When should Mo go?

Flopping won’t be enough for Mo to go. It will take a number of the prospects failing to improve their game at the NHL level. If he shows he can’t improve young players then he’ll be fired. Problem is that takes a long time to prove. Personally, I don’t see anyway he’s gone next season unless Staal says “it’s either Mo or Me”. Especially if there’s not a new owner.

a bump like that kills a bandwagon.

Although a true caniac was probably thinking playoffs in February

This topic sent me down a cynical rabbit hole. I started objectively, or at least I thought I did. You’ll see where I wound up.

The issue I fear with Maurice is the way his defensive mentality seems to leave little room for anything else. For this year, suppose there’s all this young offensive talent with an overwhelming fear of getting sent down to Charlotte for one defensive lapse. So the Boychuks, Dalpes, and Bowmans may see their only hope of staying in Raleigh as keeping one foot in their own zone. Then the Canes lose the benefit of the infusion of offensive talent. That’s the kind of talent they have in the pipeline and the kind they need most. The prospects lose their confidence. We lose hope in the prospects. Maurice is the cork in the talent pipeline—just the sort of thing BP was looking for in the Gulf, if you consider offensive talent a form of pollution.

I’m for defensive responsibility, but with Paul Maurice, I worry about destroying offensive initiative.

OK, I’m going down one more floor in the rabbit hole and the elevator only goes down from here. There isn’t even a button for up.

You can fault Laviolette for sending both defensemen and the goalie to crash the other team’s net, but at least you get to see the offensive forwards put big-time pressure on the other team and score at a good clip. You find out quickly what the forwards can do. Samsonov was pretty good under Laviolette. Under Maurice, Samsonov’s only value is as trade bait. Nothing about Samsonov has changed. Maurice’s style has made Samsonov’s contract a waste of money and gutted his trade value, too. Can’t imagine why, but that seems fine by Peter Karmanos.

The Canes’ young talent seems at odds with Maurice’s style. The forwards were mostly drafted or otherwise acquired for offensive skill and potential. Same goes for Sanguinetti, McBain and Babchuk. Nash and Carson are in the minority as prospects with greater strength probably on the defensive side.

Turning Boychuk into an above-average NHL defender is a small accomplishment if it means turning him into a below-average NHL scorer and a possibly undersized bust. I could see Boychuk going down to Charlotte in a funk and Dwyer and Dodge surging to the head of the class of forwards and playing out the season in Raleigh. Nothing against them, but they won’t strengthen and diversify the Canes’ offense. They can play valuable roles, but they can’t play major roles.

Can Maurice strike a balance? If he can get the kids to score and play solid defense, he’ll deserve all the credit in the world. I would be delighted if Maurice can do that. I would be even more surprised. Pipeline, meet cork.

If the hockey gods ate several bushels of peyote and allowed me to decide Maurice’s fate, I’d give him the preseason plus one month of the regular season to prove he’s the right coach for the Canes at this stage. He’d have to get some of the prospects flying and scoring in that time and the Canes competing fiercely every night, putting tremendous pressure on the opposing defense, playing to win, not playing not to lose.

I don’t think that’s how the Canes are thinking. I think they’ll be content cycling prospects back to Charlotte all year until they get Maurice’s system down and content cycling the puck along the boards as long as they never get caught out of position. I think Maurice is secure regardless of results.

The Canes’ history with coaches is my guide. What is Peter Karmanos going to do, hire a Peter Laviolette clone after trashing Laviolette publicly on multiple occasions for playing an offensive style? There’s no point in firing Maurice if you’re going to hire a Maurice clone.

Then there’s the double standard about won-lost records and team collapses. That suggests Maurice’s leash will be as long as Laviolette’s was short. The prospects may be sent packing before Maurice is. Maurice, who seems smart and nice enough, will be here until he wins his next Stanley Cup even though, unlike some other coaches, he hasn’t won his first Stanley Cup.

With many coaches, including IMHO Laviolette with the Canes and Flyers, you get a sense that he’ll bend heaven and earth trying to get the best out of the talent his players bring to the team, including the young talent. With Maurice, I get the sense that he’ll bend heaven and earth to get the most out of his system played his way regardless of who the players are and how their talents vary. Maurice seems to be an all-time greatest coach in the board room and a pretty popular coach in the locker room. Nice guy, smart guy, well-spoken. But there is an issue on the ice. He’s had 13 seasons and won less than half his games. He’s made the playoffs four times. One out of three ain’t bad, but that’s less than one out of three.

Laviolette has apparently inverted Maurice’s priorities. He’s done pretty well on the ice, winning 54% of his games over eight seasons, making the playoffs five times, winning two conference championships and one Stanley Cup. The Isles, Canes, and Flyers were not thriving when Laviolette took over. They won. Still, his popularity seems to vary in the locker room and sink in the boardroom. Perhaps Laviolette’s values, inverted if you want to survive in a management hierarchy, will finish him with the Flyers as they did with the Canes. But before the Flyers kick Laviolette to the curb, he might get them a Stanley Cup to go with last year’s conference championship. Then the Flyers’ owner and Peter Karmanos can hold a joint press conference about what a terrible coach Laviolette is, pass out champagne, and talk about how the league adapted to his system and he couldn’t deal with it, and how they had to fire him for the good of the team and had to explain publicly how horrible he was for the good of—I forget why the public trashing part was supposed to be good for somebody or something. Certainly wasn’t good for my opinion of Peter Karmanos. I decided right then and there I’d never buy 49% of the Canes, even if I had the money. I would buy 51% and fire Peter Karmanos.

For this discussion about Maurice’s job security, the important point is this: The boardroom decides when coaches have to go. Maurice seems to have great strength in the boardroom. It took the Canes a decade to fire him the first time around even though the team missed the playoffs six times, won the conference finals once, and never won a Cup. The second time around, Maurice has already made the conference finals once and this will only be his third year. He had an absolutely disastrous start last year, but rallied the team to end up 7th worst in the league after having a shot at dead last. The Canes seem happy with Maurice after that stirring rally that saved the Canes’ from the storm and stress of deciding between Hall and Seguin. For this franchise, that’s great coaching.

Missing the playoffs this year with a young team won’t count against Maurice.

OK, I’ve reached the bottom and it’s pretty dark down here. This plunge down the rabbit hole has left a crater in my optimistic outlook on the 2010-11 season. I wanted to debate the circumstances under which the Canes should consider firing Maurice. Now I’m reminded he’s probably the wrong coach for this year’s Canes, and realize that they probably won’t fire him no matter how bad things get.

Everything looks worse. Who’s bright idea was it to ask when Mo has to go?

Looked at the fallout. I’ve been defending the Harrison signing by saying Maurice coached him in Toronto and knows defensive talent. Now I’m worried more about Harrison keeping a better prospect in Charlotte because Harrison is Maurice’s kind of guy. God knows Harrison won’t go off on some crazy offensive binge. He won’t do anything crazy like scoring overtime goals that beat the Bruins. Maybe that’s why Maurice loves him and the Canes have locked him up on a one-way contract.

Please convince me I was right to be optimistic before and I’m wrong now. Get me off this one-way elevator to doom! And please tell me the season starts tomorrow.

To start with, where did the idea Mo couldn’t coach young players start? Not with the 2002 Canes I’m sure. Not with his stint with the Marlies, where Toronto gave him credit for developing some of their young players. Not last year, where the influx of new players flourished under Mo. Mo has a basic system, that requires defensive resposibility, but I haven’t seen any real evidence that he or his coaches stifle creativity. I have seen many cases of defensemen taking shots near the net. The system just requires a rotation of a forward back to cover. Believe it or not, so did Laviolette. I’m not saying Mo is the greatest of all time, or even close, but I really think that too many Canes fans are negative about him,. without being able to use the same old arguments, many of which don’t hold up. I think Mo is capable of using the talent given him. This team is worlds better than the early 2000’s teams, talent wise, including the 2002 team that surprised the league by going to the SCF. I know I’m in the minority, but I think Mo will do as good a job as can be done developing this team, and I think the youngsters are in good hands with this staff.

Me too.

1 I thought I read somewhere that JR sold his shares back a while back. Could be wrong on that, but I thought I saw an article saying he no longer had a part of the team.
2 I am not sure coaching is what Ronnie is being groomed for. I think a front office job is in his future. Just my opinion.
3 I think JR and PK are more interested in how the players develope and fit this year. I’m not saying they aren’t rooting hard to make the playoffs, but they have as much as said that developement is the key this year. If that’s true, then the teams record will not necessarily be the criteria they use for judging Mo’s effectiveness.