Yes, I caught that too, and it reminded me of CP talking about how influential his junior coach had been on his development, along the same lines.
I get that they're different coaches with different missions -- PV to develop raw talent into useful players for the Jets; PoMo to win games with the talent he has and will have. But I also think that their skillsets reflect the direction of modern coaching: PV to accurately assess his players' strengths and weaknesses and chart the optimal dev path within systems largely devised by and for the big club, while also relying on AHL vets to keep the "shape" of those systems and giving prospects some reign to find their own best game within it. He clearly spends a lot of time working to understand how those prospects play and then give them direction and room to play their best -- it starts with a structure flexible enough to accommodate this info, and adapt to it, and you see it on the ice.
Having watched and listened (until last year, when I had to stop listening to him for my own sanity) to PoMo for years now, my sense is that he has very specific biases towards a way of playing and the sorts of players who fit those -- N/S, straight lines, hard on the forecheck, big bodies on D, on the checking line and at centre with smaller bodies on the wings. Safe, low-percentage plays on D and in transition, emphasis on zone time and the cycle for a high-danger shot in the OZ. He had the right players for his system for a short time, and when he didn't, he's been slow to adapt. Big D/Little D, CSW Ride or Die, over-playing his perceived key players, running with a clearly injured and ineffective Wheeler playing big minutes instead of resting or reducing them, running a 3/2 rather than five-man press and retreat often with a lone forechecker and big gaps, resisting activating his D to prevent odd-man rushes, ceding the middle of the ice, etc. I don't see much innovation or adapting to a new roster shape there, and I don't see him "getting" players like Heinola or CP, if Ehlers' past usage is any guide.
It isn't really a question of blame for me. I don't think he's a fool, or a dinosaur, or a bad person, or a Machiavellian strategist. I just think he's done what he could for this team, and keeping him in place for another 2 years will mean more of the same, barring the introduction of a system/tactics coach -- but I don't see PoMo going for that, and even if he did, that new addition would need to have charge of the roster and "run the bench" for it to work.
And I don't think those advocating for a change are automatically knee-jerk bomb throwers or blowhards. There's a difference between "WE LOST -- FIRE THE COACH!" arguments and a long series of discussions about a coach who's had 7 years to work with a team that was for a decent stretch one of the deepest and most talented in the league.
This is from a main boards post on Quinn's firing yesterday. I get that Quinn came via the college route and had a rep for developing players, but some of it will be familiar, and maybe strengthens the argument that NHL coaching needs to move still further away from the #IRunTheBench model and towards a more specialized team approach:
I had three major problems with Quinn:
1- He refused to play the kids. Just refused. Put them all on one line so it would be easier to bury them refused. Some of the kids struggled for a bit, others were having career years. Didn't matter. Buried. His use of Kakko and Laf was particularly egregious, as it was historically low usage for top-2 picks. You literally have to go back something like 30 years to find a top 2 pick getting fewer minutes per game with almost no PP time. The team got top 5 picks for the first time in franchise history, and this guy thinks he knows more about how to develop those players than every coach/team in the last three decades. Hubris out the eyeballs.
2- Every time he made a comment about what the kids needed to do to get more minutes, it was never framed in terms of tactics. It was always framed in terms of NHL effort and "how hard you have to work to succeed at this level...it just seems off to say those kinds of things without that kind of experience. Base your critique on tactics and strategy."
3- The number one condemnation of his coaching, and the one that would have made it GM malpractice to bring him back, in my opinion, was the fact that his veterans walked all over him and he rewarded them for it. Game after game, as losses piled up against the good teams in the division, Quinn talked about playing North/South. Game after game, his veterans did what they pleased, and Quinn just kept feeding them minutes. Letting them stay out there for the full 2 minutes on the power play (despite PP1 not scoring at all in the final 40 seconds of a PP this season). The players were even bold enough to push back on their coach's regular critique: In an Athletic article from about 5 weeks ago, Strome said “We tend to shoot for quality, not quantity. Sometimes it helps us, sometimes it doesn’t. I think especially with our top guys, you can’t micromanage it. You have to trust that we see the right play and that we’re going to make the right play. Obviously, you’d love to shoot the puck more and score more, but 40-plus shots, and the possession, I thought, was pretty good the second half of the game.” That's damning. It's open disrespect.
