will lead to less losses).

I get it. I think it goes hand in hand. We're not sustaining offensive pressure the way we have. That's going to affect individual performances. See Connor Bedard...

Dach playing as he has has really hurt us.

 

[Gravity]

Lmao hop off their nuts these guys are not GOOD. Could give these guys Scotty Bowman or Jon Cooper and they wouldn't play good.

1000% they could. They could play structured competitive hockey the same way they did last year and the year before under MSL despite having an even worse roster than they do at the moment. Your argument is extremely contradictory.

 

[ryan callahan]

1000% they could. They could play structured competitive hockey the same way they did last year and the year before under MSL despite having an even worse roster than they do at the moment. Your argument is extremely contradictory.

Thinking that Matheson was ever a positive at 5v5 with the Habs is seriously delusional. And Dach is not the player he was before all the injuries. There is a reason Chicago gave up on him so easily.

 

[Gravity]

Thinking that Matheson was ever a positive at 5v5 with the Habs is seriously delusional. And Dach is not the player he was before all the injuries. There is a reason Chicago gave up on him so easily.

They played structured more competitive hockey last year without Dach and with Matheson.........

 

[HabbyGuy]

They played structured more competitive hockey last year without Dach and with Matheson.........

Yeah they did, with the exact same guy behind the bench. The D corp is younger than it was last season as well. Say what you want about Kovacevic and Harris but they were steadying players on the backend. Nothing exciting but solid, smart and steady.

It's also not Marty's fault Monahan isn't here anymore, nor that Dach is comng back from a terrible injury. It leaves a big hole at the 2C spot... Also Slaf has struggled early into this season, but under the tutelage of Marty, had a great developmental season last year. (Some would say parabolic growth) Do you think Slaf has all of a sudden forgotten all that he had learned last year over the summer, or all the hard work he and Marty put in? Or is it possible he's just a big bodied young man going through natural growing pains that usually happen to guys with his physical makeup?

As for saying Hutson is not progressing... What more could Lane possibly be doing better as a rookie eating up substantial ice time, he's been nothing short of fantastic all things considered. You're acting like he's stagnating, he's been very VERY good. One of the true bright spots on this team.

Rebuilds can get ugly at times, and it's not always a pretty picture, but it doesnt mean you have to throw out the painting. The frame work is still very much in place.

There's a ton of time left in this season for progression, how about we all just breathe and see how it unfolds?

 

[BLONG7]

Again.... I don't know why you ignore this - the team had been playing much better before this game and was coming off our best win of the year.

Nobody denies it's been a brutal year. But the team was trending in the right direction. Let's see where it goes from here.

Hey, I look at it and say it's only 20 games.............that said, not the best 20 games at any point either.

Very noticeable, is we are the 2nd youngest team in the league, with an inexperienced NHL coach and in both cases they both allow games to get away from them very quickly and the coach and the team better figure out why and how.
MSL has to grow and develop as a coach, as the team needs to develop.
Marty needs to know when to call a simple timeout and stop the bleeding on some nights, it can change a game in a quick moment. As we have seen not calling a timeout or pulling a goalie, leads to a blowout, and we never need the timeout he so preciously saved ,for no reason.

Again, it's 20 games guys, and the coach and the team can very well grow and develop as the season continues. I refuse to get on the tank thread at this point. Still lots of hockey left.

 

[salbutera]

Hey, I look at it and say it's only 20 games.............that said, not the best 20 games at any point either.

Very noticeable, is we are the 2nd youngest team in the league, with an inexperienced NHL coach and in both cases they both allow games to get away from them very quickly and the coach and the team better figure out why and how.
MSL has to grow and develop as a coach, as the team needs to develop.
Marty needs to know when to call a simple timeout and stop the bleeding on some nights, it can change a game in a quick moment. As we have seen not calling a timeout or pulling a goalie, leads to a blowout, and we never need the timeout he so preciously saved ,for no reason.

Again, it's 20 games guys, and the coach and the team can very well grow and develop as the season continues. I refuse to get on the tank thread at this point. Still lots of hockey left.

To add, 8 of last 9GP have shown significant improvement over first 11GP - VGK are a big veteran / experienced Cup winning team and young players on Habs were given a lesson….IMO that’s how it needs to be viewed.

What’s important now is the teams response in the 3 upcoming games this week vs mediocre Utah, CBJ, and rematch vs NYR who schooled them in Oct.

Have to think Laine’s insertion into lineup will provide a positive morale boost..

 

[Theodore450]

Ask yourself why that peewee coach was hired by this management team for in the first place, and then tell me if he hasn't delivered thus far on his end of the bargain. Perhaps he's earned atleast the rest of the season before we can be surprised, or shocked, if he can or can't make the transition moving forward. Both he and this team have a lot of potential and room to grow.

The management team's vision for this team is still very much on track, despite the inevitable perfectly natural bumps in the road they knew they'd encounter through a rebuild process and green coach. (Unfortunate injuries also haven't helped)

And they're rightfully not going to alter their plan and are determined to see it through, if things need to shift in the future, they'll make those changes accordingly. Until then they're trusting their blueprint to future success.

It's what they were hired to do.

Knee-jerk panicky fans notwithstanding.

Delusions

I stopped reading after three words..

He's done everything they've asked him to do.

He hasn’t raised the value of veterans so we can sell them.
He hasn’t modeled anyone into the type of players that will lead to success.
Has implemented an unaccountable culture while eroding the prior system.
Has allowed favouritism to plague the locker room.


Nobody wants to work in an environment of nepotism. Nobody

 

[Paddyjack]

Lmao these guys are not GOOD. Could give these guys Scotty Bowman or Jon Cooper and they wouldn't play good.

Disagree. They wouldn't be contender either for sure, but one thing they would do would be to learn to play hockey correctly. I've said it many times, the biggest issue I have with MSL as coach is not that he has in hand a young team, but he doesn't have the book to teach drills and to make a player with potential into someone great. So no they wouldn't be excellent, but I wouldn't be shaking my head every two minutes with the way they are executing plays.

When I read here :"but they are young, that's why we suck, it's not the coach" I see your point. What you are missing however is that if you want these players to be great a few season from now, you need to teach them now. I don't see it. MSL is not the guy for that. And we need someone now, or we are wasting years of learning for our young players.

 

[le_sean]

Disagree. They wouldn't be contender either for sure, but one thing they would do would be to learn to play hockey correctly. I've said it many times, the biggest issue I have with MSL as coach is not that he has in hand a young team, but he doesn't have the book to teach drills and to make a player with potential into someone great. So no they wouldn't be excellent, but I wouldn't be shaking my head every two minutes with the way they are executing plays.

When I read here :"but they are young, that's why we suck, it's not the coach" I see your point. What you are missing however is that if you want these players to be great a few season from now, you need to teach them now. I don't see it. MSL is not the guy for that. And we need someone now, or we are wasting years of learning for our young players.

No no, didn’t you hear? We were trending in the right direction because of a single win against Edmonton.

Let’s ignore the fact the team has already suffered 3 blowout losses before December. They didn’t suffer a single one until January last season.

 

[sampollock]

MSL has to stop being the big brother and hugging the players. Time to be a coach and make vets to young guys sit or pay up in the press box.
Big boy pants time

 

[Gravity]

Yeah they did, with the exact same guy behind the bench. The D corp is younger than it was last season as well. Say what you want about Kovacevic and Harris but they were steadying players on the backend. Nothing exciting but solid, smart and steady.

It's also not Marty's fault Monahan isn't here anymore, nor that Dach is comng back from a terrible injury. It leaves a big hole at the 2C spot... Also Slaf has struggled early into this season, but under the tutelage of Marty, had a great developmental season last year. (Some would say parabolic growth) Do you think Slaf has all of a sudden forgotten all that he had learned last year over the summer, or all the hard work he and Marty put in? Or is it possible he's just a big bodied young man going through natural growing pains that usually happen to guys with his physical makeup?

As for saying Hutson is not progressing... What more could Lane possibly be doing better as a rookie eating up substantial ice time, he's been nothing short of fantastic all things considered. You're acting like he's stagnating, he's been very VERY good. One of the true bright spots on this team.

Rebuilds can get ugly at times, and it's not always a pretty picture, but it doesnt mean you have to throw out the painting. The frame work is still very much in place.
There's a ton of time left in this season for progression, how about we all just breathe and see how it unfolds?

If you read the chain of posts, that was exactly my point. The team played more structured and better hockey with the same guy behind the bench and a shittier roster, ergo this cataclysmic free fall is not solely due to a lack of talent on the roster....

I don't know what's going on with Slaf, if he's regressing or whether the end of last season was a fluke (a la Galchenyuk scoring 30). The sample size is too small to deem anything conclusively but as far as this season goes, he's been bad.

Hutson, while a remarkable talent, is just being thrown to the wolves in a context where the team has no defensive structure. Not used on PP1 either. Very small sample size but I see him getting worse than he was in game 1.

I have no choice but to give it time, so let's see how it unfolds.

 

[morhilane]

I don't know what's going on with Slaf, if he's regressing or whether the end of last season was a fluke (a la Galchenyuk scoring 30). The sample size is too small to deem anything conclusively but as far as this season goes, he's been bad.

Too many people giving him "advices" and Slaf can't focus on what MSL is telling him. He plays well when he focus on "Marty's voice", it just getting drowned way too much. Slaf has been clear about that the last few weeks.

I remember last year, it was mentioned early in the season that Marty was the only person who could talk to Slaf. It looks like they might need to go back to that. Or Slaf needs to learn to focus on only certain "voices" and ignore the rest.

But there is clearly a factor that is perturbing is concentration and then self-confidence.

 

[zzoo]

MSL is allergic to timeout, I think.

 

[morhilane]

MSL is allergic to timeout, I think.

He understand minutes to minutes play, but managing a whole game is out of his depth.

 

[sampollock]

MSL is allergic to timeout, I think.

or had balls to set matters straight with these lazy players

 

[dcyhabs]

CC playing with Evans is dumb and futile. “Spreading out” the offense never works. Never.

Isn’t it matchup dependent on? Good move against a team matching a shutdown line effectively, not so good against a team rolling 4 lines?

I don’t have a problem with trying stuff, even stuff unlikely to work, this year. Try weird combinations and look for chemistry. I don’t want to see firings or trades to try to make the team better purely in the short term. Giving up on players early and cycling coaches is a good way to follow Buffalo.

 

[sampollock]

We all can get mad at the players but until MSL steps up and benches someone in the press box. this will keep going on.

 

[salbutera]

We all can get mad at the players but until MSL steps up and benches someone in the press box. this will keep going on.

That doesn’t work in this day and age w young players… in fact may simply have the opposite intended consequences