Guy Boucher is still available

[MaxVerstappen33]

On 11/1/2021 at 8:37 AM, HighOnHockey said:

Guy Boucher was an assistant coach for two U18 Canada gold medals, and one WJHC gold medal. He was the one in charge of that devastating powerplay in 2009 with I believe it was Ellis on the point and Subban in the high slot. Seems to me that was long before the 1-3-1 style PP became prevalent across the NHL. It was certainly new to me as a fan, and remains a little unique in that it utilized a 2nd defenseman in what we would now call the "bumper" position. He also won a QMJHL championship in 2009 and then was named AHL coach of the year in 2010, leading his team to the conference finals as a rookie pro head coach.

 

As a first time NHL head coach, he joined a young, fringe playoff team in Tampa Bay in 2010/'11 and immediately led them to the Eastern Conference Finals. He was let go two years later and went over to Switzerland and won the league championship in his second season, and was let go a year later. He also won a Spengler Cup while he was there.

 

He was then hired by the Ottawa Senators, and once again immediately led his new team to the Eastern Conference Finals, and this time within a game seven overtime goal away from the Finals. But again, he was let go not much more than a year later. This time he has opted not to go overseas or accept any minor or junior coaching positions, and is instead is waiting around, hoping for another NHL opportunity.

 

Quite the list of accolades, but it also leaves a lot of questions. Why was he let go so shortly after such success in both Tampa and Ottawa (and I suppose Bern too)? Did he lose the room? Did other teams get wise to his strategies? Perhaps, but he has pretty good excuses in both Tampa and Ottawa. For one thing, neither team really deserved to make it as far as they did, but it was due to his coaching brilliance that they had the success they had, thus creating unrealistic expectations for him going forward. Also in Tampa, they relied on a 41 year old Dwayne Roloson for that 2011 run, and as he rapidly declined after that, their goaltending situation was unsustainable. In Ottawa the situation was very public and well-known, starting from a megalomaniac owner threatening to move the team, down to a toxic locker room situation headlined by a feud between Erik Karlsson and Mike Hoffman.

 

There are at least three things Boucher is particularly known for as a coach:

 

1. His intricate, stifling neutral zone defense. We all remember the Tampa-Philly incident, where Philly refused to exit their defensive zone absent of any kind of forecheck from Tampa whatsoever. I recall listening to Torterella with Columbus repeatedly talking about how unique Ottawa's neutral zone was and how tough it was to crack. I also recall Sid Crosby on Spittin' Chiclets, the hosts were having a laugh about how boring Ottawa's defense was when Pittsburgh played them in 2017, and Sid looked like he was having PTSD flashbacks, "man, that was such a tough defense to play against, nobody wanted to play them." Basically, with the rise of the corsi era staring around 2010 or 2011, the fast-paced back-and-forth hockey of the early post-lockout years came to an end, and the teams that dominated offensive zone possession won playoff rounds. Boucher's system intended to counter this by as much as possible not allowing the opponent to gain the zone in the first place. The strategy was highlighted by the defense jumping up aggressively in the neutral zone to help prevent the zone entry.

 

2. He designs his team's strategies around the star players, and gets the most out of those players. Stamkos and St. Louis both had some of the best years of their careers under Boucher in Tampa. After Matt Cooke stomped Erik Karlsson's achilles tendon it was thought that Karlsson would never be the same. But he ended up having arguably the best year of his career in 2017 under Guy Boucher. Certainly his performance on that playoff run was legendary, and one of the greatest individual performances I've ever seen.

 

3. He likes to play veterans he knows and trusts. This was the big thing Sens fans were calling for his head over in 2019. Fans wanted to play some kids, but Boucher unwaveringly kept returning to Tom Pyatt and Nate Thompson, who knew his systems and executed them faithfully, in addition to being consummate professionals and trustworthy penalty-killers. In retrospect, the kids the fans wanted to play clearly weren't ready, and mostly ended up needing another couple years in AHL or else never amounted to much at all. There was clearly a rift between Boucher and GM Pierre Dorion, who had gone out and acquired guys like Pyatt, Thompson and Burrows at Boucher's behest when they were trying to contend, and then a couple years later when it was time to rebuild, Boucher refused to play the kids and kept playing his trusted veterans.

 

What do people think? Does this sound like a good fit for the Canucks' current situation? I was thinking as with Karlsson, Hughes would be a perfect fit in Boucher's system, using his skating to jump up and break up entries in the neutral zone and create offense out of the transition.

Yes. I bumped it. Its worth a read again since we are here again

 

Biggest knock is the young players. But all of these systems coaches are like that. AV , Tharrien, guys from the Q. 

 

They will play young guys that fit. What's worse for them ? All the losing? 

 

Edit : And you know who first hired him into the NHL ? Steve Yzerman.  

Edited November 15, 2022 by MaxVerstappen33