Green and his assistants - not the men for this job

[aGENT]

2 minutes ago, Dazzle said:

To be honest, Green and his staff had a great game tonight. He addressed a lot of the problems in one game, but we will have to see how consistent this will be.

Coaches coach. Players play/execute. We had basically no preseason, a bunch of new players, a bunch of young players and a new guy who hadn't played in almost a year and had zero practice time. The first week or so was unfortunately our preseason.

 

[/end panic]

[Dazzle]

Just now, aGENT said:

Coaches coach. Players play/execute. We had basically no preseason, a bunch of new players, a bunch of young players and a new guy who hadn't played in almost a year and had zero practice time. The first week or so was unfortunately our preseason.

 

[/end panic]

Every team had faced the same issue. Some games the Canucks played okay. Some games were awful. This game was a fresh change. If the Canucks can build off this, maybe they can be respectable towards the end of the season.

[-DLC-]

Quit the back and forth arguing.....also, talk of unregulated gambling on the site is prohibited.

[kanucks25]

Better as of late, but how much does that have to do with goaltending (again)? Demko 1st star of the week.

 

On one hand, the goalie is part of the team and you don't apologize for him playing well. On the other hand, is it sustainable? We did settle down as the game went on but that first period against the Jets could have gotten ugly if Demko didn't stand on his head.

 

Been better overall since that Montreal series but then again, it would have been hard to be worse, especially against the tire-fire that is the Senators.

 

This upcoming game will be a good test.

[The Lock]

50 minutes ago, kanucks25 said:

Better as of late, but how much does that have to do with goaltending (again)? Demko 1st star of the week.

 

On one hand, the goalie is part of the team and you don't apologize for him playing well. On the other hand, is it sustainable? We did settle down as the game went on but that first period against the Jets could have gotten ugly if Demko didn't stand on his head.

 

Been better overall since that Montreal series but then again, it would have been hard to be worse, especially against the tire-fire that is the Senators.

 

This upcoming game will be a good test.

My question to this would be is anything "sustainable"? Take any team in the league and you'll see times where their offense is on fire or dries up, their defense looks good or had holes in it, and their goalies are playing well or lets in too many goals. Just sometimes it goes one way more than it goes another. Therefore, I don't know if sustainability is the answer so much as just overall being decent. That average over the season is what's going to determine a team's standings moreso than the momentum at a given point in time.

 

So short term, sure: sustainable could be a question. Long term however: how often will we see these highs more than we will the lows, because we WILL see both. Every team sees both. Ultimately, it's the long term that will determine if we make the playoffs.

Edited February 1, 2021 by The Lock

[kanucks25]

5 minutes ago, The Lock said:

My question to this would be is anything "sustainable"? Take any team in the league and you'll see times where their offense is on fire or dries up, their defense looks good or had holes in it, and their goalies are playing well or lets in too many goals. Just sometimes it goes one way more than it goes another. Therefore, I don't know if sustainability is the answer so much as just overall being decent. That average over the season is what's going to determine a team's standings moreso than the momentum at a given point in time.

 

So short term, sure: sustainable could be a question. Long term however: how often will we see these highs more than we will the lows, because we WILL see both. Every team sees both. Ultimately, it's the long term that will determine if we make the playoffs.

Good play is sustainable given you have a good team, usually.

 

The problem with this team is, over the past few years, whenever we've had success, our goaltending has been elite and then whenever it's not, we don't look so good. And that's fine, because at this point we're not supposed to be a Cup favorite or anything.

 

But it's an important discussion point in terms of Green's value to and future with the team. To me, if we only win when our goalie is by far the best player on the ice, there's something to be desired there when it comes to coaching.

[The Lock]

Just now, kanucks25 said:

Good play is sustainable given you have a good team, usually.

 

The problem with this team is, over the past few years, whenever we've had success, our goaltending has been elite and then whenever it's not, we don't look so good. And that's fine, because at this point we're not supposed to be a Cup favorite or anything.

 

But it's an important discussion point in terms of Green's value to and future with the team. To me, if we only win when our goalie is by far the best player on the ice, there's something to be desired there when it comes to coaching.

I honestly don't see how that fully relates to coaching. I see that more as team makeup than anything else.

 

Let's take Tampa Bay as an example who just won the cup. Cooper looks like a great coach since they won. The year before, everyone was saying he was a terrible coach when they got swept and he didn't look all that concerned or upset. So we could argue Cooper had a lot to do with them winning the cup or we could also argue that the team just wanted revenge from the year before and Cooper might not have had much to do with it.

 

I guess what it really comes down to is how much you think the coach has to do with everything. I think it matters some in terms of line changes and strategy while on the ice, but overall motivation I think has a lot more to do with whether or not that team's actually good or not.

[aGENT]

17 minutes ago, kanucks25 said:

The problem with this team is, over the past few years, whenever we've had success, our goaltending has been elite and then whenever it's not, we don't look so good. 

 

IMO, that depends HIGHLY on how the team is playing in front of our goalies.

 

Team plays well and mostly only allows low percentage shots from the outside and clears majority of rebounds... Goalie looks fantastic! Team has poor coverage, give aways etc (the beginning of our season) and the goalies look middling-poor.

 

This also happens league wide. It's not just a Canuck issue.

 

Team sport... Funny that.

[kanucks25]

21 minutes ago, The Lock said:

I guess what it really comes down to is how much you think the coach has to do with everything. I think it matters some in terms of line changes and strategy while on the ice, but overall motivation I think has a lot more to do with whether or not that team's actually good or not.

I agree team makeup has a lot to do with it, a coach can only do so much with the players he has.

 

But a coach can also get the most out of what he has - "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts"

 

I don't know if we're seeing that here. I think the players that are going to play well regardless of coach are doing their thing, but I'm not seeing anything when it comes to deployment, line combinations, system, etc. that makes me think "wow, on paper we're just average but we're playing great anyway".

 

11 minutes ago, aGENT said:

 

IMO, that depends HIGHLY on how the team is playing in front of our goalies.

 

Team plays well and mostly only allows low percentage shots from the outside and clears majority of rebounds... Goalie looks fantastic! Team has poor coverage, give aways etc (the beginning of our season) and the goalies look middling-poor.

 

This also happens league wide. It's not just a Canuck issue.

 

Team sport... Funny that.

I don't follow your point. Our goalies have been looking great in spite of the play in front of them, that's the problem (the unsustainable thing).

 

Currently we're 5th worst in the league in expected goals against and 4th worst in high danger scoring chances against (both per 60).

 

I imagine you watched Markstrom during most of the season last year and Demko in the playoffs, it was more of the same.

[aGENT]

6 minutes ago, kanucks25 said:

I agree team makeup has a lot to do with it, a coach can only do so much with the players he has.

 

But a coach can also get the most out of what he has - "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts"

 

I don't know if we're seeing that here. I think the players that are going to play well regardless of coach are doing their thing, but I'm not seeing anything when it comes to deployment, line combinations, system, etc. that makes me think "wow, on paper we're just average but we're playing great anyway".

 

I don't follow your point. Our goalies have been looking great in spite of the play in front of them, that's the problem (the unsustainable thing).

 

Currently we're 5th worst in the league in expected goals against and 4th worst in high danger scoring chances against (both per 60).

 

I imagine you watched Markstrom during most of the season last year and Demko in the playoffs, it was more of the same.

That's because we were AWFUL with our coverage, give aways etc until the last few games. We were beating up on Ottawa because they're not a good team (and yes we got solid net minding), not because we were playing worlds better in front of our goalies (though there were some improvements).

 

Really the last two periods of the WPG game was the first, consistent player execution of what the coaches are coaching. What do the stats say about those two periods?

 

Edited February 1, 2021 by aGENT

[The Lock]

Just now, kanucks25 said:

I agree team makeup has a lot to do with it, a coach can only do so much with the players he has.

 

But a coach can also get the most out of what he has - "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts"

 

I don't know if we're seeing that here. I think the players that are going to play well regardless of coach are doing their thing, but I'm not seeing anything when it comes to deployment, line combinations, system, etc. that makes me think "wow, on paper we're just average but we're playing great anyway".

Could you perhaps elaborate on this a little more? What line combinations would you prefer to see that would make us play great or make you go "wow"?

[kanucks25]

8 minutes ago, aGENT said:

That's because we were AWFUL with our coverage, give aways etc until the last few games. We were beating up on Ottawa because they're not a good team (and yes we got solid net minding), not because we were playing worlds better in front of our goalies (though there were some improvements).

 

Really the last two periods of the WPG game was the first, consistent player execution of what the coaches are coaching. What do the stats say about those two periods?

 

Still not getting your overall point, to be honest.

 

Yes, whenever we're playing well it's as if the team is doing what the coaching staff is telling them to do but, how often do we play well? Based on the numbers in my previous post, we've been pretty bad throughout the season, at least defensively (which is where coaching can make a difference).

 

So it's either the coach isn't very good, or the players aren't very good, or there's a disconnect of some sort (which might have been the case if this was Green's first year on the job, which it obviously is not).

 

11 minutes ago, The Lock said:

Could you perhaps elaborate on this a little more? What line combinations would you prefer to see that would make us play great or make you go "wow"?

Well the first thing that jumps out to me is issues in transition defence: seems like the players are told to step up on and pressure puck carriers to take away their time and space to make a play, but our players are often too late on the spot and/or don't intercept enough passes. This has led to the plethora of clean odd-man rushes we've given up. Perhaps a more passive strategy would work better, where the D-men back up and allow their back-checkers to back-pressure.

 

Now the issue here could just be the players aren't executing the strategy correctly, because this type of aggressive transition defence is pretty common, or just that the personnel isn't right for it.

 

Another issue has been sloppy transition offense, especially in our own zone. Again, not sure if this has to do with what the coaches are telling the players to do once they get the puck, or if the players have just been extremely sloppy themselves.

 

Little things like these add up, which brings me back to the question: is the team playing better than what you would expect given the roster on paper? Coaches can't necessarily teach snipers how to pick corners better or playmakers how to improve their IQ, but defensive structure, discipline, habits, etc. are well within a coach's domain.

 

If this was a new issue I'd say Green needs more time to work out the kinks but it's not; it's been a theme under Green since he's been on the job. So, not to be so extreme, but either he hasn't done a good enough job of implementing the structure or the roster he's been given is so inept as a whole defensively that no matter what he does, we're never going to be solid in our half of the ice.

[J-P]

23 minutes ago, The Lock said:

Could you perhaps elaborate on this a little more? What line combinations would you prefer to see that would make us play great or make you go "wow"?

As with most coaches it goes both ways. Green definitely lacks creativity at times (Rousell staying to long in the lineup, waiting too long to remove Gaudette from 3C when it wasn't working etc) but on the other hand playing EP at C straight away, giving Hogs the top 6 spot right away, giving Chatfield a long rope (he did make some mistakes early on) are all decisions many coaches wouldn't dare to make and that has changed the team for the better in a hurry. 

[aGENT]

4 minutes ago, kanucks25 said:

Still not getting your overall point, to be honest.

 

Yes, whenever we're playing well it's as if the team is doing what the coaching staff is telling them to do but, how often do we play well? Based on the numbers in my previous post, we've been pretty bad throughout the season, at least defensively (which is where coaching can make a difference).

 

So it's either the coach isn't very good, or the players aren't very good, or there's a disconnect of some sort (which might have been the case if this was Green's first year on the job, which it obviously is not).

 

Well the first thing that jumps out to me is issues in transition defence: seems like the players are told to step up on and pressure puck carriers to take away their time and space to make a play, but our players are often too late on the spot and/or don't intercept enough passes. This has led to the plethora of clean odd-man rushes we've given up. Perhaps a more passive strategy would work better, where the D-men back up and allow their back-checkers to back-pressure.

 

Now the issue here could just be the players aren't executing the strategy correctly, because this type of aggressive transition defence is pretty common, or just that the personnel isn't right for it.

 

Another issue has been sloppy transition offense, especially in our own zone. Again, not sure if this has to do with what the coaches are telling the players to do once they get the puck, or if the players have just been extremely sloppy themselves.

 

Little things like these add up, which brings me back to the question: is the team playing better than what you would expect given the roster on paper? Coaches can't necessarily teach snipers how to pick corners better or playmakers how to improve their IQ, but defensive structure, discipline, habits, etc. are well within a coach's domain.

 

If this was a new issue I'd say Green needs more time to work out the kinks but it's not; it's been a theme under Green since he's been on the job. So, not to be so extreme, but either he hasn't done a good enough job of implementing the structure or the roster he's been given is so inept as a whole defensively that no matter what he does, we're never going to be solid in our half of the ice.

Coaches coach. Players need to play/execute. The players struggled to do that for the first week'ish for quite a few pretty obvious reasons.

 

None of which are coaching or personnel related.

Edited February 1, 2021 by aGENT

[The Lock]

4 minutes ago, kanucks25 said:

Still not getting your overall point, to be honest.

 

Yes, whenever we're playing well it's as if the team is doing what the coaching staff is telling them to do but, how often do we play well? Based on the numbers in my previous post, we've been pretty bad throughout the season, at least defensively (which is where coaching can make a difference).

 

So it's either the coach isn't very good, or the players aren't very good, or there's a disconnect of some sort (which might have been the case if this was Green's first year on the job, which it obviously is not).

 

Well the first thing that jumps out to me is issues in transition defence: seems like the players are told to step up on and pressure puck carriers to take away their time and space to make a play, but our players are often too late on the spot and/or don't intercept enough passes. This has led to the plethora of clean odd-man rushes we've given up. Perhaps a more passive strategy would work better, where the D-men back up and allow their back-checkers to back-pressure.

 

Now the issue here could just be the players aren't executing the strategy correctly, because this type of aggressive transition defence is pretty common, or just that the personnel isn't right for it.

 

Another issue has been sloppy transition offense, especially in our own zone. Again, not sure if this has to do with what the coaches are telling the players to do once they get the puck, or if the players have just been extremely sloppy themselves.

 

Little things like these add up, which brings me back to the question: is the team playing better than what you would expect given the roster on paper? Coaches can't necessarily teach snipers how to pick corners better or playmakers how to improve their IQ, but defensive structure, discipline, habits, etc. are well within a coach's domain.

 

If this was a new issue I'd say Green needs more time to work out the kinks but it's not; it's been a theme under Green since he's been on the job. So, not to be so extreme, but either he hasn't done a good enough job of implementing the structure or the roster he's been given is so inept as a whole defensively that no matter what he does, we're never going to be solid in our half of the ice.

First of all, thank you for elaborating.

 

It strikes me that there's a lot of different styles of play throughout the league and that often times the best strategy depends on the makeup of your team. I remember with AV, the style of play would often depend on the team being played against; however, we also had a multiple president's trophy winner of a team during that time and could afford playing different styles.

 

Obviously with that though, one could argue the coach needs to be able to adapt to the personnel on the team. That being said, this same thing's also happening with the other team when choosing what to do against us, so perhaps then the more versatile team has more chances of having that advantage throughout the season, which then circles back to the makeup of the team. Yes, strategy's involved, but having that larger toolbox of abilities gives the coach more to work with.

 

So my personal take on whether or not the team's playing better than their roster on paper, with perhaps a very anti-climatic answer: it's complicated. First of all, I fully understand why we don't have these players anymore, but I also ask what are our roster expectations without Tanev or Markstrom or Toffoli? What ever are our expectations with so many developing players in their early 20's? Do we base our expectations on the playoffs from last year or do we also take into account that we don't have all of those players anymore and that we have new ones on the roster still learning the systems without even a pre-season? There's a lot moving parts at the moment in all of our positions.

 

You mention it not being a new issue. Perhaps that's true, but also perhaps we should be looking for more context with all of this. With consideration of my previous paragraph: the fact that we have an evolving roster and the fact that we didn't have a pre-season, I am of the mindset that it would be almost miraculous to see this team playing with the systems as accurately as you're eluding to. I think we need to give this team time. It's an odd season and in an ideal world, we should just be finishing pre-season at this point given the number of games we've played. I guess we'll see from here on out basically.

[kanucks25]

1 hour ago, aGENT said:

Coaches coach. Players need to play/execute. The players struggled to do that for the first week'ish for quite a few pretty obvious reasons.

 

None of which are coaching or personnel related.

Well then... sunshine, lollipops and rainbows.

 

1 hour ago, The Lock said:

So my personal take on whether or not the team's playing better than their roster on paper, with perhaps a very anti-climatic answer: it's complicated.

Can't argue with that

 

 

1 hour ago, The Lock said:

I also ask what are our roster expectations without Tanev or Markstrom or Toffoli? What ever are our expectations with so many developing players in their early 20's? Do we base our expectations on the playoffs from last year or do we also take into account that we don't have all of those players anymore and that we have new ones on the roster still learning the systems without even a pre-season? There's a lot moving parts at the moment in all of our positions.

My personal expectations? Not extremely high. With those players we were a good team, I think without them we're back down to average. I'm not very bullish on this D group or the roster as a whole when it comes to the defensive side of the game, so I don't necessarily expect us to be a shutdown team. But, at the same time, I think we can/should be better than we have been.

 

1 hour ago, The Lock said:

You mention it not being a new issue. Perhaps that's true, but also perhaps we should be looking for more context with all of this. With consideration of my previous paragraph: the fact that we have an evolving roster and the fact that we didn't have a pre-season, I am of the mindset that it would be almost miraculous to see this team playing with the systems as accurately as you're eluding to. I think we need to give this team time. It's an odd season and in an ideal world, we should just be finishing pre-season at this point given the number of games we've played. I guess we'll see from here on out basically.

 

Going to have to disagree here, because:

1) every team is in the same boat

2) our roster turnover wasn't drastic - a couple forwards, a couple D-men, that sounds like any other year (and the goalie change isn't going to make that much of a difference system wise, at least not in our case)

 

So, is it a weird year? Yes.

Is it still relatively early? Yes.

Do I believe that by a few month's time, Green will have the team running like a well-oiled machine? Nothing so far in his tenure really convinces me. So wait and see, I guess. Like I've said in other posts/threads, I think Green needs to actually show us something that suggests some of our success can be attributed to him instead of being directly correlated to how insane our goalie is playing.

Edited February 1, 2021 by kanucks25

[The Lock]

4 minutes ago, kanucks25 said:

Going to have to disagree here, because:

1) every team is in the same boat

2) our roster turnover wasn't drastic - a couple forwards, a couple D-men, that's sounds like any other year (and the goalie change isn't going to make that much of a difference system wise, at least not in our case)

 

So, is it a weird year? Yes.

Is it still relatively early? Yes.

Do I believe that by a few month's time, Green will have the team running like a well-oiled machine? Nothing so far in his tenure really convinces me. So wait and see, I guess. Like I've said in other posts/threads, I think Green needs to actually show us something that suggests some of our success can be attributed to him instead of being directly correlated to how insane our goalie is playing.

One thing I want to point out with this is that, while every team is in the same boat, momentum's going to then be more interesting at the beginning. Because most teams won't be up to speed at the beginning, the ones like Montreal and Toronto who are off to a good start are partially off to that good start because they were able to feed off of teams that were not ready without a pre-season. It's not necessarily that those teams played their best hockey. It's more relative to the other teams in the division than anything else.

 

Just something else to consider with all of this. Sure, every team started in the same boat, but that makes those first couple of games ever so more impactful while also requiring a little less team chemistry than normal. They just needed enough chemistry to win and gain the initial momentum.

[aGENT]

9 minutes ago, kanucks25 said:

Well then... sunshine, lollipops and rainbows.

Not remotely what I'm saying. The players needed to execute better. Recently they are. That doesn't mean there isn't still work to do or that they can assume they will simply stay at that level. Every day you need to work and improve.

 

Quote

Going to have to disagree here, because:

1) every team is in the same boat

Every team is in a similar boat. Or at least in regards to the pandemic/preseason it's the same. But not much else is.

 

They don't all have the same roster. They don't all have the same young core. They didn't all make as many offseason changes. They didn't all bring in a dman who hadn't played in a year and had zero practice time, they all haven't had one of the league's busiest schedules so far etc etc.

 

That's a hilariously oversimplified take (same goes for you @Dazzle).

Edited February 1, 2021 by aGENT

[Dazzle]

11 minutes ago, aGENT said:

Not remotely what I'm saying. The players needed to execute better. Recently they are. That doesn't mean there isn't still work to do or that they can assume they will simply stay at that level. Every day you need to work and improve.

 

Every team is in a similar boat. Or at least in regards to the pandemic/preseason it's the same. But not much else is.

 

They don't all have the same roster. They don't all have the same young core. They didn't all make as many offseason changes. They didn't all bring in a dman who hadn't played in a year and had zero practice time, they all haven't had one of the league's busiest schedules so far etc etc.

 

That's a hilariously oversimplified take (same goes for you @Dazzle).

I agree - similar would have been a better word choice.

[kanucks25]

 

3 hours ago, aGENT said:

They don't all have the same roster. They don't all have the same young core.

Yes, we do have a younger team, but the problem is it's not necessarily just the young guys that have been making the mistakes. All our D-men have been inconsistent at best, Myers had one of the worst games I've ever seen anyone play earlier in the season against Montreal and Miller just had a similar showing tonight (albeit Miller has been very good otherwise). Point is, everyone on the team is taking turns playing bad and it's not just the under 22's.

 

3 hours ago, aGENT said:

they all haven't had one of the league's busiest schedules so far etc etc.

So which is it? We have or haven't had enough time to gel as a team? Because if one of your excuses is no pre-season (in other words, team isn't playing as well because not enough practice time together) then surely more reps would be beneficial? Or have we had too many games that it's causing fatigue? Or is there some sort of magical middle-ground here that you're aware of?

 

3 hours ago, Dazzle said:

I agree - similar would have been a better word choice.

"same"... "similar"

 

Useless semantics that my imaginary girlfriend would argue with me about.

 

Unless someone can give me some sort of tangible evidence that we were affected by COVID and no pre-season significantly more than average, it's not an excuse.

 

Tonight was our 12th game and quite possibly our worst when it comes to the issues I've brought up... if no pre-season even was a legit excuse, it's simply not anymore.

Edited February 2, 2021 by kanucks25