deadhead
Registered User
- Feb 26, 2014
- 50,854
- 22,170
Yup. I said Q is better than Hak & I’d have no problem hiring him. But he’s going to love Weise, Hagg, Folin, Lehtera & all the two-way heavy vets. And he’s generally slow to trust young players (with exceptions). And these have been two of this board’s biggest complaints about Hakstol.
Actually, that applies to most NHL coaches, the exception is generally when a team is in a serious tank/rebuild and the coach has the green light to play kids without worrying about winning for a couple years (even then, you'd better not take too long). And even then the kids who play are primarily top ten/twenty picks (bad teams tend to collect 3-4 or more of these guys during a rebuild) or older "rookies" who've been marinating in college, Europe and/or the AHL. Go look at NHL rosters and see how many players under 25 years old are getting top 9/top 4 minutes.
I think it reflects that fans focus on "flash" plays, which young legs provide, and don't recognize many of the miscues, which the coach knows from knowing the scheme and the player's responsibilities, and thus how often they're screwing up and leaving their teammates out to dry. So fans go "why don't they play so and so, who's more talented," and the coach quietly mumbles "if I have to watch that bonehead screw up one more time . . . "