Winning On The Cheap - It Can Be Done

Stevens in Philly did a pretty good job on developing young talent before being replaced by Lavi. Oh yeah, he’s available to coach.

And again the argument comes down to Mo developing young players. When has he done it? And while the other coaches wil have a hand in development, it is ultimately Mo’s job as the head coach. I just don’t think he’s the right man for a rebuild.

I’m not trying to say that Francis is a bad coach, but he hasn’t really proven himself YET to be a good one either. Mo and Ronnie are the “two” head coaches and to say either has proven to be a good developer of young talent is at best a reach. If we are looking to go young, bring in someone that has a good track record with player development. Maybe bring in a good AHL coach that knows how to work with the young people. I’m not as much against Ronnie helping develop our future as I am against Mo. If this is the direction we are going, Mo should not be steering the ship.

   The flaws with the Hurricanes power play had much more to do with personnel issues than coaching per se. There is absolutely no question in my mind that if the Hurricanes had performed in the top 15 for the year in the power play, they would have made the playoffs. Once McBain came up to Carolina and once Sutter started getting more time on the power play, it improved significantly. The injuries to Staal, Cole (hurt in the second game), and Ruutu really hurt the power play. Take a look at the power plays during the 3/11/2010 game at the RBC against the Penguins, which the Hurricanes won 4 to 3. It really tells the tale of why the Hurricanes power play was too often ineffective.

   If you watch it online at www.nhl.com that version is with the Penguins’ announcers and they pull no punches about the Hurricanes power play. There is a sequence in particular that one really has to watch. It is a 5 on 3 power play for the Hurricanes. Brind’Amour (for reasons that seem sublime to me) was on the power play. There is no net traffic. There is no movement with anybody being able to cause the defense to move. The passes are stare down passes that might as well announce to whom they intend to pass the puck; and Brind’Amour is lost much of the time and is certainly unwilling to throw his body around.

   Once McBain came in and once Sutter was there attacking the net and working with Jokinen and Staal, the power play over the course of 2009-2010 improved. It still has a significant way to go; and until they get a Jordan Staal or Ryan Malone kind of player to create havoc in front of the net, it is going to be difficult. As for me, the addition of Babchuk will make a huge positive difference. Giving Boychuk and Tlusty time on the power play will help.

There are times when that may be a cathartic experience.

But doesn’t it also require the Defensemen to recognize where F2 and F3 are and not to pinch in when one can’t get back to cover?

The M/F/R/B system is essentially one in which forwards’ major task is to put a body on their man during the forecheck and to separate the puck from the body. It rewards really fast and aggressive players while making it hard for players with less physical strength and less aggressive tendencies to do well. It is also extremely hard on players who lack both speed and acceleration to do well. The forwards in particular have to cover a tremendous amount of ice and have to love hitting to do well.

   When they put Samsonov and Brind’Amour together on a line, things fall apart because neither one lives for the joy of laying a devastating hit on somebody; and neither have speed. Brind’Amour lacks both speed and quickness. It was awful when Yelle and Brind’Amour were playing together on a line for the same reason. Yelle didn’t mind physical play but he often forgot how to do so without taking penalties.

    Cullen had some trouble with the system because he is not somebody who was passionate about making massive hits. He was tremendously fast and quick and had a great hockey brain; but the physical aspect and particularly behind the net was not his big thing. When the Hurricanes were trying to put together lines and had their more artistic players together, and particularly the less fast players, I found it difficult to watch. One can watch a hockey player and tell if he is holding back and finding some safe haven out of the dark, dirty areas or whether he is on fire to get to the net. Sutter, Boychuk, Bowman, Ruutu, Kostopoulos, and Dwyer have zero fear of the nasty ice. LaRose has zero fear of that area as well. They want to score and they want the puck on their stick. Samsonov and to some degree Brind’Amour need a GPS to find that area. They go there as if they are playing on a pond and the ice may break at any time. They tip toe through the tulips to get there.

   In the early part of this season, Maurice and Francis kept saying, we need more net traffic, we need to get to the dirty areas, we need to be creating havov in front of the net; and once Sutter and the kids came, I can only recall one instance in which there was discussion about a lack of battle in the physical danger zones.

   In a wide open system, there are so many rushes that space is available for the more artistic players to work their magic. The M/F/R/B system tends to require really fast players to have breakaways – so Staal, Sutter, Cole, Boychuk, and LaRose tended to be the ones on breakaways as a general rule.

   I don’t have any connection with the Hurricanes other than being a STH and being a fan. I also was stunned that Maurice was re-hired. He was not on my top twenty coaching prospects when Laviolette was fired.

  I have had the chance to speak with Maurice and to hear him speak on several occasions. I was impressed with how down to earth he is, how much he loved the details and nuances of hockey, and what a great sense of humor he had. I don’t know whether or not he will succeed at Carolina as a coach; but even if he does not succeed as a coach, I personally think he will stay within the organization.

  I do respect and like Jim Rutherford. I find him refreshingly direct. He is also a gentleman in terms of the way he deals with people. If I seem pro-management it is because they are making decisions that largely fall within the way I would envision myself dealing with the same issues. Some of the issues are far more complex and have far more moving parts than I can discern as a fan. At this point, I am concerned about the degree to which it seems the salary budget is being cut; but Jim Rutherford and Peter Karmanos always seem to pull rabbits out of the hat.

Are his wins greater than loses in reg+loses in OT? NOT.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Maurice

All things being equal, I’d rather have Laviolette back.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Laviolette

   Maybe the subjects of Laviolette and Brind’Amour are ones over which I lack sufficient objectivity. I thought Laviolette did a great job in 2005-2006; but I also thought the team played horribly under him after that. I came to dislike intensely what I thought was a completely disorganized approach to hockey. It struck me as YMCA basketball for strategy or something akin to “hey guys, let’s all meet at the crease.”

  I had never seen any hockey team play with less heart and desire than the Canes in 2006-2007. Like many fans I assumed it was the Stanley Cup hangover. I started to hear discussions from different fans that Laviolette had lost the locker room and that he was playing favorites. In 2007-2008, it was much the same thing until the young Rats came to the team and suddenly the team had a chance at the playoffs. The last five games of that season discouraged me and made we want a change of coaches. The start of 2008-2009 was terrible; and I was one of those fans calling for Jim Rutherford to fire Laviolette; and I was very excited to hear in December, 2008, that Laviolette was in fact fired.

   I readily acknowledge I had been looking at other possible coaches and Maurice was not one of them I had considered might be selected. I didn’t like his style of hockey during his first tenure and I was concerned the team would simply be painfully boring to watch. I have no idea whether Maurice has changed, the talent pool has changed, Jim Rutherford and Ron Francis convinced him to change, but I like the way the Hurricanes played under him in the 2008-2009 season; and I liked how they played starting at the end of December, 2009.

   I had an extreme dislike of Laviolette’s approach because I think it is a style that guarantees one tremendous success per team – a Stanley Cup and then years of mediocrity. To me game 5 of the Chicago game was a perfect example. Once Chicago game out like apes out of a cage (meaning nothing pejorative), under Maurice one could expect the plan at least to be slow things down and work to get the momentum of the game under control; under Laviolette, the Flyers took more and more chances and lost structure more and more. By the team the Flyers started their push, the hole was too deep. Laviolette’s system strikes me as high risk and high reward, but little chance of consistency year after year.

   I personally think Laviolette is very well-suited to take a team one time to the Stanley Cup; and he may do so for the Flyers. The aftermath, I think, is very painful for the organization because after the conquest of the Stanley Cup, the team will falter and one will spend two or three years trying to put back the pieces with another coach. That at least is how I see it.

I respectfully disagree. My belief in sports is that if the chemistry is working, you don’t change it. The entire team was playing better for whatever reason with the Rats in and the veterans’ injured. It seemed like nonsense to me that when the Hurricanes had to win one of four of their last games to be in the playoffs that a coach should have kept the winning combination on the ice until and unless they clinched the playoff. Once a playoff spot was obtained, Lavi could have inserted one veteran at a time. As it was, Lavi threw in veterans who played terribly and the team confidence and chemistry vanished. It was a decision that I thought was unforgivably arrogant at the time; and it wound up costing the organization millions of dollars. It also wound up costing Lavi his job; but as hockey fate had it, Lavi seems to be a better fit for Philadelphia than Carolina anyway.

Here are the figures for the Hurricanes from Cap Geek:

http://www.capgeek.com/charts.php?Team=10

It has the Hurricanes already committed to $41,908,333, not counting Boychuk, Dalpe, McBain, Bowman, Osala, Samson, Carson, Whitney, or Peters.

  I assume that the $15 million reduction as opposed to to the $10 million reduction would occur if Whitney were not resigned, and if Brind’Amour were bought out, and if Samsonov were traded.

    A $10 million reduction from a cap hit of approximately $56 million this year to $46 million seems hard, but not impossible. $48 million to $50 million seems the most likely result to me.

  I’d love for the Canes to be able to afford to bring in an experienced defenseman; but I can’t see that happening unless there is a new partner who gives the green light. What I don’t understand about the naysayers for the Hurricanes is that the same players on defense who are felt to be dangerous on the ice, were extremely effective despite injuries to Gleason and Corvo. Harrison certainly left me pondering the nature of life at times, but to my eyes he was 1,000 times better than A. Ward or Wallin; and he was not as likely to give a puck gift to an opposing forward in his own end as Alberts. I found nothing at all bad with Carson’s play or McBain’s play. Gleason and Pitkanen are excellent. Babchuk is an offensive threat, and I thought he did much better on defense than many others seem to think. He had his share of mistakes, but he often remedied them by having arms the length of an oak tree’s branches. Is anybody really arguing that we need Aaron Ward to return or Wallin or Alberts? So why all the doom and gloom about the defense?