I don't understand what's happening. The soft forecheck and deep trap wasn't a figment of our imagination. It just seems so extremely circumstantial and only used against specific opponents. I don't think it's what they're being asked to do at this time.
It seems to me like he's throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall in rapid fire to hope something sticks. I never like that approach because if something works, what was it? How do you discern which of the four changes you made was the right one?
I just get the sense there's a lot of scrambling.
That's why I floated the question of "Is the system changing often or are they executing poorly?". Certainly wouldn't be the first time we've seen the lines depart from structured systems on their own, with low accountability being a driver of that behavior. I could see a situation where the coaching staff is having strategy meetings, looking at upcoming opponents, and determining how they will approach the game. The problem is, when you change things up from game to game, the only consistency is inconsistency, which is, I think, what you are alluding to in the second paragraph.
This very well could be the coaching staff feeling the heat a bit and saying "we need to make it look like we are coaching" so they go a bit overboard on the game scheme. Which I don't get since the soft forecheck/NZ trap has won them some of their best-played games all season. Why they wouldn't stick with that approach regardless of opponent is beyond me. Are they really that worried about other teams that they can't focus on their own? I have suggested in the past though that the core players may have some influence here on what style they are playing, which is problematic.
I may be too nice here regarding them. "Scrambling" may be much more fitting, honestly.
He gave his view on analytics in the summer. He uses them to stay au courant but isn't strongly inclined towards them like a Tulsky or whatever. Sort of a fence sitter when it comes to that. He doesn't really have a mathematics background.
Based on all the interviews of him I've seen, he's much more results focused than process focused.
He's different from Sullivan in that regard. Sullivan believes that if you consistently apply what he deems to be a good process, the positive results will inevitably follow. Dubas gets frustrated and impatient with bad results and acts.
That's why we've seen so much movement this year with call-ups and healthy scratches. That's Dubas intervening, while still respecting Sullivan's wishes to use defensively inclined Forwards in the bottom-six. If we had a different coach, we'd have likely seen Pitlick or more than 1 game of Puustinen by now.
I don't think he's on any one side of the continuum. I think he's positioned appropriately leaning slightly more towards stats (but not so overboard that he is missing the eye test). The problem with statistical processes in the NHL model is that there is such a small timeframe from which to draw your conclusions unless you have a team where results do not matter. If it's looking like something is not working, you need to fix it relatively quickly. You don't always have the luxury of letting things normalize which only serves to validate or invalidate your process. I think this is why we are seeing so many more "predictive" models playing a role ala the "expected goals". "This is what lagging indicators are telling us and this is where they "should" be at this moment. Are they meeting that expectation or not?" If they are, carry on. If not, you go into the evaluation process to identify causes.
With that, there are just system constraints on Dubas that make solutions tough. How do you replace a Rust or Rakell with what we have existing? Honestly, you can't unless an improbable event happens where an unlikely resource outperforms those statistical models. Otherwise, you make do with what you have and adjust expectations.
