I quoted a million messages since Sunday and then decided to just summarize my thoughts in monologue form instead.
Every fan base in the league blames coaching for some flaw in their team. You can look through all the other team forums here and see that plainly. Coaches always get blame for losses and players always get credit for wins, and it's always driven by results rather than how the team actually played.
There's a theory I've seen used in soccer discussion called the 9+2 theory. Essentially, soccer is a weak-link sport because scoring almost comes exclusively from a mistake. Two teams try to force each other to make a mistake over and over again until one screws up and then there is a chance for a goal. Hockey is very similar, but there is more randomness due to the higher difficulty of controlling the puck, the greater chance for rebounds and odd bounces, and the smaller playing surface. That said, goals usually come from scoring chances, which usually come from either a great individual effort by the attacking team, a mistake by the defending team, a lucky bounce, or a combination of all three. Soccer is closer to a chess match and tactics matter more than in hockey, but in both cases it's all about trying to create moments where you are able to catch your opponents making a mistake. Again, hockey has the added variable that more events occur in a game due to a variety of factors
Where 9+2 comes into this is with the personnel. Basically in soccer you have your best 11 players, and then of course you make substitutions at some point but usually the first 60 minutes of the game is played with your best 11. The idea is that you can usually play with 10 of your best 11 + 1 replacement and the drop off shouldn't be too perceptible. Once you get to 9 of your best 11 + 2 replacements, you become noticeably worse. Once you're down to 8+3 or worse, you have to completely shift the way you play the game at a tactical level, usually hamstringing the other players in the process as they have to alter their play to make up for deficiencies, don't get the ball as quickly as they usually would, or whatever else.
To apply this to hockey, you're probably looking at any game where you have to dip outside of your top 13 forwards and top 7 D as a 9+2 scenario, and anything where you go beyond that as 8+3. Once you're there, the effectiveness of your other players is tangibly impacted. Even 5 plays a game that are not executed optimally can be the difference in a 10-possession swing and that can easily add up to multiple goal scoring opportunities lost and multiple more given up.
More bluntly, Hischier is going to perform better when Jack Hughes is in the lineup drawing more matchups and creating more possessions, tilting more ice, tiring out the other team on D and generating more shots. Either of them is going to perform better when they are backed up 3rd and 4th lines that are capable of being dominant and doing the same. Bratt, Mercer, Meier, and Toffoli are all going to perform better when they are all being centered by elite NHLers instead of NHL 3rd/4th liners and AHL callups. Kevin Bahl is going to do better when he's playing a 3rd pairing role like last year instead of munching defensive minutes against the opponent's top lines. Same goes for Hughes and Nemec, they would make fewer mistakes in more sheltered roles. We haven't had that luxury this year. We've had multiple stretches now where we've been down half or all of our top D pair, multiple scoring forwards, and depth forwards as well. You simply can't expect everyone else to not be affected by 5+ callups in the lineup, even when one of those is Nemec. Particularly when so many of those injuries are to the spine of the team in centers and D. My point:
This team was still very good when Nico and Jack were playing. Maybe winning too much off individual talent to some eyes, but that's part of what wins games and why you have talented players in the first place. And that's also considering many people thought Jack wasn;t playing well in that entire stretch.
I've said numerous times that I actually like Ruff's system, even if I don't think they'll win a cup with it. I recognize it requires a lot on the mental side of the game but I truly believe it gives you an edge when done well. It never had a chance in hell of working right with this many replacement players and rookie D. If I have a great criticism of Ruff, it's that he seemingly hasn't simplified things enough to compensate for not having his 10+1 lineup. I know people want to criticize his attitude or the slow starts or whatever, I still maintain a professional athlete needs to get themselves going, there should be vocal leaders in the room that hype up the team more organically than the geriatric coach coming in screaming. But I've always responded much better to calm and steady management rather than rah rah jokers anyway. We can complain about lines and Holtz' usage and all that, but every coach has someone they play less than fans think they should. We've seen that here with the last 3 coaches that all got blamed for an insufficient roster (Hynes was actually bad though).
I just don't see a coach getting fired until we're complete no-shows for 5+ games in a row. Fitz has not given any indication that he makes emotional decisions based on a few games positive or negative. He has more insight than this board into what Ruff is actually doing, how he's working with players and if the players are playing the way they're being asked. I promise you, Fitz is in a better spot and more qualified to evaluate the coaching than anyone posting here. I would probably make a change in the offseason, but I don't have half the insight he does.
It seems like it's a matter of games before we have Hughes and Nosek back. No idea what happened with Haula and why he hasn't been playing center much this year, but if he is back as well, we suddenly have 4 centers that should match up favorably with the opponent's equivalent lines, and we know we have wingers that can be successful. I want to see how much pressure that might take off of the defense and how we look overall at that point. Will having a healthy forward group for essentially the first time all season help the young D, or will they continue to make individual mistakes? That's the big question.
Losing Graves and Severson hurt. You can tell me all you want about how Nemec and Luke are already better than then, and in a vacuum that may well be true, but for all the heat those two took here they both fit this system very well and had veteran savvy that Hughes and Nemec are still developing. They also both ate a bunch of PK minutes, and the lack of good PK D has been an issue all season. It's why Smith got as much run as he has, it's why Nemec is being tasked with it from the jump instead of working his way in, it scrambles the usage up whenever we got to the PK because we can't spread the minutes out as much. It's been a problem. We knew it was a calculated risk going into the season with the youth on D, but we needed Marino and Siegenthaler to play up to their previous level, we needed Hamilton to eat a lot of minutes, and we needed the goalies to not let in every f***ing half decent shot on net. None of those have happened. To me, the youth on D is the greatest individual contributor to the wild inconsistency we've seen this year. Next is the goaltending, then the injuries, then the natural risks of this system, then the bad matchups and excessive minutes played due to injuries.
I just don't think the team is as much bad as they are inconsistent. On aggregate they've still been quite competitive this year, particularly considering who they've been missing. I've said it before and I'll say again, I think you could run the same team back next year and compete for the division again, coaches included. Make a couple smart moves, hopefully upgrade goal and I'm not worried about a thing moving forward.
I spent like 30 minutes typing this instead of working, oy vey.
www.ny1.com
