Joël Bouchard named head coach of AHL’s San Diego Gulls

[maas_art]

Well that sucks.

Not completely surprised - he apparently wanted an NHL HC job but with Ducharme going to the SCF he's likely safe for a while.  The gulls are the anaheim affiliate & i think Eakins is on very thin ice so... 

[ChiLla]

Ah man, really sucks to lose him

[maas_art]

28 minutes ago, ChiLla said:

Ah man, really sucks to lose him

Agree.  I dont blame him but it still sucks. Hope we are able to find a suitable replacement. 

[ramcharger440]

Too bad! he was a really good farm team coach! well he has to do what he feels is best for his career.

[jennifer_rocket]

Hmm, any reason he wanted to leave our farm team for another farm team? I guess he just didn't expect to have a path to an NHL gig with our organization?

[maas_art]

45 minutes ago, jennifer_rocket said:

Hmm, any reason he wanted to leave our farm team for another farm team? I guess he just didn't expect to have a path to an NHL gig with our organization?

This sounds like the reason.  MB is apparently giving a presser today about it.

Sucks because he was good but you cant blame him for wanting to move on and you cant blame the organization for keeping DD.   Someone suggested they should have made him an assistant NHL coach but the problem is that he's a very good friend of DD"s so if / when DD was let go, it could be tough for Bouchard. Better with a clean break - maybe one day he'll come back to the organization. 

[H_T_L]

It is a shame to lose him because he was doing such a great job. Let's hope the replacement is more like him and not SL

[Regis22]

7 minutes ago, H_T_L said:

It is a shame to lose him because he was doing such a great job. Let's hope the replacement is more like him and not SL

In 2021, Lefebvre was announced as an assistant coach in the NHL with the Columbus Blue Jackets.

[BigTed3]

4 hours ago, maas_art said:

This sounds like the reason.  MB is apparently giving a presser today about it.

Sucks because he was good but you cant blame him for wanting to move on and you cant blame the organization for keeping DD.   Someone suggested they should have made him an assistant NHL coach but the problem is that he's a very good friend of DD"s so if / when DD was let go, it could be tough for Bouchard. Better with a clean break - maybe one day he'll come back to the organization. 

MB says they offered Bouchard the option of returning as the Laval head coach OR joining Ducharme as an assistant with the Habs. He chose neither. Apparently he had also refused to discuss a contract extension in season as well.

Looking at it this way, there are two possible explanations:

1. Bouchard wanted to be the head coach and didn't want to wait behind Ducharme. The explanation floated around when the Habs turned to Ducharme was that Bouchard wanted to stick it out with Laval and saw himself as being a developmental coach, but if he had his eyes on the NHL gig, then it's odd that the Habs went with Ducharme over Bouchard, when the latter was clearly the better prodigy.

2. He just didn't want to be in Montreal. As I posted yesterday, Bouchard was the one guy in the organization who seemed to go against the grain in terms of actually being interested in developing youngsters and giving them a chance. Even today, Ducharme was busy spewing garbage about how Kotkaniemi and Romanov need to sit and watch and learn from the veterans, despite the fact they outplayed many of those veterans. Ducharme and Bergevin's viewpoint is antiquated and not progressive enough for today's NHL, where with the salary cap you NEED to have cheap young homegrown talent to succeed. So maybe Bouchard just saw that too and figured out that even if he got a chance, Bergevin was never going to let him play the roster the way he wanted to.

[ramcharger440]

12 minutes ago, BigTed3 said:

MB says they offered Bouchard the option of returning as the Laval head coach OR joining Ducharme as an assistant with the Habs. He chose neither. Apparently he had also refused to discuss a contract extension in season as well.

Looking at it this way, there are two possible explanations:

1. Bouchard wanted to be the head coach and didn't want to wait behind Ducharme. The explanation floated around when the Habs turned to Ducharme was that Bouchard wanted to stick it out with Laval and saw himself as being a developmental coach, but if he had his eyes on the NHL gig, then it's odd that the Habs went with Ducharme over Bouchard, when the latter was clearly the better prodigy.

2. He just didn't want to be in Montreal. As I posted yesterday, Bouchard was the one guy in the organization who seemed to go against the grain in terms of actually being interested in developing youngsters and giving them a chance. Even today, Ducharme was busy spewing garbage about how Kotkaniemi and Romanov need to sit and watch and learn from the veterans, despite the fact they outplayed many of those veterans. Ducharme and Bergevin's viewpoint is antiquated and not progressive enough for today's NHL, where with the salary cap you NEED to have cheap young homegrown talent to succeed. So maybe Bouchard just saw that too and figured out that even if he got a chance, Bergevin was never going to let him play the roster the way he wanted to.

those outdated guys just got three games away from the cup....... idiots

[BigTed3]

31 minutes ago, ramcharger440 said:

those outdated guys just got three games away from the cup....... idiots

Using the MIchel Therrien strategy of relying on Carey Price to be out of this world good. We all see how this team is when Price plays .905. Bad. When he plays .935, we win games. That's not a recipe for success. And playing the likes of Merrill and Staal and Byron over Kotkaniemi, Evans, and Romanov means you're not setting yourself up for these guys to have the best experience they need to be key performers in the future. Yes, the team did well and exceeded expectations. And despite that, I still do not see us as being one of the 6-8 teams with the best odds of winning a Cup next season. I'm not even sure this team will make the playoffs next season. Ask Price and Weber and Petry and oft-injured Gallagher and Chiarot and Perry to get through an 82-game season and be as effective as they were this year in a shortened season with a break for Armia's COVID and another extended break right before the playoffs after coming out of a weaker than average division and I don't think it's going to happen. When I look at our division next year, we'll see how the off-season shakes things up, but as they stand right now, I'd put the teams in the following order:

1. Tampa

2. Florida

3. Toronto

4. Boston

5. Montreal

6. Ottawa

7. Buffalo

8. Detroit

 

So have MB and DD done some good things? Sure. But their philosophy also isn't a recipe for extended success and for a likelihood of being a favorite. The plan was always to be good enough to get in the playoffs and hope for some luck (which we got this year with the way COVID set up the season and with how things unfolded with Tavares, Scheifele, overtime wins, etc.). As I said, we could have just as easily gone out in the first round in 5 games. I don't think this speaks to MB and DD's plan as being a model to follow.

 

[ramcharger440]

12 hours ago, BigTed3 said:

Using the MIchel Therrien strategy of relying on Carey Price to be out of this world good. We all see how this team is when Price plays .905. Bad. When he plays .935, we win games. That's not a recipe for success. And playing the likes of Merrill and Staal and Byron over Kotkaniemi, Evans, and Romanov means you're not setting yourself up for these guys to have the best experience they need to be key performers in the future. Yes, the team did well and exceeded expectations. And despite that, I still do not see us as being one of the 6-8 teams with the best odds of winning a Cup next season. I'm not even sure this team will make the playoffs next season. Ask Price and Weber and Petry and oft-injured Gallagher and Chiarot and Perry to get through an 82-game season and be as effective as they were this year in a shortened season with a break for Armia's COVID and another extended break right before the playoffs after coming out of a weaker than average division and I don't think it's going to happen. When I look at our division next year, we'll see how the off-season shakes things up, but as they stand right now, I'd put the teams in the following order:

1. Tampa

2. Florida

3. Toronto

4. Boston

5. Montreal

6. Ottawa

7. Buffalo

8. Detroit

 

So have MB and DD done some good things? Sure. But their philosophy also isn't a recipe for extended success and for a likelihood of being a favorite. The plan was always to be good enough to get in the playoffs and hope for some luck (which we got this year with the way COVID set up the season and with how things unfolded with Tavares, Scheifele, overtime wins, etc.). As I said, we could have just as easily gone out in the first round in 5 games. I don't think this speaks to MB and DD's plan as being a model to follow.

 

I agree with a lot that you have said and yet there in my eyes hole in your argument. KK got sat because he was missing too many plays in our zone it could very well be he was wilting under the pressure we just don't know often you like the rest of us call for players that you prefer to be played based on what you believe to be solid reasons such as corsi or other advanced stats, I myself see those stats as a tool to help understand what a player may bring to the table but they are just stats which can be looked at and interpreted in may ways. and the fact is we don't know what this team is even going to look like next year MB did a great job of getting us some missing parts for this year and he may do the same for next year or he may not we just don't know. we have heard a couple of the moves he made were not his first choices but moves he felt he had to make to help us along for this season he did a great job in hindsight in fact before the season started many experts and many of us here were very impressed with the moves he made such as Anderson Tofu and Edmunsdon not to mention getting Jake Allen if he does this again or even just gets us a good puck moving D man and another winger or two to replace Drouin and Tater we could be a force for one or two more years. in my mind if we are not going to blow it up finish last for a few years and wait ten years or so to get it all put back together then this may very well be the plan to follow. I don't think we can rank the teams right now until we see how much Tampa has to dump due to salary Boston is getting really old and worn down and the Laffs don't worry me at all they are made of glass.

[BigTed3]

8 hours ago, ramcharger440 said:

I agree with a lot that you have said and yet there in my eyes hole in your argument. KK got sat because he was missing too many plays in our zone it could very well be he was wilting under the pressure we just don't know often you like the rest of us call for players that you prefer to be played based on what you believe to be solid reasons such as corsi or other advanced stats, I myself see those stats as a tool to help understand what a player may bring to the table but they are just stats which can be looked at and interpreted in may ways. and the fact is we don't know what this team is even going to look like next year MB did a great job of getting us some missing parts for this year and he may do the same for next year or he may not we just don't know. we have heard a couple of the moves he made were not his first choices but moves he felt he had to make to help us along for this season he did a great job in hindsight in fact before the season started many experts and many of us here were very impressed with the moves he made such as Anderson Tofu and Edmunsdon not to mention getting Jake Allen if he does this again or even just gets us a good puck moving D man and another winger or two to replace Drouin and Tater we could be a force for one or two more years. in my mind if we are not going to blow it up finish last for a few years and wait ten years or so to get it all put back together then this may very well be the plan to follow. I don't think we can rank the teams right now until we see how much Tampa has to dump due to salary Boston is getting really old and worn down and the Laffs don't worry me at all they are made of glass.

If I compare a guy like Staal to Kotkaniemi (the two guys really fighting for a spot in the line-up), Staal played well in the first two rounds but so too did Kotkaniemi. The Toronto coach said he found JK was the sparkplug that changed the Habs line-up. You can make an argument for both guys having done well at times and poorly at other aspects, but ultimately I don't find that Staal brought so much that it warranted keeping him in for the duration of the playoffs, while JK and Evans rotated and sat. To boot, Staal admitted he had several injuries impairing his ability to play center and he was clearly worse in the last two series compared to the first two. But ultimately, my argument for playing the younger guys like JK, Caufield, and Romanov is this: you didn't really have better veteran options and if you're going to decide between Staal and Kotkaniemi and Merrill and Romanov, why not go with the guy who has something to gain from playing and who can become a better asset for you down the line? You give JK and Romanov playoff experience this year and maybe next year they take you to another level. Look at what Caufield got from staying in the line-up.

As for other teams, agreed that Boston may regress a bit but they'll still be solid and Toronto may collapse in the post-season regularly but they're still good enough to rack up a ton of points in the regular season against middling teams and take a playoff spot away from someone else. And I really think Ottawa will be a tough out next year. It's not to say we can't make the playoffs and make another run, but I just don't see us as being an elite team yet and I think we still have work to do, primarily with the D corps, to get us there.