North Cole
♧ Lem
- Jan 22, 2017
- 11,878
- 13,560
The things we most had an issue with was his deployment of players was extremely vanilla, it not only hurt as 5v5 but also on the powerplay. Gully was able to fix that a little when we let one of TMac's henchmen go and later brought in Hitch, so the blame doesn't totally follow Tmac, but given he likes to drag the same poeple from job to job he shouldn't get off the hook either.
It was the same issues you seem to be having, his final stretch of games he was trying to play Chiasson 16+ minutes a night and giving him premium PP1 time. Never bothered to try and develop any kind of point threat, so teams just boxed out McDrai and watched our PP sputter along at 14%. First year under Tippett it was 29%....I doubt that's because McDrai suddenly had a revelation about how to play on the powerplay at 23-24 years old, I'll chalk that up to a totally bunk system.
Worst IMO is that TMac refused to any kind of line matching, ever. It seriously felt like Home games were away games, he just trotted out lines 1-4 in order, occasionally double shifting line 1. Never seeming to utilize last change for an advantage. Players never ever got out of his doghouse (makes development real hard). Once he didn't like you, that's it, bye bye. Unfortunately he never stopped liking shitty older players we could afford to pressbox, but that's probably why he always keeps the room happy...don't piss of vets.
Big surprise when we start losing the game almost immediately because the other team is somehow getting favourable matchups the entire period. Then his solution to being down in games was to put McDrai together, load up one line and pray. Sometimes that works because they're insane players, but its what lead to bonkers ice time because we spend so much time losing. Eventually they need a rest, then you've got 3 lines of trash that hasnt been engaged in the game, so of course they all get caved in and the hole gets larger.
Just became a self fufiling prophecy after a while...Load up the top line, play them too much. Ruin the rythm for the rest of the team and have low skill lines everywhere else. Bottom 9 sits too long, has no momentum, gives up another goal. Play the top line even more in order to gain ground. Rinse. Repeat.
I can't put it all on him, especially Vet ice time, because quite honestly our GM wasn't bringing anyone good in because it was Chiarelli. Blake has at least tried to make his job easier, Chia just brought in the f***ing Bennings of the world and the guy that injured McDavid lmao. That said, he clearly wasn't going to be able to get back to the high water mark of 2017. Lucic turned into garbage in short order, but who knows what that was about, because he seemingly went from a shell to something better when he got himself over to CGY. No use speculating what caused that.
At the end of the day, I don't need to look any further than SJS. He never took that team anywhere in the playoffs, he's just not that level of coach. He's a guy that will give you average seasons, never really loses the room because he keeps the right players happy, in other words - a safe hire. He isn't going to win you a cup. Soon as they jettisoned his ass they went to the SCF, and I don't even think Deboer is very good.
Best thing we got from Tmac was that he brought Woody with him. That's just my $0.02, sorry, don't mean to inject myself into your boards arguments.
Last edited:
