Confirmed with Link: Jay Woodcroft and Dave Manson fired - no more Woody during NNN - Kris Knoblauch hired, Coffey as assistant

[TheNumber4]

This has been beaten to death already but the high danger scoring chances off the rush was a major part (not the only part) of why the Oilers were losing early on. The team just wasnt executing a defensive system with any regularity. Assignments were confused and all too often players made agregious coverage mistakes and left the opposing player wide open. If the HDSC stats were more granular that would have been more evident. You had to actually watch the games.

The bottom line...it is virtually unsustainable for a team to to be somehwat competitive when the defensive execution in front of the goalie is subpar, The goalie doesnt know what to expect (in terms of coverage) in any given situation and that alone is going to cause issues...especially for a young inexperienced technically strong goalie. There is no way for a goalie to play a calm efficient game in that environment. An experienced goalie that relys primarily on athletic saves would probably do better but the down side is that a goalie like that is not ususally as fundementally sound. Thats likely why most if not all goalies now a days have sound positioning and efficient movement as the foundation of their game. Grant Fuhr/Dominik Hasek type goalies are a thing of the past.

So its not a coincidence that as soon as the systems play was cleaned up the goaltending slowly started getting better.

On a side note...I really like the defensive system that Knoblauch has employed.
Gap control against the rush is much better and dmen are less likely to give up prime scoring areas and essentially back into Skinner. They are much better at taking away the cross ice passes and also at collapsing in the slot area when the puck is in tight. The back pressure is much better as well so the forwards are more involved in playing defence.
Gone are the moments where a dman is expected to make decisions on man to man or zone coverage and end up taking themsleves out of the play. That was a weak point in Nurses game for sure (and most of the dmen) although Ekholm seemed to handle it okay. Nurse is a much better dman and this defence as a whole is better when the system is simplified.
The last part of all this was that team just wasnt scoring enough (they werent outscoring their mistakes) early this season under Woody to compensate for their poor defensive play and the losses mounted up. Coffeys ability to change the transition game is also an important factor.
Not only is the team defending better and more efficiently the transitiom game is much better as well. More flow creates more goals off the rush and more time in the O zone.

I think that Woodys downfall was a result of 2 things....Woodys inability to communicate and prepare the team properly for the systems change and the lack of goal scoring.
IMO the lack of goal scoring was helped along by the lack of flow in their offensive game created by the defensive system confusion initiated from the changes. It was a fire drill in their own zone most of the time and their transition game was very poor. They opposing team dictated the play and the Oilers seldom had the appropriate response. Everything was disconnected.
That affected their offensive execution in a big way.
So while i think that Woody is a good coach I also think that his lack of experience played a role in why the team started the way it did.

I agree with this assessment. The defensive breakdowns both small and large at the beginning of the season cratered any chance of having good goaltending. When guys are coming in on 2 on 1 and making clean cross crease passes, like it’s a tall ask for a goaltender to consistently save those. Or when a guy slips behind our D and is left all alone with time and space to pick his spot, high chance goalies get sniped in that situation, see it all the time. I would say those were the big breakdown issues. For smaller breakdown issues stuff like screening your goalie and not letting him get clean looks. That has also been cleaned up a lot under Knob/Coffey.

Furthermore, On Knob versus Woody, go back and watch the goals Vegas scored against us in the playoffs and compare to what we are doing today. Notice how sparse our net front coverage was on a lot of goals against. The slot was barren a lot of times. And compare to now, with D-men always clogging net front and being in the right positions to clear rebounds and get in the most dangerous passing lanes. It’s night and day. A lot of this has to do with man on man that would have our D-men chasing forwards all the way to the blue line only for that forward to pass to their D-man for a point shot on net and a now vacated slot zone area. With the zone system, our D-men have limits to how far they can stray from the slot, there’s always coverage in the most dangerous areas in the slot.

 

[guymez]

I agree with this assessment. The defensive breakdowns both small and large at the beginning of the season cratered any chance of having good goaltending. When guys are coming in on 2 on 1 and making clean cross crease passes, like it’s a tall ask for a goaltender to consistently save those. Or when a guy slips behind our D and is left all alone with time and space to pick his spot, high chance goalies get sniped in that situation, see it all the time. I would say those were the big breakdown issues. For smaller breakdown issues stuff like screening your goalie and not letting him get clean looks. That has also been cleaned up a lot under Knob/Coffey.

Furthermore, On Knob versus Woody, go back and watch the goals Vegas scored against us in the playoffs and compare to what we are doing today. Notice how sparse our net front coverage was on a lot of goals against. The slot was barren a lot of times. And compare to now, with D-men always clogging net front and being in the right positions to clear rebounds and get in the most dangerous passing lanes. It’s night and day. A lot of this has to do with man on man that would have our D-men chasing forwards all the way to the blue line only for that forward to pass to their D-man for a point shot on net and a now vacated slot zone area. With the zone system, our D-men have limits to how far they can stray from the slot, there’s always coverage in the most dangerous areas in the slot.

Exactly.
Vegas scouted the system the Oilers were using and designed plays where the Oilers dman would vacate the slot and create covrage holes in high danger scoring areas. When you couple that with dmen voluntarily vacating the front of the net to cover players (not even in the play) along the side or end boards it made things even worse. Nurse was especially bad for that and it was very noticiable because it was usually against the other teams best players.
So Skinner would be left hung out to dry far too often (on the rush and when teams were cycling in the Oilers D zone) against some of the best offensive players in the League. Little wonder his confidence was so low to start the season and that was made worse with the shit show playing out in front of him for the first 6 weeks of the season.
That probably played a role in breaking Campbell as well.

 

[TheNumber4]

Exactly.
Vegas scouted the system the Oilers were using and designed plays where the Oilers dman would vacate the slot and create covrage holes in high danger scoring areas. When you couple that with dmen voluntarily vacating the front of the net to cover players (not even in the play) along the side or end boards it made things even worse. Nurse was especially bad for that and it was very noticiable because it was usually against the other teams best players.
So Skinner would be left hung out to dry far too often (on the rush and when teams were cycling in the Oilers D zone) against some of the best offensive players in the League. Little wonder his confidence was so low to start the season and that was made worse with the shit show playing out in front of him for the first 6 weeks of the season.
That probably played a role in breaking Campbell as well.

Yes for sure. I would say Eichel especially took full advantage of this weakness with his ability to hold onto, protect the puck, and find a pass. There was one play in particular I think in game 5 or 6 where Ceci was trying to follow him to zero effect all the way to blue line. Like Eichel treated Ceci as a minor inconvenience as he went from down low all the way to the blue line with Ceci in tow. Point shot goes net front, man left wide open, Skinner with zero chance.

Honestly this is a huge indictment on Woody imo. That he and Manson didn’t realize how sparse our net fronts were on goals against. I mean you watch Bowness teams or Panthers or Bruins and that shit never happens. This is something a former video coach should have been able to sniff out just watching how other teams are doing it.

 

[guymez]

Yes for sure. I would say Eichel especially took full advantage of this weakness with his ability to hold onto, protect the puck, and find a pass. There was one play in particular I think in game 5 or 6 where Ceci was trying to follow him to zero effect all the way to blue line. Like Eichel treated Ceci as a minor inconvenience as he went from down low all the way to the blue line with Ceci in tow. Point shot goes net front, man left wide open, Skinner with zero chance.

Honestly this is a huge indictment on Woody imo. That he and Manson didn’t realize how sparse our net fronts were on goals against. I mean you watch Bowness teams or Panthers or Bruins and that shit never happens. This is something a former video coach should have been able to sniff out just watching how other teams are doing it.

I agree.
Although I will say that this really didnt get exploited until the later rounds of the playoffs so that made it diffiuclt for Woody and Manson to implement adjustments. The other side of that is that maybe they were just not able to adjust to what vegas was doing.
Which is why they made the effort to instill a new system to start the season.

Just like in the playoffs they failed to successfully impliment the system changes to start the season.
Major red flag.

Looking back I think that playoff round against Vegas had to be a major mark against Woody/Manson and was a big part of why he was fired.
The slow start to the season just sealed their fate.
Managements confidence in Woody had to have been shaken from last seasons playoffs and when you couple that with the really bad start to the season they really had no choice but to make the coaching change. Even if the team did turn things around what level of confidecne did Management have for Woody to make successful adjustments as the season rolled forward?

Woody had to go.

 

[TheNumber4]

I agree.
Although I will say that this really didnt get exploited until the later rounds of the playoffs so that made it diffiuclt for Woody and Manson to implement adjustments. The other side of that is that maybe they were just not able to adjust to what vegas was doing.
Which is why they made the effort to instill a new system to start the season.

Just like in the playoffs they failed to successfully impliment the system changes to start the season.
Major red flag.

Looking back I think that playoff round against Vegas had to be a major mark against Woody/Manson and was a big part of why he was fired.
The slow start to the season just sealed their fate.
Managements confidence in Woody had to have been shaken from last seasons playoffs and when you couple that with the really bad start to the season they really had no choice but to make the coaching change. Even if the team did turn things around what level of confidecne did Management have for Woody to make successful adjustments as the season rolled forward?

Woody had to go.

Yeh I remember there was that practice Knob ran with all the lines drawn onto the ice to really hammer their point through. It was apparent that whatever Woody was trying to teach with the new zone defence was not sticking and players didn’t know how to adjust. It was probably players being confused and trying to mix the two systems or something. But whatever it was, Woody never was able to teach it effectively.

 

[MessierThanThou]

Some, sure.
That much, absolutely not.

Here's a breakdown of his numbers from The first game of the season until Woodcroft was fired & the Capitals game on Nov 24th, the game many point to as the turning point in the season, until last night:

Oct-Nov 12th: 9GP

GAA: 3.58
xGAA: 2.69
Save%: .863
GSAA: -8.75 (Goals saved against average)
GSAx: -7.59 (Goals saved against expected)

Nov 24th- Jan 14th: 16GP

GAA: 1.89
xGAA: 2.58
Save%: .928
GSAA: 10.1
GSAx: 10.42

His xGA dropped by 0.1 which can be easily attributed to the health of Ekholm by itself while his GAA dropped by almost half. That's not coaching.

Great goaltending makes average coaches look great & terrible goaltending makes average coaches look terrible.

This is an excruciatingly one-dimensional analysis of a club-record winning streak.

 

[Mcnofool6110]

Paul Coffey is gonna have so much fun with the defence of this team.

Is his advice to Bouchard going to be, "Be me?"

I said this in complete jest. And he actually f*cking did it.

Damn, the crow tastes good.

Obviously, kinda one-sided to revisit a thread on an unstoppably good win streak with multiple players on ridiculous heaters (including Skinner) and there's been way better analysis of the coaching in posts previous, but damn, hats off to Knob N Coff. They've got this team playing the best systems hockey I've seen since... Trap-T in '06? We aren't winning 7-5 on the arms of McDavid, we are grinding out 4-2 wins (on the arms mostly of McDavid). Love to see what they cook up when the going gets tough. What a fun read on a rainy Wed afternoon

 

[Drivesaitl]

I'm so over the Oilers at this point. It's just not worth it.


Coffey isn't even in the top 1000 hires available for coach or GM and shouldn't touch an NHL bench after getting fired for slurs. Knoblauch is a good, but offensive coach, with no pro experience and was hired based on Jackson's experience with him, and overall lack of experience

This really is McDavid's team now lol. And Coffey is GM? Wow.

This post by the poster was fun too:

I'm so over the Oilers at this point. It's just not worth it. Coffey isn't even in the top 1000 hires available for coach or GM and shouldn't touch an NHL bench after getting fired for slurs. Knoblauch is a good, but offensive coach, with no pro experience and was hired based on Jackson's...

 

[Mr Kot]

HOLY SHIT WOODCROFT WAS FIRED

 

[K1984]

This post by the poster was fun too:

I'm so over the Oilers at this point. It's just not worth it. Coffey isn't even in the top 1000 hires available for coach or GM and shouldn't touch an NHL bench after getting fired for slurs. Knoblauch is a good, but offensive coach, with no pro experience and was hired based on Jackson's...

That post had it all:

- Major hyperbole (check)
- Slanderous innuendo (check)
- Inaccurate statements (check)
- Conspiracy theories (check)

Pretty much the home run example of Oiler fan "The organization did something, and I don't like it, but I don't know why I don't like it exactly, so I'll invent a bunch of reasons from outer space as to why I don't like it."

 

[brentashton]

HOLY SHIT WOODCROFT WAS FIRED

Good morning Rumplestiltskin.

 

[guymez]

I am sure that this video was likely posted somewhere in the previous 80+ pages but I have cued it up at the part where it talks about the defence. The whole video is worth watching though.
In any event this is such a good reminder of how far this team has come since Knoblauchs arrival in November...

 

[rboomercat90]

HOLY SHIT WOODCROFT WAS FIRED

It’s about damn time!

 

[TB12]

HOLY SHIT WOODCROFT WAS FIRED

NO WAY! WE LANDED ON THE MOON

 

[MoontoScott]

I am sure that this video was likely posted somewhere in the previous 80+ pages but I have cued it up at the part where it talks about the defence. The whole video is worth watching though.
In any event this is such a good reminder of how far this team has come since Knoblauchs arrival in November...

And in other news--the Doobie Brothers broke up--did you hear that one too?

 

[LevelingSolo]

Something must have been going wrong with Woodcroft, regardless of the Mcd and Ekholm injuries, the team was too good to be 2-9-1

There are some that suggest the team was going to right the ship either way but c'est la vie

 

[guymez]

And in other news--the Doobie Brothers broke up--did you hear that one too?

 

[McJadeddog]

Something must have been going wrong with Woodcroft, regardless of the Mcd and Ekholm injuries, the team was too good to be 2-9-1

There are some that suggest the team was going to right the ship either way but c'est la vie

The underlying stats were still REALLY good with Woodcroft, so I think a pretty hard regression was going to happen no matter what. I don't know if it would have been as severe as with Knobs, but I'm quite sure it would have occurred to a pretty large degree.

 

[oXo Cube]

Something must have been going wrong with Woodcroft, regardless of the Mcd and Ekholm injuries, the team was too good to be 2-9-1

There are some that suggest the team was going to right the ship either way but c'est la vie

6% shooting and 88% goaltending through those 12 games. The Oilers started the season 2-9-1 because they were the inverse Canucks. For reference under Knoblach and Manson the team is 45-15-4 with 9% shooting and 92% goaltending.

The Oilers have ridiculously dominant underlying metrics under both coaching staffs. Technically a bit better under Woodcroft but the significantly smaller sample of games is the most likely reason for that.

 

[guymez]

6% shooting and 88% goaltending through those 12 games. The Oilers started the season 2-9-1 because they were the inverse Canucks. For reference under Knoblach and Manson the team is 45-15-4 with 9% shooting and 92% goaltending.

The Oilers have ridiculously dominant underlying metrics under both coaching staffs. Technically a bit better under Woodcroft but the significantly smaller sample of games is the most likely reason for that.

I think that this mindset (goatending was the primary issue) has been thoughouly debunked in numerous threads.
The early record for the Oilers was multifaceted. It involved (primarily) the poor defensive structure/execution and along with that the inability for the goalies to stop all of the extremely high danger scoring chances the team was giving up. Especially off the rush.
That was primarily as result of Woody trying to modify and improve the the previous defensive system that Vegas exposed in the playoffs.
It was a massive failure on Woodys part and it cost him his job.

When Knoblauch became the coach he simplified the defensive system and the team responded.
The defence became consistent enough that goalies didnt have to guess nearly as much (less reacting to these massive breakdowns in coverage) as a result of that their sv% numbers went up.

To suggest that it was just a matter of time and the team would have turned things around under Woody (based on some uncontextual numbers) ignores much of the reality of why the team was in trouble in the first place.

 

[oXo Cube]

I think that this mindset (goatending was the primary issue) has been thoughouly debunked in numerous threads.
The early record for the Oilers was multifaceted. It involved (primarily) the poor defensive structure/execution and along with that the inability for the goalies to stop all of the extremely high danger scoring chances the team was giving up. Especially off the rush.
That was primarily as result of Woody trying to modify and improve the the previous defensive system that Vegas exposed in the playoffs.
It was a massive failure on Woddys part and it cost him his job.

When Knoblauch became the coach he simplified the defensive system and the team responded.
The defence became consistent enough that goalies didnt have to guess nearly as much (less reacting to these massive breakdowns in coverage) as a result of that thei numbers went up.

To suggest that it was just a matter of time and the team would have turned things around under Woody (based on some uncontextual numbers) ignores much of the reality of why the team was in trouble in the first place.

If you say so. Stat models aren't everything of course.

I think Knoblach and especially Coffey have done a better job than their predecessors. I also think that Woodcroft's Oilers were very. very clearly not a bottom 2 team in the NHL and that there are a lot of posters on this board who for whatever reason are unwilling to accept that a lot of the teams turnaround has to do with Skinner's improved play.

 

[guymez]

If you say so. Stat models aren't everything of course.

I think Knoblach and especially Coffey have done a better job than their predecessors. I also think that Woodcroft's Oilers were very. very clearly not a bottom 2 team in the NHL and that there are a lot of posters on this board who for whatever reason are unwilling to accept that a lot of the teams turnaround has to do with Skinner's improved play.

Oh for sure...I am not saying that Woodcrofts Oilers were a bottom 2 team. Howver i do think that Woodcroft's adjustements didnt really address the problem (D zone reads) and in fact exaccerbated the D zone problem. The team couldnt outscore their mistakes.
That created the team we saw for the first few weeks of the season.
All of that very much affects the goaltending. If a goalie has no way to predict what coverage is going to take place in front of him he is forced to guess and rely strictly on guessing correctly and pure athleticism to make saves. So the goalies reads are based on chaos in front of him his game is going to suffer. Especially if its a positional goalie and most are these days. Athletic goalies may deal with the choas more successfully but its still a situation which is clearly unsustainable.
When a goalie is reading the play in front him and has confidence in his reads (because the team is doing what they are supposed to do) that is a system which can be repeated over and over again. The goalie can get his feet under him, rely on his reads, and grow his confidence.
Thats what the Oilers have been doing (in large part) since Knoblauch took over. Skinner has been better and Pickard has also been able to do really well inside of that structure.
So even when there is a major breakdown now (which doesnt happen all that often) the goalies have more confidence in their game to hold the fort. We have seen that time and time again with Skinner since December.
This improved defensive system is something the team can execute repeatedly and IMO its the only way they will win in the playoffs.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[guymez]

deleted

 

[CycloneSweep]

I still say ultimately the coaching staff change didn't really do all that much except wake the team up.

Knoblauch still makes a ton of the same dumb mistakes Woody did his first year here, honestly I think there isn't much of a difference between them.

Now I think Coffey has done well with the D and it will be interesting to see what whatever full time guy we get next year does but, who knows.

Really the issue at the start of the year was on the players, and they ended up figuring shit out.

 

[guymez]

I still say ultimately the coaching staff change didn't really do all that much except wake the team up.

Knoblauch still makes a ton of the same dumb mistakes Woody did his first year here, honestly I think there isn't much of a difference between them.

Now I think Coffey has done well with the D and it will be interesting to see what whatever full time guy we get next year does but, who knows.

Really the issue at the start of the year was on the players, and they ended up figuring shit out.

There are quite a few differences between Knoblauch and Woody but for me the most obvious difference invloves the in game adjustments.
Knoblauch has a much better feel for the games than Woody did and he seems to be much more adpet at making the necessary correct adjustments.

Ultimately though I completely disagree regarding the coaching change not doing much.
The proof is in the record and there was precious little indication that the players were going to turn things around with Woody at the helm.

Now we shall see what Knoblauch is able to extract from this lineup in the playoffs.
I am expecting a lot.