The Unofficial Fire Ron Wilson/Ron Wilson is the Greatest Thread

[GhostofPotvin29]

No. If they lose that many, they'd be out of a playoff position. They would have burnt their good start. Their PK would still likely be 30th (again) and their GAA is 28th now. The roster has been turned over a couple of times since he got here. At some point, you've got to give someone else a shot. Losing 5-7 in a row would have Wilson pretty close to that point.

I think we'll find out soon enough.  We'll be playing  a St. Louis team with a TA-DA new coach.  Love how other organizations are quick to make changes but Burke stands by his man through thick and thin.  Loss #3 in a row coming up...

And the fans seemed pretty happy about that change judging by the comments here:

http://www.stlouisgametime.com/2011/11/6/2543282/blues-fire-davis-payne-and-hire-ken-hitchcock

 

[bustaheims]

I think we'll find out soon enough.  We'll be playing  a St. Louis team with a TA-DA new coach.  Love how other organizations are quick to make changes but Burke stands by his man through thick and thin.  Loss #3 in a row coming up...

Well, I guess there's no point in playing the games, then. Just tack 4 or 5 more losses on the Leafs record and move on, right? :

 

[Zee]

No. If they lose that many, they'd be out of a playoff position. They would have burnt their good start. Their PK would still likely be 30th (again) and their GAA is 28th now. The roster has been turned over a couple of times since he got here. At some point, you've got to give someone else a shot. Losing 5-7 in a row would have Wilson pretty close to that point.

I think we'll find out soon enough.  We'll be playing  a St. Louis team with a TA-DA new coach.  Love how other organizations are quick to make changes but Burke stands by his man through thick and thin.  Loss #3 in a row coming up...

And the fans seemed pretty happy about that change judging by the comments here:

http://www.stlouisgametime.com/2011/11/6/2543282/blues-fire-davis-payne-and-hire-ken-hitchcock

The fans will come around when the Blues record improves.

 

[Bender]

I'm not defending him, I just feel that our players are making some bad decisions out on the ice irrespective of coaching. Do you think RW tells his players to get caught out of position? Or to allow breakaways? It seems to me that even the team isn't doing a good job of playing effectively as a unit insofar as they don't catch their own mistakes. You'd be crazy to think RW isn't trying to get them to tighten up defensively.

In terms of PK, for me it's the goaltenders, but we also don't have shut down PK specialists really outside of Steckel. IIRC Lombardi was pegged as a decent PKer but he's been on for the most goals against. Dupuis is decent at PKing but that's it. Apparently we have the highest shot blocking total in the league but RW isn't satisfied with that in the sense that we don't get into the shooting lanes. I'm sorry, but when you tell your players to get into the shooting lanes and they start panicking on the PK, giving players all sorts of time and space, instead of buckling down then to me it goes beyond coaching. It comes down to the players being accountable, and I think we've seen that with how pissed off Steckel was with the PK a few days ago.

PP: I'd say yeah, RW is probably at fault here. The trailer plays he's drawn up don't seem to be working effectively. Something needs to change here, but apparently this is why they brought in Cronin.

Again, I don't want to defend Wilson, but sometimes it's not the coach, its the players failing to play a simple, sound game. If we had half decent goaltending that didn't rival the atrociousness of Toskala and Raycroft I severely doubt we would even be talking about the PK.

The thing is, you can ALWAYS say it's not the coaches fault because in the end, it's the players making the mistakes on the ice. 

The coach doesn't tell them to give up breakaways.
The coach doesn't make the goalie blow a save.
The coach doesn't tell these guys to miss a backcheck.

So, in the end, it's ALWAYS the players fault if you want to get technical about it.  In that case Ron Wilson should have a lifetime contract.

My point is, we're seeing the *same* issues year after year with Wilson at the helm.  At what point DO you blame the coach and say we need a fresh face in there, with some new ideas and new systems to try out?  Wilson is out of ideas.

You clearly missed the part about PPs. I don't think the plays he has drawn up are that effective.

But again, you're not going to win many games when your goaltending is .876 or whatever it is. Even with lapses the goaltending has to be better than that, and the best goaltenders fight a way to eke out those higher numbers even when playing on a defensively poor team.

Hey, maybe we should bring in a fresh coach with fresh ideas, like Paul Maurice... wait a second...

So there you have it.  Ron Wilson is blameless.  Thanks.

Are you purposely being ignorant or should I bold the parts where I laid some blame to RW?

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

No. If they lose that many, they'd be out of a playoff position. They would have burnt their good start. Their PK would still likely be 30th (again) and their GAA is 28th now. The roster has been turned over a couple of times since he got here. At some point, you've got to give someone else a shot. Losing 5-7 in a row would have Wilson pretty close to that point.

I think we'll find out soon enough.  We'll be playing  a St. Louis team with a TA-DA new coach.  Love how other organizations are quick to make changes but Burke stands by his man through thick and thin.  Loss #3 in a row coming up...

And the fans seemed pretty happy about that change judging by the comments here:

http://www.stlouisgametime.com/2011/11/6/2543282/blues-fire-davis-payne-and-hire-ken-hitchcock

The fans will come around when the Blues record improves.

Ohhhh okay.  See I didn't realize that is how hockey works.

This is the third head coach in 3 seasons for St. Louis now. 

 

[Bender]

No. If they lose that many, they'd be out of a playoff position. They would have burnt their good start. Their PK would still likely be 30th (again) and their GAA is 28th now. The roster has been turned over a couple of times since he got here. At some point, you've got to give someone else a shot. Losing 5-7 in a row would have Wilson pretty close to that point.

I think we'll find out soon enough.  We'll be playing  a St. Louis team with a TA-DA new coach.  Love how other organizations are quick to make changes but Burke stands by his man through thick and thin.  Loss #3 in a row coming up...

And the fans seemed pretty happy about that change judging by the comments here:

http://www.stlouisgametime.com/2011/11/6/2543282/blues-fire-davis-payne-and-hire-ken-hitchcock

The fans will come around when the Blues record improves.

Right, because the magic formula for making a team play better is always coaching. That's a bold and, for the most part, unqualified statement. How many coaches did Ottawa go through again?

 

[Zee]

Are you purposely being ignorant or should I bold the parts where I laid some blame to RW?

I'm not being ignorant, you lay some blame to Wilson, but in the end say it's mostly the players fault for not executing.  Well that's the case on any team, the coach doesn't play the games so you can always blame the players.  I'm saying the overall approach needs to change, and that starts with the head coach.

 

[Scot4bz]

I can't help but think that Wilson (or any coach with a similar record to his since he's been here) in another market would already be a distant memory.

The only areas where there have been no changes are the coach, GM,the annoying organist, and the guy who sells beer in our section. My bet is that the organist is the next target (his inability to motivate through snippets of music are the root cause of the special team failures). The beer guy is the only untouchable. ;D

 

[cw]

No. If they lose that many, they'd be out of a playoff position. They would have burnt their good start. Their PK would still likely be 30th (again) and their GAA is 28th now. The roster has been turned over a couple of times since he got here. At some point, you've got to give someone else a shot. Losing 5-7 in a row would have Wilson pretty close to that point.

I think we'll find out soon enough.  We'll be playing  a St. Louis team with a TA-DA new coach.  Love how other organizations are quick to make changes but Burke stands by his man through thick and thin.  Loss #3 in a row coming up...

Many of the examples I listed above for this season were reasons I thought he should have been fired last season because they should have happened last season - and we said so on this board in many cases before last season started.

Last year, he seemed to have tunnel vision: "my team is going to play good defence!" And to start the season, through the first couple of months, they did. But it came at a high cost: poor offence. Any team can do that: improve defence by sacrificing offence. In the extreme, they can PK for 60 minutes if you will.

Good coaching optimizes maximizing the difference between goals scored and goals allowed. Wilson took it too far on the defence last year, at the start of the season and killed his offence, failing to maximize the potential of his roster.

I think we're approaching a critical point for Wilson.

I'm not sure of the entire cause yet. I don't know if the teams strongest at squishing offence in the neutral zone is it (ie Boston & Florida are good at it and Ottawa looked pretty good at it as well). Maybe teams are catching on to how to stop the Leafs. Maybe teams are improving defensively as they often do when settling into the season. Maybe Wilson has tried adjustments that is stifling them. Or maybe all of the above is involved.

Whatever it is, the Leafs have not been as potent. They have been unable to generate nearly as much speed through the neutral zone. Wilson has to be careful about trying to clean up his team defence - that he doesn't go too far and stifle his offence like he did last year.

The next 5-7 games will provide some answers on how well he does there. His job probably depends on it.

 

[Zee]

I can't help but think that Wilson (or any coach with a similar record to his since he's been here) in another market would already be a distant memory.

The only areas where there have been no changes are the coach, GM,the annoying organist, and the guy who sells beer in our section. My bet is that the organist is the next target (his inability to motivate through snippets of music are the root cause of the special team failures). The beer guy is the only untouchable. ;D

Brian Burke makes a bold statement before the season begins by canning some assistant coaches, apparently as some sort of message that coaching will be held accountable now, but the guy on top gets away unscathed.  He can't keep turning the team over and over again.  At some point you have to make a head coaching change.

 

[ZBBM]

cw, I have to (reluctantly) agree with your (first) post.  Wilson has been more flexible and innovative this year.  But the basic problems haven't changed.

I think we can take a lesson from Steve Jobs here.  The guy built the most successful company in the world by destroying success.  He took features that were working and which people thought were essential and which were making Apple good money, and killed them for the sake of innovation.

It's not an exact parallel of course, but if Burke were as good a manager as Jobs (and unlike most GMs he has virtual absolute power,  just like Jobs) he would fire Wilson now while the team is having "success."  In this case, not just for the sake of innovation, but because the fundamentals underlying the "success" are rotten.

 

[Andy007]

I can't help but think that Wilson (or any coach with a similar record to his since he's been here) in another market would already be a distant memory.

The only areas where there have been no changes are the coach, GM,the annoying organist, and the guy who sells beer in our section. My bet is that the organist is the next target (his inability to motivate through snippets of music are the root cause of the special team failures). The beer guy is the only untouchable. ;D

Brian Burke makes a bold statement before the season begins by canning some assistant coaches, apparently as some sort of message that coaching will be held accountable now, but the guy on top gets away unscathed.  He can't keep turning the team over and over again.  At some point you have to make a head coaching change.

The team is near the top of the standings depsite having their "#1" centre and #1 goalie injured for 50%+ of their games (Oh and add Army in there too if you like).

I understand there are serious fundamental problems with the club and, personally, I can't really stand Ron Wilson, but why should he be held accountable now, of all times?

 

[Zee]

I can't help but think that Wilson (or any coach with a similar record to his since he's been here) in another market would already be a distant memory.

The only areas where there have been no changes are the coach, GM,the annoying organist, and the guy who sells beer in our section. My bet is that the organist is the next target (his inability to motivate through snippets of music are the root cause of the special team failures). The beer guy is the only untouchable. ;D

Brian Burke makes a bold statement before the season begins by canning some assistant coaches, apparently as some sort of message that coaching will be held accountable now, but the guy on top gets away unscathed.  He can't keep turning the team over and over again.  At some point you have to make a head coaching change.

The team is near the top of the standings depsite having their "#1" centre and #1 goalie injured for 50%+ of their games (Oh and add Army in there too if you like).

I understand there are serious fundamental problems with the club and, personally, I can't really stand Ron Wilson, but why should he be held accountable now, of all times?

The club needs a change of direction, new leadership to try and get something different out of these guys.  They're near the top of the standings because offensively they were off the charts for the first 10 games, however defensively we still are making brutal mistakes.  Like someone else pointed out, the fundamentals are not working, and a change should be made before it's too late.  Wilson should have been fired a long time ago, before this season even began.  It's long overdue.

 

[Stebro]

Do anyone honestly think that our place in the standings is an accurate reflection of how good the team is? We allow way too many goals, we're lousy in pk and pp, and our team seems to have long periods of time during the games when they do everything wrong basically. I the reason why we are where we are is a mixture of hot streaks and luck, over the season we will fall, the question is how much?

But I think it does say something about the coaches if you make the same mistake over and over again, and if Wilson can't get a change in those games where we just make mistake after mistake. You must be able to turn games around.

 

[Bender]

cw, I have to (reluctantly) agree with your (first) post.  Wilson has been more flexible and innovative this year.  But the basic problems haven't changed.

I think we can take a lesson from Steve Jobs here.  The guy built the most successful company in the world by destroying success.  He took features that were working and which people thought were essential and which were making Apple good money, and killed them for the sake of innovation.

It's not an exact parallel of course, but if Burke were as good a manager as Jobs (and unlike most GMs he has virtual absolute power,  just like Jobs) he would fire Wilson now while the team is having "success."  In this case, not just for the sake of innovation, but because the fundamentals underlying the "success" are rotten.

AFAIK Apple was tanking without him, and basically DID cut many things that didn't work but I digress.

Anyway, all I'm saying is I have a hard time believing coaching will have a significant impact on the team. We're simply not good enough. Our goaltenders are playing some of the worst hockey I've ever seen in that position, and are giving Toskala a run for his money on bad goals. The calibre of goaltending is not there: They were banking on Goose to improve and Reimer to stay healthy - both of which were very shaky bets. We should've brought in a half decent, proven backup if we weren't going to keep Giguere.

Some might pin this on our defense, but I don't think so. A good goaltender will find a way to put up half decent numbers even on young teams that have defensive lapses from time to time. 31 goaltenders have a SV% above .900.

To think our situation is unique in the sense that our defense is bad or that our team is playing bad systems - it's not. Half decent goaltending, it would seem, is more common than atrocious goaltending. Far more lowly teams than ours are getting better goaltending than we are with the sole exception being Columbus.

Simply put, our backup goaltenders are not NHL calibre right now and no amount of coaching or coaching changes will show an immediate turn around on their very, very bad play. This slump is not solely on the backs of the goaltenders, but it's deflating when you're down 3-0 and you're panicking because you never know if a routine shot will go in.

 

[Bates]

Compare the last 2 years Leafs teams to the Coyotes.  I think on paper the Leafs are a better team yet the Coyotes make the playoffs both years while the Leafs watch from outside.  The difference is coaching and systems.

 

[Bender]

Compare the last 2 years Leafs teams to the Coyotes.  I think on paper the Leafs are a better team yet the Coyotes make the playoffs both years while the Leafs watch from outside.  The difference is coaching and systems.

They also did have a goaltender named Ilya Bryzgalov who put up .920+ in 3 out of 4 seasons there.

 

[bustaheims]

They also did have a goaltender named Ilya Bryzgalov who put up .920+ in 3 out of 4 seasons there.

Yup, and, for the brief stretches when the Leafs have had quality, consistent goaltending during Wilson's tenure, they've also been successful. Shocking how that works, isn't it?

 

[Andy007]

Yep we better get better coaching and systems.

Oh and maybe a #1 goalie. Oh and a backup as well. And a #1 centre.

Really I can't disagree that a new coach might solve some of the team's problems but if you think a new coach can take last night's roster into the playoffs you're crazier than Eddie Belfour after a keg party.

 

[Bates]

The Coyotes are also doing it again this year with a goalie that has very similar numbers only now his name is Mike Smith, not exactly a world beater.  The system makes a goalie better and rarely the other way around.