GhostofPotvin29
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I mean, that would be hard to assemble if you tried, let alone have it happen by accident.
General Leafs Talk: Post-Olympics Edition
- Thread starter CarltonTheBear
- Start date
I mean, that would be hard to assemble if you tried, let alone have it happen by accident.
Kin
New member
CarltonTheBear said:
I don't really buy the idea that being a back-up goalie is beneficial to a goalie's numbers. I've heard the "but back-up goalies don't get the tough starts" line of thinking but I don't know if the numbers I've seen ever really justify that they're used in that fashion. I think guys who get used every day, who are into that rhythm have just as much of a boost.
CarltonTheBear said:
Like, say, Ben Scrivens on the Oilers?
CarltonTheBear said:
I think there's a line between "having their best seasons" and a bunch of mediocre veterans getting a ton of ice time. I can't argue with Kulemin, Grabo and Mac but the guys I'm talking about, and I realize this makes the discussion difficult, are a lot of guys who I'm sure you'd be tempted to say "Oh, well, they were never going to be all that good anyway" like Schenn or Tlusty or guys like Stralman and Harrison.
The teams Wilson coached could have had a pretty good top six of Kessel-Steen-Whoever and the Grabo line you talk about. There were young, NHL calibre defensemen on the roster. That Wilson continually put guys like Hagman and Blake and Jeff Finger in above them is one of the reasons the team was so crummy. That he got mediocre performance out of guys who could have been good young players, like the goalies, is part of why the team's looked so bad.
bustaheims
Active member
CarltonTheBear said:
He probably will be, but I'm becoming more and more convinced he won't be the only one, and, if the Leafs do end up missing the playoffs (or just barely hang on and get throttled in the 1st round), Carlyle will be joining him.
Stuff like this . . .
. . . shows me there's a disconnect between the front office and the coach. It doesn't seem like they're really on the same page about the team. We know Nonis approached Carlyle earlier in the season about how he uses the younger players, and, while he'd taken some of that to heart - Gardiner and Rielly have seen their roles expand a little since - there are still issues that need to be resolved - the way he uses guys like Holland and Ashton, going with McClement over Kadri in late game situation where the team needs offence, etc. Carlyle wasn't a Nonis hire, and, a poor finish to the season could very be all he needs to justify moving on from a guy that doesn't seem to be a great fit with the way he and the rest of the front office talk about the team.
GhostofPotvin29
New member
bustaheims said:
I just wish they would have fashioned their game to the team's strengths. They don't have the roster make-up to play a defensive style, and I don't even really know what Carlyle's style he's trying to play is. I wish it was actually like my local OHL team, the Soo Greyhounds - they were in the midst of a poor season last year, fired the coach, hired Sheldon Keefe and from day one he has preached (and the GM has advocated for this as well) an up-tempo, push-the-pace, possess-the-puck type of style - and they could do this because they have one of the league's best goaltenders too. So they still give up odd-man rushes more than they would like, but they've ended up with the 5th fewest goals against because they're relentless in their possession, trying to keep the other team on defense. And they've also had the 5th best offense too.
It is a young team this season, wasn't expected to do much, lost it's top 5 scorers from last season - but ended up 4th overall in the league. As the local paper stated:
this Greyhounds club is fashioned to take advantage of its skill, to push the pace, possess the puck and to create scoring chances while also limiting the time the opponent has on offence.
And it's worked wonderfully ? 44 wins wonderfully. The Hounds 95 points are the most for this franchise in 29 seasons!
It's not a perfect comparison, but the general idea I think fits.
Redleaf
Active member
bustaheims said:
If it is indeed true that there is a problem with the relationship between Nonis and Carlyle moving forward with this club, than I have no problem with Nonis finding a coach he believes is better suited to the players and team he wants to run with.
Nonis has done a fantastic job in my eyes, and has yet to hire his 'own' coach. If this is all just hearsay, which I suspect to be the case, than I have no problem sticking with Carlyle, at least for another season, providing he doesn't 'lose' his players, and continues the trend of improving the clubs position in the standings year over year.
bustaheims said:
Yeah, we'll see, I'm just not convinced that there is a disconnect. All the talk from Leafs management about the team being the youngest is just them getting the excuses ready like they have all season long with Bolland's injury and Clarkson's stuff. And most of the talk coming from the media about this has come from Darren "Gossip Girl" Dreger. If there's as big of an issue between the GM and the coach as he suggests then it really wouldn't matter whether the Leafs miss or just barely make the playoffs. Carlyle would be gone either way. But Nonis spent his entire summer bending over backwards trying to build a team that Carlyle wanted. They were clearly on the same page back then. So the way I see it the only way Randy goes is if Nonis goes down with him.
bustaheims
Active member
RedLeaf said:
There was some suggestion from the TSN panel during Wednesday's game that the players are already starting to not listen to Carlyle. That, and, well, if this season were to end today, that trend you're talking about would be starting to swing the other way - they're on pace to finish lower in the standings this season than they did last season.
Nik the Trik said:
The thing that typically separates a starter from a back-up is usually consistency. Gus didn't have the consistency to string together 3-5 good games in a row. Neither did Giggy at that point. And they still don't right now.
Nik the Trik said:
Scrivens played just 12 games under Wilson, I wouldn't really put him in this conversation.
Nik the Trik said:
Schenn was 4th on the team among defencemen in average ice-time during Wilson's first season. 2nd in even-strength ice-time. And that was as a rookie. His ice-time dropped in his 2nd year but the team acquired Beau, Komi, and Phaneuf that season so that's not surprising. The season after that he moved back into the top-4 in ice-time and top-3 EV-wise. I can't say he wasn't given every chance to succeed on this team.
As for Tlusty it's clear his development was stunted by the previous regime. He belonged in the AHL when Wilson was the coach and that's where he was. It was Burke who gave up on him while he was developing down there.
Harrison, meh. He was an AHL call-up calibre playing during his time here and was played like that. Stralman was a name I didn't think of and he's somebody that I regret we gave up on. But Wilson gave him 3rd pairing minutes and 2nd unit PP time, at the time I'm not sure he could go any higher than that considering Kaberle/Kubina/White/Schenn were in front of him. As for the trade, considering the return that also felt like a Burke decision, but who knows.
I don't see what more Wilson could have done with his non-goalies. Especially considering his job was to make the playoffs so playing guys like Blake or Hagman is understandable. And aside from Steen, I don't even think he really held any of the younger players back. I wasn't happy with him not playing Kadri but that was more because I felt his development would be better suited in the NHL, not because I thought he would make the Leafs a playoff team.
bustaheims
Active member
CarltonTheBear said:
He actually only played 8. 4 of his appearances in 11/12 were after Wilson was fired.
bustaheims said:
Ah, right. I actually checked that because I felt it would be the case but forgot to adjust the number.
Kin
New member
CarltonTheBear said:
That's assuming that the sum total of a coach's job with regards to player development is simply throwing them into the deep end and seeing if they can swim. Beyond the question of whether or not Schenn should have been in the NHL at all in his rookie season there's still the more pressing question of the way a coach motivates and cultivates a player as they develop. This isn't something that can be pinned down with numbers, the way a player might have developed in an alternate system or with another coach is inherently unknowable, but a coach still bears some responsibility for the failures on his watch in that regard especially when so many of them went on to some success elsewhere.
And likewise, a lot of these "It was Burke's decision, not his" seem like a bit of a cop-out because at the time the two were said to have a good working relationship and, as much as I think Burke revealed himself to be a lousy GM, I don't think his MO was to make these decisions independent of the coaching staff. His "job" can't be as simply described as making the playoffs either as he didn't do that for a few years running and kept it. If he was making good progress with the younger players, developing a group that was growing and improving year by year...he'd wouldn't have been fired any sooner than he was guiding his team towards the bottom of the league. His firing is as much a reflection of the fact that good young players weren't really developing on his watch as anything else.
Nik the Trik said:
I guess though what I haven't understood about all this is who are all these good young players that Wilson hurt? Steen had a rough start to a season and somebody who never should have been allowed to make decisions for this team made a poor, reactionary trade. Schenn had a good rookie year that made a lot of people realize he was physically ready for the NHL and that defensively playing against juniors probably wouldn't have helped him. Then he struggled as many young defencemen do. So did Wilson ruin him or did scouts just over hype a defence-only defenceman who was bigger than everybody else in junior? He didn't play Tlusty because he wasn't NHL ready and then he was traded as he was developing in the AHL. Stralman played pretty well under him for half a season before being shipped off. He only had Stalberg for half a season as well before he was traded. And as close as Wilson was with Burke, Burke was still the GM and the one responsible for making those decisions. I don't think there's ever an equal 50/50 partnership between a coach and a GM when it comes to matters like these, no matter how well of a relationship the two people have.
The only young players that Wilson did have for a full season or more were Stajan, White, Schenn, Gunnarsson, Kulemin, and Mitchell. And aside from Schenn the rest of those players all developed nicely under Wilson I think.
Redleaf
Active member
bustaheims said:
Yeah, I know I said year over year, but I don't think 4 or 5 more wins/loses this season would constitute any real change in direction, especially since last year was a such a condensed one. I think there would have to be a dramatic difference in point totals from a previous year, (negative or positive) to accurately say that a team has gotten worse or better overall. Even if Carlyle's team continues to stay close to the comparable total points from last year, he'll be fine in that regard.
Corn Flake
New member
bustaheims said:
Is this a reincarnation of the whole "he's lost the room" BS from 2 months ago? Yeah we thought it was all over and done with back then.
Nope.
I heard the line said the other night by Biron. If we are deciding the TSN panel has the inside track on what's happening in the room, we should probably just donate our brains to science now and be done with it.
bustaheims
Active member
So, another point for TBay, 2 for Philly. Detroit is leading after after two. Things certainly aren't going the right way for our Leafs.
Kin
New member
CarltonTheBear said:
I don't think that either and I didn't mean to imply I did. That said, and I think this holds true with Nonis and Carlyle today, it doesn't have to be a 50/50 partnership for there to be significant input from the coach on who stays and who goes and I think the way a coach feels about players can be relatively well interpreted by how they're used.
As to the larger question you ask though, I think beyond the guys you list guys like Bozak and Kessel have taken serious steps forward post-Wilson. I think the goalies did too. I think Phaneuf has been better under Carlyle, I think Gunnar has significantly improved...Kadri is in that mix. There's probably a tendency to say that some of that improvement is natural with age and there's some truth to that as well but the smoking gun you're looking for the "who did Wilson hurt"...there's no answer there that couldn't be answered with "Well, he wasn't going to succeed anyway" or something along those lines like you pose with Schenn. We're dealing with the inherently unknowable. Personally, I don't think that the way younger players developed under Wilson was good. I think we saw a lot of good rookie years that were followed by stagnation and even regression.
bustaheims said:
And of course Detroit won.
bustaheims
Active member
CarltonTheBear said:
Obviously. In terms of points percentage, the Leafs are now behind Detroit and Columbus. They are very much hanging on to a playoff spot by the skin of their teeth right now.
Stickytape
New member
4 losses in a row, but I'm not sweating it: the way I see it, one of two things is going to happen:
a) The Leafs make the Playoffs for a second year in a row, or
b) Carlyle probably gets fired.
Is it wrong to root for b?
a) The Leafs make the Playoffs for a second year in a row, or
b) Carlyle probably gets fired.
Is it wrong to root for b?
Stronger Than All
New member
Stickytape said:
B should still happen if A happens. In a perfect world that is...