Speculation: Gerard Gallant fired

[MBH]

maybe he comes cheap. I don't know, and that's the point. I do know that every time I see something about Georgiev, it seems like the Rangers are expecting a bit of a haul. At least for me. Other guys, I haven't seen a lot of talk about. By the time prices come down, there might 20 games left in the season. And at that point I'd be tempted to just say to hell with it and keep the assets.

I don't think Georgiev comes cheap. Georgiev for Fabbri is a deal I'd make if the Rangers would. That would be turning de la Rose into a potential 5-year or more starting goalie.
And is Fabbri worth keeping? Sure. But we're also pretty good at wing compared to other positions.

Some of the other guys - guys with considerable experience now in the AHL..I think those guys come cheap.

 

[MBH]

Yeah, once we get this top 4 pick and then maybe another. Once we allow some of these young players time to continue to develop. We may start climbing then.

This is how the life cycle goes in the NHL. You bottom out. You build. You hope you get some breaks. It takes time. No one is forcing anyone to spend money to watch this team. Some nights they are going to lose big. Some nights they are going to lose close. But they are going to lose most the time regardless. We have been immune to this more than most other teams, but every team has been here, and it's not always a quick stop.

If you can't turn your team around with Larkin, Bertuzzi, Mantha, Athanasiou, Cholowski, Hronek - and then 5-7 years of top 6-8 picks, who's fault is that?

You don't have to have #1. There's no reasonable way to get #1.
Is your plan to lose by 2 goals a game until you get 2-3 top-3 picks?

Because do the math. You could be here for 10 years.

How many 45-point seasons did Toronto have?

For that matter - playing devil's advocate - how many #1 overall picks drafted in the salary cap era have Stanley Cups?
Patrick Kane?
Crosby, if you count him?

We need to be hitting homeruns at 6 and 9 and wherever else we draft.

 

[Hen Kolland]

you don't see how motivating players is a coach issue? that's literally like half of a coaches job....

trying to act like it has nothing to do with the coach is especially funny when it's happening to everyone at once,it's not like we're talking about one specific guy here or something

A coach should NEVER have to motivate players to not quit. The players quit against the Islanders, not the coach.

 

[ricky0034]

A coach should NEVER have to motivate players to not quit. The players quit against the Islanders, not the coach.

again motivating players is like half of what a coach even does

why do you think coaches are always playing mind games with their players or benching underperforming players for a game to try and teach them a lesson etc? shits and giggles?

it's literally a significant part of their job description

 

[Hen Kolland]

again motivating players is like half of what a coach even does

why do you think coaches are always playing mind games with their players or benching underperforming players for a game to try and teach them a lesson etc? ****s and giggles?

it's literally a significant part of their job description

I think the narrative that a coach needs to coax professional athletes to give a damn is absolute bullshit.

 

[Frk It]

If you can't turn your team around with Larkin, Bertuzzi, Mantha, Athanasiou, Cholowski, Hronek - and then 5-7 years of top 6-8 picks, who's fault is that?

You don't have to have #1. There's no reasonable way to get #1.
Is your plan to lose by 2 goals a game until you get 2-3 top-3 picks?

Because do the math. You could be here for 10 years.

How many 45-point seasons did Toronto have?

These are all the reasons I have been saying for 2-3 years that this current lottery system is not viable and you will have teams stuck at the bottom until they change it. So I'm not going to necessarily argue against the points you're making here. We are attempting to re-build this franchise in the hardest conditions there have ever been to re-build a franchise.

Toronto lucked out and got Matthews. If we get Lafreniere, it will change our trajectory in a big way as well.

We can't change the past and we are where we are. We are positioned for the best odds we could possibly have at getting an impact player. Maybe we are just in different stages of grief of being a fan of this team, lol.

 

[MBH]

These are all the reasons I have been saying for 2-3 years that this current lottery system is not viable and you will have teams stuck at the bottom until they change it. So I'm not going to necessarily argue against the points you're making here. We are attempting to re-build this franchise in the hardest conditions there have ever been to re-build a franchise.

Toronto lucked out and got Matthews. If we get Lafreniere, it will change our trajectory in a big way as well.

We can't change the past and we are where we are. We are positioned for the best odds we could possibly have at getting an impact player. Maybe we are just in different stages of grief of being a fan of this team, lol.

Toronto lucked out, sure.
But they finished dead last.
With 69 points.
Not 45.
They finished with a -48 goal differential. We're at -81 a little more than halfway through the season.

This is not about grief. This is about restoring some dignity to the team's play. About firing a coach who's done nothing but lose in 5 years and then taken it to an entirely different level this year, and about giving the young guys on this team a reasonable chance at success this season and avoiding the cancer that often comes with losing badly.

 

[Claypool]

Toronto lucked out, sure.
But they finished dead last.
With 69 points.
Not 45.
They finished with a -48 goal differential. We're at -81 a little more than halfway through the season.

This is not about grief. This is about restoring some dignity to the team's play. About firing a coach who's done nothing but lose in 5 years and then taken it to an entirely different level this year, and about giving the young guys on this team a reasonable chance at success this season and avoiding the cancer that often comes with losing badly.

Your argument is flawed. Most of the Maple Leafs players from the 2015-16 season are no longer on the current roster. "Losing with dignity" has had no effect on the current players.

When the Red Wings are a Stanley Cup contender again, whenever that is, most of the players on this year's roster won't be around. It's why you shouldn't care how bad they lose right now.

 

[Cyborg Yzerberg]

I do want to make it clear, if we can sign Gallant, we should do as soon as possible.

 

[ArmChairGM89]

Reading this thread is causing severe puckering of the rear. So heated. I think a lot of what Blashill does has positives and negatives. I think that’s coaching in general. I’m not smart enough to point to specific things He does that have an overwhelmingly negative impact on our record.

im trying to think of something Specific he could do differently that would improve our record, but alas, I’m drawing a blank.

Got a bunch of elite hockey minds in this thread. You guys should coach the team as a conglomerate.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Toronto lucked out, sure.
But they finished dead last.
With 69 points.
Not 45.
They finished with a -48 goal differential. We're at -81 a little more than halfway through the season.

This is not about grief. This is about restoring some dignity to the team's play. About firing a coach who's done nothing but lose in 5 years and then taken it to an entirely different level this year, and about giving the young guys on this team a reasonable chance at success this season and avoiding the cancer that often comes with losing badly.

This is absolutely about grief. You wanted the team to rebuild. THIS IS A REBUILD when you have the best defensive D and two of the two scoring options on a bad team on the shelf for a big chunk of the year. This is a rebuild when literally four of your defense slots should either be in the AHL or babysat on a bottom pairing.

The Wings have Bertuzzi, Larkin, Hronek, and Fabbri who are playing okay. AA and Mantha are hurt. DDK has been hurt all year. Get off of this "dignity" kick. Weren't you one of the guys lamenting our run to end last year that moved us to 4th to drop two lottery spots? The NHL has no room for error when you're a really bad team.

And fine, fire Blash and give it to Bylsma on an interim basis... how would that change anything? We'd still be a team on a 45 point pace. We'd still have a ****ty power play and PK and goaltending. Guess what, when the 2018-2019 Wings were missing the same talent of players (early with the top 4D out and later once everyone started dropping like flies) they had games just like 8-2. Montreal mudstomped them multiple times.

 

[LeftWingLocked]

I'm pretty sure we are stuck with Blashill until April. If losing 5-1 every game into mid January doesn't get you fired, nothing will. Blashill has to be the luckiest guy ever. Completely over his head, historical losing, etc.. 5 years later he still has a job. Gerard Gallant takes an expansion team to the finals and he's gone 2 years later. Not to mention Blashill never paid his dues. For people with any sort of reading comprehension, take a look at the current Flames coach road to be an NHL coach

Geoff Ward (ice hockey) - Wikipedia

Talk about paying his dues and if Bill Peters didn't get fired for being an idiot, he'd still be an assistant. Blashill on the other hand, is bullet proof. 5 years and going strong of total incompetence and losing.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

I do want to make it clear, if we can sign Gallant, we should do as soon as possible.

This I agree with. I am on board with Gallant because he is a new voice and a damn good coach. I don't want some other teams garbage, but I will take advantage of the guys leading VGK being impatient morons.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

I'm pretty sure we are stuck with Blashill until April. If losing 5-1 every game into mid January doesn't get you fired, nothing will. Blashill has to be the luckiest guy ever. Completely over his head, historical losing, etc.. 5 years later he still has a job. Gerard Gallant takes an expansion team to the finals and he's gone 2 years later. Not to mention Blashill never paid his dues. For people with any sort of reading comprehension, take a look at the current Flames coach road to be an NHL coach

Geoff Ward (ice hockey) - Wikipedia

Talk about paying his dues and if Bill Peters didn't get fired for being an idiot, he'd still be an assistant. Blashill on the other hand, is bullet proof. 5 years and going strong of total incompetence and losing.

What are you talking about? Blash was the Calder Cup winning coach for the Griffins in Babcock's tenure here. The hell are you talking about "didn't pay his dues"? And he coached Team USA in several international tournaments. He had the three most successful seasons in Griffins history in the A.

It's not that Blashill is bulletproof, it's that the Wings brass KNOW THE TEAM SUCKS. They know he's playing the card game War against the rest of the league with basically cards 2-6 and they have a full assortment. Basically, you can get lucky and win a couple cards now and then, but you're not gonna be successful with a deck like that. Jesus, I don't understand people. The Wings have no talent of proper age. It either aged out of its prime or retired and/or was drafted and isn't up to prime yet. If Jeff Blashill was successful with this roster, he'd be the greatest coach in NHL history. He's not over his head, he just has no ****ing talent. Holland pulled in a bunch of guys who were "good, but who gives a damn" around declining Z and Datsyuk. And while guys like Larkin, Mantha, and Bertuzzi flash some skill, they're not true core elite pieces. They're all guys in the mold of Franzen or late in his career Robetaille where they'll do a lot for you, but they need someone else to drive the bus. They need Sergei Fedorov not Jason Williams or Jimmy Carson.

Blashill does not deserve a monument made to him or anything... but man, people want to act like he's Simple Simon and he's lucky to be able to know how to tie his shoes.

 

[ricky0034]

at this point i'm almost looking forward to someday not having to watch people pretend on a daily basis that being the worst team in the past 25 years somehow has literally 0% to do with coaching more than I am Blashill actually being gone

 

[Winger98]

This isn't a good look for Jeff:

Sounds like a Howard start.

Unless this team can have any faith that they can at least stay on the ice on any given night, it's not going to matter what Blashill, Bylsma, or anyone else does.

 

[RedHawkDown]

I actually don’t understand how people are unable to comprehend that getting blown out in the NHL every game is about effort and systems (ie coaching) much more than it is about skill level. Pittsburgh is one of the best teams in the NHl This year and they’ve been without Malkin and Crosby for giant chunks. The Isles are a top team with Barzal, a couple good D, and then what? Are you people trying to tell me that Mathew Barzal, Jake Guentzel, Brandon Rust, etc are several tiers of talent above Larkin, Mantha, Bertuzzi, etc? I know those teams are better. That isn’t the point. The point is that they have some level of success without the god tier talent people are acting like is necessary to even look competitive.

I feel like I am taking crazy pills. Yes, we suck. Yes, we probably even have the worst roster in the NHL. Yes, I am totally okay with a full rebuild and expect to lose most of our games and finish in the bottom 3, and am happy with finishing last.
We are a bad team. There is a difference between that and the worst team in the past 25 years. To pretend like coaching has NO impact is baffling.

its possible to want to rebuild but still hold people accountable for being much worse than expected, even if “expected” was last place. These aren’t mutually exclusive concepts like some people here keep pretending

 

[The Wizard of Oz]

I actually don’t understand how people are unable to comprehend that getting blown out in the NHL every game is about effort and systems (ie coaching) much more than it is about skill level. Pittsburgh is one of the best teams in the NHl This year and they’ve been without Malkin and Crosby for giant chunks. The Isles are a top team with Barzal, a couple good D, and then what? Are you people trying to tell me that Mathew Barzal, Jake Guentzel, Brandon Rust, etc are several tiers of talent above Larkin, Mantha, Bertuzzi, etc? I know those teams are better. That isn’t the point. The point is that they have some level of success without the god tier talent people are acting like is necessary to even look competitive.

I feel like I am taking crazy pills. Yes, we suck. Yes, we probably even have the worst roster in the NHL. Yes, I am totally okay with a full rebuild and expect to lose most of our games and finish in the bottom 3, and am happy with finishing last.
We are a bad team. There is a difference between that and the worst team in the past 25 years. To pretend like coaching has NO impact is baffling.

its possible to want to rebuild but still hold people accountable for being much worse than expected, even if “expected” was last place. These aren’t mutually exclusive concepts like some people here keep pretending

It’s human nature to be resistant to change even if what you know is mediocre at best. I understand the want to stay the course until the end of the season as a “model’ franchise but if you’ve got a chance to get a guy like Gallant don’t pass it up. We’ve given Blash a leash and job security more than ANYONE else would have. 5 and a half years should be enough to show we aren’t a knee jerk org.

 

[Hen Kolland]

We are a bad team. There is a difference between that and the worst team in the past 25 years. To pretend like coaching has NO impact is baffling.

What if I told you that this very well could be the worst roster in the past 25 years with all the injuries it has had to endure? We’re in the highest skill era of the sport ever, with a roster overflowing with players who built their entire resume on almost anything besides skill. The old bar debate is “who would win, LSU/Bama/Clemson or the worst NFL team?” Well, you’re watching it right f***ing now. A hockey team with a few NHL players scattered around but mostly AHL level players, going up against teams composed of mostly NHL talent.

To reiterate a point that feels like it needs to be repeated several times a day to prevent things from going nuclear on this page. Nobody is saying Blashill can’t be fired or that it would be a mistake. Please understand that before you lash out and talk about how people aren’t willing to hold people accountable.

And to be quite honest, I don’t want to hear a single word about accountability. Because supposedly all you guys want this team to lose in a respectable fashion every single night, and Steve made zero effort to ice a respectable team this year. If you are going to hold people accountable, make sure you keep Steve at the top of your shit list.

 

[Frk It]

Toronto lucked out, sure.
But they finished dead last.
With 69 points.
Not 45.
They finished with a -48 goal differential. We're at -81 a little more than halfway through the season.

This is not about grief. This is about restoring some dignity to the team's play. About firing a coach who's done nothing but lose in 5 years and then taken it to an entirely different level this year, and about giving the young guys on this team a reasonable chance at success this season and avoiding the cancer that often comes with losing badly.

I can understand wanting more competitive games and the concern of adopting a losing culture. I’m fine with firing Blashill, probably have been for the last year or so. I don’t know if the next guy is going to motivate a room of guys that are already mathematically out of it any better, but we could give it a go.

The goaltending has been horrible, but until we ice some defensive pairings that aren’t a joke I’m not sure anyone is going to succeed playing behind them.

 

[LeftWingLocked]

All we want is a system. Jacque Lemaire took a rag tag group of players to the finals with the Florida Panthers. It wasn’t pretty hockey but it worked

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

All we want is a system. Jacque Lemaire took a rag tag group of players to the finals with the Florida Panthers. It wasn’t pretty hockey but it worked

Yes and the league responded by taking the center line out, curbing goalies abilities to play the puck and cutting back (not entirely eliminating) the amount of holding and obstruction they allowed. The trap that you knew in the 90s heck even the early 00s won't work with the current speed of the game. You can look for a more defensive structure, I honestly don't think it is being encouraged because of who we are trying to develop currently but we shall see. I think we have a new coach next year, but I am not a big fan of playing trap hockey, which is kind of the alternative to what we are attempting. With as bad as out d is hanging back to absorb pressure which was the initial adjustment under Blash as we got worse isn't going to work a whole lot, I think that is why they have come out of it along with the developmental goals.

 

[Red Stanley]

I can understand wanting more competitive games and the concern of adopting a losing culture. I’m fine with firing Blashill, probably have been for the last year or so. I don’t know if the next guy is going to motivate a room of guys that are already mathematically out of it any better, but we could give it a go.

The goaltending has been horrible, but until we ice some defensive pairings that aren’t a joke I’m not sure anyone is going to succeed playing behind them.

Yup.

 

[Winger98]

I can understand wanting more competitive games and the concern of adopting a losing culture. I’m fine with firing Blashill, probably have been for the last year or so. I don’t know if the next guy is going to motivate a room of guys that are already mathematically out of it any better, but we could give it a go.

The goaltending has been horrible, but until we ice some defensive pairings that aren’t a joke I’m not sure anyone is going to succeed playing behind them.

I think it depends on how you want to define success. I think there needs to be someone back there that can be expected to at least a base level of competence. Sadly, that's something I don't think Howard can do any more.

This team has to know they are bad. They know they are going to screw up. But there are too many nights where it looks like they have no expectation of staying in the game, and I think a lot of that falls on their goalie.

I don't expect it to be addressed during the season, but Yzerman needs to get a competent tandem in place for next year.

 

[MBH]

I can understand wanting more competitive games and the concern of adopting a losing culture. I’m fine with firing Blashill, probably have been for the last year or so. I don’t know if the next guy is going to motivate a room of guys that are already mathematically out of it any better, but we could give it a go.

The goaltending has been horrible, but until we ice some defensive pairings that aren’t a joke I’m not sure anyone is going to succeed playing behind them.

Yeah. But just to be clear, I don't expect to succeed.
I'd accept 1/2 way between Bernier and Howard for a Howard replacement.
I'd accept a 66 point pace the rest of the way. We're at -90 or something. Maybe go -25 in the next 35.