RicochetII Posted November 17, 2013 Report Share Posted November 17, 2013 ^ I'm hoping he was just avoiding publicly acknowledging a lack of effort. Between getting beat to pucks in our own end, continuously icing the puck, and standing around in the offensive zone, a lack of effort was evident. I'm starting to think there might be something in the water in Montreal. Our coaches just seem to start making puzzling decisions without provocation after prolongued exposure. Briere taking defensive zone draws? We aren't paying him $4M to lose faceoffs in our own end. Either use him in a way that plays to his strengths, or don't use him at all. Desharnais over 18:00 of ice time ... in a game where we desperately need a goal? With 0 goals and 1 assist in 19 games, the statistical probability of us scoring in those 18 minutes is what exactly? Bournival under 8:00 of ice time? With Gallagher at less than 100%, Bournival is probably the next best player to take some of his minutes. He's young and energetic, goes to the net, and has the most 5 on 5 goals on the team after Gallagher. Bouillon has the worst +/- on the team, a total of 2 points in 21 games, yet still gets minutes on par with Gorges, and PP time as well. While this is from 1 game, it is disturbing to see this kind of player management when we are struggling offensively. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
habs_93 Posted November 17, 2013 Report Share Posted November 17, 2013 No one is suggesting they build a team of superstars, the last 2 international Olympics (Nagano and Turin) they didn't build allstar teams, Zaumner and Kris Draper come to mind on each team. They also failed miserably in both events. We're talking about a Norris Trophy winner, who has represented Canada twice, he had a GREAT World Junior Championship a few years ago playing with a few guys who WILL be on this roster (Tavares, Pietrangelo) and a few guys who have some degree of chance (Benn, Eberle, Kane). Also PK probably has much or more experience on the international sized ice surface as anyone, since he played his junior hockey in Belleville, the only OHL team who plays on an international sized ice surface. His game is essentially tailor made for it, as a matter of fact. They're bringing 8 DMen, to my understanding. Even if they feel like he's got some small warts in his game, there isn't room for him as 1 of the 8 DMen on this team? His skating and PP presence alone should make him a lock, nevermind the fact that he's very strong defensively. I know Hockey Canada does some DUMB things and I accept that but why is this even a discussion? Posts like this are why I love this place. This post is significantly more reasonable, impartial, and supported by evidence than articles from at least 90% of the hockey media. I sincerely hope this is a manufactured controversy to increase hits for TSN. I don't want to believe that Hockey Canada is actually stupid enough to leave Subban off the roster. If there's enough people in that organization that honestly think Boyle and Bouwmeester are better than PK… that doesn't bode well for this year or the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Habs_Hockey_Nutz Posted November 17, 2013 Report Share Posted November 17, 2013 The picture of Therrien (and the other assistants) on the Habs bench did not coincide with what the coach had to say after the game vs. the Rangers... he could be trying to save his own bacon IMO. But you can't fool many with contrary statements. What a mess! Last night was hard to watch as the Habs looked totally disorganized with the team concept out the window. And why the line combinations were the way they were is a good question. I see two stumbling blocks for this team... what to do to get Desharnais going and what to do with Danny Briere. Desharnais needs two physical players (not just with size) to be insulated; Briere needs to play center with better players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigTed3 Posted November 17, 2013 Report Share Posted November 17, 2013 The picture of Therrien (and the other assistants) on the Habs bench did not coincide with what the coach had to say after the game vs. the Rangers... he could be trying to save his own bacon IMO. But you can't fool many with contrary statements. What a mess! Last night was hard to watch as the Habs looked totally disorganized with the team concept out the window. And why the line combinations were the way they were is a good question. I see two stumbling blocks for this team... what to do to get Desharnais going and what to do with Danny Briere. Desharnais needs two physical players (not just with size) to be insulated; Briere needs to play center with better players. Comes down to the fact that when everyone's healthy, this team was not put together with complementary parts. We've seen a few times this season that it's extremely hard to fit Briere/DD/Gallagher/Gio into the same line-up, and in that respect, you can't blame Therrien for his GM's lack of foresight. That said, the two issues are as you mentioned: complete disorganization on the ice the past few weeks and an odd ice time distribution for a number of players. In last night's game, I really didn't understand the decision to split up our scorers over 4 lines. Yes, it means you can roll 4 lines, but it also decreases the odds of any one of those lines putting in goals, and a lack of scoring has been our biggest problem in November. I think what Therrien found out was that if he played Moen and Prust together on the 4th line, he would have necessarily had to slot Briere or Desharnais at center between them, and he realized that neither would have success in that role. Which is why I would have played White in that spot, one of the points I tried to make yesterday before the game. I just find Therrien is getting flustered and he's reaching in terms of ideas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
habs_93 Posted November 17, 2013 Report Share Posted November 17, 2013 In last night's game, I really didn't understand the decision to split up our scorers over 4 lines. Yes, it means you can roll 4 lines, but it also decreases the odds of any one of those lines putting in goals, and a lack of scoring has been our biggest problem in November. This was my biggest complaint as well. I think it's possible to be too focused on "rolling four lines" at all costs. Well, we saw all costs last night. It wasn't pretty. Yes, the fourth line has been a serious problem this year so far, but trying to shore it up cost the chemistry and functionality of the other three. This is a mistake in judgment that can't keep happening. This roster is better than its record, but we're not good enough to survive throwing away points like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewfoundlandHab Posted November 17, 2013 Report Share Posted November 17, 2013 If we miss the playoffs, do you think MT is gone? He has done some things well, but when is comes to using individual players properly and player ice time, I dont know what he is thinking sometimes. We need a coach who is going to give ice time to the players that deserve it. A coach who will create his lines a bit better. We need to START scoring before we should be worrying about DEPTH and rolling all 4 lines. I think by next season, Hamilton AND Montreal might have new coaches. Bench management doesnt seem so be either of their strenghts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THEBIGGESTHABSFAN123 Posted November 17, 2013 Report Share Posted November 17, 2013 If we miss the playoffs, I would hope he is gone. Don't know what MB will do though. With our team, there should be no reason to miss the playoffs. Some may disagree, but we're not rebuilding. We're a playoff team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Regis2 Posted November 17, 2013 Report Share Posted November 17, 2013 If we miss the playoffs, I would hope he is gone. Don't know what MB will do though. With our team, there should be no reason to miss the playoffs. Some may disagree, but we're not rebuilding. We're a playoff team. A bubble playoff team, at best The off season free agent signings , looks like anyone in Hamilton could have filled those spots and it wouldn't have made a difference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigTed3 Posted November 17, 2013 Report Share Posted November 17, 2013 If we miss the playoffs, do you think MT is gone? If we do, I think he should be gone. It's not that he's a bad coach: I think he's established a very good team mentality and he has the experience to understand the Montreal hockey market and not get over-whelmed by the ups and downs of a season. However, his personnel choices have been suspect and I think you need to keep Subban (and the other key players) happy above all else, which I'm not sure is the case if you keep MT around. I also believe the Habs should be a playoff team: we have a top 10 - maybe top 5- goalie in the league. We have a top 3 defenceman. And although we don't have an elite scoring player, we have better depth than most teams, something that really relies on the coach to make the right decisions on who to use when and how to get the most out of everyone. So while I think Therrien has done a decent job overall, I certainly believe there are coaches out there who could do more with this line-up. In my eyes, much of the blame also goes to Bergevin for building an unbalanced line-up though, and whoever the coach is, he'll have to deal with the awful long-term deals MB has handed out to role players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THEBIGGESTHABSFAN123 Posted November 17, 2013 Report Share Posted November 17, 2013 A bubble playoff team, at best The off season free agent signings , looks like anyone in Hamilton could have filled those spots and it wouldn't have made a difference No, not at best. If everybody played like they could we'd be in contention for the division lead. But that doesn't seem to be happening at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Regis2 Posted November 17, 2013 Report Share Posted November 17, 2013 No, not at best. If everybody played like they could we'd be in contention for the division lead. But that doesn't seem to be happening at all. It never does It's not a one way street , what would happen if every other team's players played at their best Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HabsAlways Posted November 17, 2013 Report Share Posted November 17, 2013 Interesting thing about our next 30 games is we play a lot of teams low in the standins. So provided we win against those team, split with the ones close to use in the standings, and presumable lose or steal one from a highly ranked team ... we're gold ... 13 wins, 8 losses and 9 games that can go either way . Win the bulk of those 9 close games and steal 1-2 of the tough opponents and we could be looking at 20 wins in our next 30 Habs are currently 18th out of 30 teams Assuming : Team +5 ranks in standings a Loss Team -5 ranks in standings a Win Team between +5 to -5 ... Tie (too close to call) Next ten games : 3W-4L-3T Next 20 : 9W-6L-5T Next 30 : 13W-8L-9T Next ten games : 3W-4L-3T W ISlanders (23rd) L Lightning (8th) W Columbus (26th) T Rangers (19t L Minnesota (11) T Washington (16th) L Pittsburgh (9th) W Sabres (30th) T Washington (16th) L Toronto (10th) Snipped off games 20-30 ... but lets see how we're doing in those next ten games since I posted this : Islanders - Win Tampa - OT Loss Columbus - SO Win Rangers - Loss So .. the only game that was a question mark in my mind when I originally posted this was the Rangers and we lost. That's offset by the fact we took Tampa to OT. Still on target as far as I'm concerned. Next game will be a turning point for Therrien and the boys ... if we can come out strong and Win in regulation against the Wild, or at worse lose in OT/SO ... I think we'll see the start of much better play going forward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roy_133 Posted November 17, 2013 Report Share Posted November 17, 2013 If we miss the playoffs, guessing there's a pretty decent chance Guy Boucher is the coach next year Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewfoundlandHab Posted November 17, 2013 Report Share Posted November 17, 2013 If we miss the playoffs, guessing there's a pretty decent chance Guy Boucher is the coach next year hmm... Guy Boucher could go either way. He's french, so that probably gives him a bisg edge if we are looking for a new head coach this summer. He couldnt get the job done in Tampa, but that team has basically been just St. Louis and Stamkos for years. He was great in Hamilton so you never know. Any chances Carolina fires Kirk Muller? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest habs1952 Posted November 17, 2013 Report Share Posted November 17, 2013 A bubble playoff team, at best The off season free agent signings , looks like anyone in Hamilton could have filled those spots and it wouldn't have made a difference Well, they certainly wouldn't have made things worse but they could have made a difference by making things better. At least as fans we'd recognize they were just kids, not seasoned professionals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeanCountingHab Posted November 17, 2013 Report Share Posted November 17, 2013 Interesting that Martin was fired with basically the same record we have now, except that that team was trending upward at the time (we had battled back after a horrible start) and that team was loaded with injuries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Habberwacky Posted November 18, 2013 Report Share Posted November 18, 2013 One of the worst years for injuries I can recall. I think Martin's problem was the lack of creativity. It was defense and more defense, but with the injuries he was limited in his choices. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
31Careyprice Posted November 18, 2013 Report Share Posted November 18, 2013 Interesting that Martin was fired with basically the same record we have now, except that that team was trending upward at the time (we had battled back after a horrible start) and that team was loaded with injuries. 2011-12 Martin had a 0.516 after 32 games 2013-14 Therrien has a 0.524 after 21 games Kinda interesting you mentioned it, but I do believe that Therrien is more competent then Martin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roy_133 Posted November 18, 2013 Report Share Posted November 18, 2013 2011-12 Martin had a 0.516 after 32 games 2013-14 Therrien has a 0.524 after 21 games Kinda interesting you mentioned it, but I do believe that Therrien is more competent then Martin. Well Therrien definitely appeals to fans more, I'm not sure I'd see he's the better coach. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramcharger440 Posted November 18, 2013 Report Share Posted November 18, 2013 I feel he is a better coach. as much as folks felt he had not much to do with our success last year the same is true of our situation this year when key players get hurt or don't play up to their own standards that is not the coaches fault. decisions that are made during a game may seem odd to us but we don't always have all the info on why they are made. I am going to wait until we have a few more games with a fairly health roster to see where we are really at. my problem is more with some of our top level forwards floating around like it is a scrimmage rather than an nhl game they are being paid big bucks to play in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THEBIGGESTHABSFAN123 Posted November 18, 2013 Report Share Posted November 18, 2013 This team is a lot better then the one Martin had to work with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigTed3 Posted November 18, 2013 Report Share Posted November 18, 2013 I don't know that MT is a better coach than JM. They both have their good qualities and they both have glaring deficiencies. I think we need to remember that in the year JM was fired, we were dealing with a lot of injuries, and we did not have as deep a roster as we do now... Markov was frequently out of the line-up, Subban and Eller were still young, Gallagher and Galchenyuk weren't yet playing for us, and so on... I like what I've seen on the ice more under Therrien than under JM, but I think JM was also more confined with what he had to work with, and he used a system that reflected what he had available to him. Would I take Martin back over Therrien? No. But neither am I very enthused about going forward with Therrien either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roy_133 Posted November 18, 2013 Report Share Posted November 18, 2013 I feel he is a better coach. as much as folks felt he had not much to do with our success last year the same is true of our situation this year when key players get hurt or don't play up to their own standards that is not the coaches fault. decisions that are made during a game may seem odd to us but we don't always have all the info on why they are made. I am going to wait until we have a few more games with a fairly health roster to see where we are really at. my problem is more with some of our top level forwards floating around like it is a scrimmage rather than an nhl game they are being paid big bucks to play in. So basically in your defense you're saying it's hard to judge the coach based on how guys play (I agree) then it would be equally hard to judge which coach is better, so how can you definitely say Therrien is a better coach than Martin? This is the funny thing about coaches, we always look for reason to blame them and faults to find with them but really they're mostly interchangeable. Therrien had a healthy, deep offensive team last year that could roll 3 legit scoring lines (Martin never had that), that's why we played offensively. As soon as we lost a few of those guys this year and we had less depth, we were just as passive as we were under Martin. You coach to what you have. You can't run and gun with Glen Metropolit on your 3rd line or Ryan White. When Martin had 3 offensive lines his Senators were often RIGHT at the top of the league in goals for (led the league a couple times). The main issue with Therrien I have is personnel decisions (Martin had his issues there too). I don't know how much of a difference another coach could make. We don't have a go to offensive forward, it's tough to win consistently without guys like that. Scoring by committee will always be fickle, look at the 07-08 team. A couple injuries throws EVERYTHING out of whack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Regis2 Posted November 18, 2013 Report Share Posted November 18, 2013 So what the difference between the 13/14 team and 12/13 ( before they started to play badly at the end of the year ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hatethosebruins Posted November 18, 2013 Report Share Posted November 18, 2013 Interesting that Martin was fired with basically the same record we have now, except that that team was trending upward at the time (we had battled back after a horrible start) and that team was loaded with injuries. And I think Gauthier started to feel the pressure and thought firing the coach might turn things around and save his own job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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