tOfficial 21-22 NHL Season thread

Hoping Eichel is clear to start soon. Hoping for an uptick in production. Buffalo players typically shine once they leave that abyss.
 
What's that DJ Khaled thing again?

www.nbcchicago.com

Blackhawks Fire AHL Trainer After Alleged Sexual Harassment

The Chicago Blackhawks fired a longtime minor-league trainer in November after he was accused of sexual harassment
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Another One Mtv Emas GIF by 2020 MTV EMA


I do suppose that not ignoring it shows progress though.
 
outshot the Pens by 20 and lose 4-2. holy lol
 
How important is the role of a NHL coach? Watching games and most of these guys just stand behind the bench looking down on the players, looking completely pissed off and during time outs it looks like an assistant coach is the one drawing up plays.

Also, the turnover of a head coach in the NHL seems pretty fast and besides the coach who's last name starts with Q I don't reallly know of any big name popular NHL coaches.

I mean as far as how important their role is, are they like NFL type role? or more like an MLB manager role?
 
OregonDucks said:
How important is the role of a NHL coach?
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In the NHL, you gotta get the right coach for the right players. For example, Dave Tippett just got fired in Edmonton. Tippett never fit Edmonton's roster of players. Tippett is a structurally-sound defense-first coach. Edmonton's roster is a collection of free-wheeling offense-first players. Tippett had solid & overachieving successes when he had defense-first players who bought into and correctly ran his system. He couldn't get buy-in from his players in Edmonton.

And to that point - that's one key reason why Connor McDavid is overrated. Yeah, he's supremely talented and can score, but he doesn't do everything that needs to be done to win games or be a good captain. Back in the day, Steve Yzerman could fill the net with the best of them, but he didn't start winning until he fully embraced Scotty Bowman's commitment to defense and subsequently led the rest of the guys on the ice in that mentality. Connor needs to model his game after Yzerman if he ever wants to touch the Cup. He had a good opportunity with Tippett but chose non-conformance and here his sits buried in another year of underachievement.
 
Flavortown Tebow said:
The coyotes will be playing in a fucking shed for the next 3 years. Why not jump on their party train now OD?
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Way back when when I thought I’d get into NHL I did consider the coyotes as I thought there was a chance they’d eventually move to Portland.

Their new old logo is awesome though
 
RP-29 said:
In the NHL, you gotta get the right coach for the right players. For example, Dave Tippett just got fired in Edmonton. Tippett never fit Edmonton's roster of players. Tippett is a structurally-sound defense-first coach. Edmonton's roster is a collection of free-wheeling offense-first players. Tippett had solid & overachieving successes when he had defense-first players who bought into and correctly ran his system. He couldn't get buy-in from his players in Edmonton.

And to that point - that's one key reason why Connor McDavid is overrated. Yeah, he's supremely talented and can score, but he doesn't do everything that needs to be done to win games or be a good captain. Back in the day, Steve Yzerman could fill the net with the best of them, but he didn't start winning until he fully embraced Scotty Bowman's commitment to defense and subsequently led the rest of the guys on the ice in that mentality. Connor needs to model his game after Yzerman if he ever wants to touch the Cup. He had a good opportunity with Tippett but chose non-conformance and here his sits buried in another year of underachievement.
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See, I think that a good coach should try to develop/adapt/use a (best) system for the players that are on the roster rather than the players that he wishes he had on the roster. I've never bought into the idea that there's only one way to play and one way to win games.

I also think that Lidstrom and Fedorov maturing and becoming big stars had a lot to do with the Red Wings enjoying greater success in Yzerman's later years but it's not as good a story.
 
DragonFromTo said:
See, I think that a good coach should try to develop/adapt/use a (best) system for the players that are on the roster rather than the players that he wishes he had on the roster. I've never bought into the idea that there's only one way to play and one way to win games.

I also think that Lidstrom and Fedorov maturing and becoming big stars had a lot to do with the Red Wings enjoying greater success in Yzerman's later years but it's not as good a story.
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Both good points.

I agree the best coaches adapt. To expand on my point, though, the best players adapt too. There's always some personal sacrifice/adjustment to become successful. Another example: Ovie couldn't win in the playoffs until he bought into Trotz's system.
 
RP-29 said:
Both good points.

I agree the best coaches adapt. To expand on my point, though, the best players adapt too. There's always some personal sacrifice/adjustment to become successful. Another example: Ovie couldn't win in the playoffs until he bought into Trotz's system.
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I like Trotz and think he's an excellent coach but I'm not sure that I buy the Ovie narrative entirely either though. I'm not convinced that their win wasn't largely just a case of a really good team that just kept hacking away until they hit paydirt. There's no story (and no outsized "credit" for anyone) in that explanation though so I understand why you'll never hear it from the media and/or the players. And as I said, I don't say that to throw shade on Trotz at all or suggest that he had no impact.

Ovie also has had a much better supporting cast around him, even during the years when they were winning games but not the Cup. The problem with the Oilers really isn't McDavid (or Draisaitl for that matter) but what's been built around them. But I find that the best players on bad teams always get "blamed" because they are generally one of few roster constants and they have "expectations" on them (plus if you're talking about shaking things up with trades they are usually the only ones with real trade value).

I think that Stevie's point drop had as much to do with aging and Fedorov's emergence as anything. He may have decided to play a different style and that may have come after a conversation with Bowman. But I guess I think that his role (and his scoring totals) were going to change as he aged no matter who his coach was (it's certainly to his credit that he embraced this of course).

I absolutely agree that the best players can and should adapt their games when needed. But I'm not similarly convinced that changing McDavid's game and potentially bottling him up is the right way to get the best results from him (and the team) that you can get.
 
DragonFromTo said:
I like Trotz and think he's an excellent coach but I'm not sure that I buy the Ovie narrative entirely either though. I'm not convinced that their win wasn't largely just a case of a really good team that just kept hacking away until they hit paydirt. There's no story (and no outsized "credit" for anyone) in that explanation though so I understand why you'll never hear it from the media and/or the players. And as I said, I don't say that to throw shade on Trotz at all or suggest that he had no impact.

Ovie also has had a much better supporting cast around him, even during the years when they were winning games but not the Cup. The problem with the Oilers really isn't McDavid (or Draisaitl for that matter) but what's been built around them. But I find that the best players on bad teams always get "blamed" because they are generally one of few roster constants and they have "expectations" on them (plus if you're talking about shaking things up with trades they are usually the only ones with real trade value).

I think that Stevie's point drop had as much to do with aging and Fedorov's emergence as anything. He may have decided to play a different style and that may have come after a conversation with Bowman. But I guess I think that his role (and his scoring totals) were going to change as he aged no matter who his coach was (it's certainly to his credit that he embraced this of course).

I absolutely agree that the best players can and should adapt their games when needed. But I'm not similarly convinced that changing McDavid's game and potentially bottling him up is the right way to get the best results from him (and the team) that you can get.
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I agree that McDavid is held back by what has been built around him, but strong onus is on him as the captain of the team to ensure he and everyone under him is buying into the coach's philosophy and everyone is moving in the same direction. I myself am middle management (a team captain) and one of my top responsibilities is exactly that. The more successful I am at leading my guys in the same direction, the more success we have as a team and a business.

Some people are given leadership positions before they're mature enough to handle them properly and I believe McDavid falls into that category. He's 25 now and that's about the time most humans start to learn appropriate leadership skills. We'll see how he grows from here. Regardless of his growth as a leader, he will probably continue to struggle to win playoff series as long as he's in Edmonton and Ken Holland is the GM.

I saw an interview of Stevie Y where he directly credited Bowman for reshaping his game into winning hockey and he admitted that he initially resisted Bowman's direction. (I didn't find a clip of it on YouTube through a couple of quick searches, but it's probably out there somewhere.)
 
RP-29 said:
I agree that McDavid is held back by what has been built around him, but strong onus is on him as the captain of the team to ensure he and everyone under him is buying into the coach's philosophy and everyone is moving in the same direction. I myself am middle management (a team captain) and one of my top responsibilities is exactly that. The more successful I am at leading my guys in the same direction, the more success we have as a team and a business.

Some people are given leadership positions before they're mature enough to handle them properly and I believe McDavid falls into that category. He's 25 now and that's about the time most humans start to learn appropriate leadership skills. We'll see how he grows from here. Regardless of his growth as a leader, he will probably continue to struggle to win playoff series as long as he's in Edmonton and Ken Holland is the GM.

I saw an interview of Stevie Y where he directly credited Bowman for reshaping his game into winning hockey and he admitted that he initially resisted Bowman's direction. (I didn't find a clip of it on YouTube through a couple of quick searches, but it's probably out there somewhere.)
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I know that Stevie says that, Dryden wrote all about it in his book on Bowman, it's a story that gets told every time two old print columnists have a beer. What I'm wondering is whether or not his role/game would have had to change anyway.

I don't feel qualified at all to comment on what is happening in the Oilers locker room, McDavid's leadership and personal attributes etc. Honestly I think you are largely guessing about McDavid's "leadership" largely based on the team results. And I honestly don't think it looks like getting guys to "buy-in" is a big source of their problems. It's all roster construction.
 
DragonFromTo said:
I know that Stevie says that, Dryden wrote all about it in his book on Bowman, it's a story that gets told every time two old print columnists have a beer. What I'm wondering is whether or not his role/game would have had to change anyway.

I don't feel qualified at all to comment on what is happening in the Oilers locker room, McDavid's leadership and personal attributes etc. Honestly I think you are largely guessing about McDavid's "leadership" largely based on the team results. And I honestly don't think it looks like getting guys to "buy-in" is a big source of their problems. It's all roster construction.
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Yeah, I'm not an Oilers insider. I am a pretty good analyst, though, and that's what I've seen out of the Oilers and McDavid. I'm not always right and maybe this time is one of those times, but given how we're getting the same results out of him and the Oilers with different rosters & coaches I'm pretty comfortable in those analytic conclusions. McDavid needs to become a better leader and have greater commitment to the full 200' game.

And note that I'm absolutely on the same page with you regarding roster construction being a big part of the problem, too; I just don't think that's the only problem. Ken Holland has been terrible since the hard salary cap was established and he's making the same dumbfounding moves in Edmonton that he did in Detroit that ran the Wings franchise into the ground.
 
RP-29 said:
Yeah, I'm not an Oilers insider. I am a pretty good analyst, though, and that's what I've seen out of the Oilers and McDavid. I'm not always right and maybe this time is one of those times, but given how we're getting the same results out of him and the Oilers with different rosters & coaches I'm pretty comfortable in those analytic conclusions. McDavid needs to become a better leader and have greater commitment to the full 200' game.

And note that I'm absolutely on the same page with you regarding roster construction being a big part of the problem, too; I just don't think that's the only problem. Ken Holland has been terrible since the hard salary cap was established and he's making the same dumbfounding moves in Edmonton that he did in Detroit that ran the Wings franchise into the ground.
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But how do you analyze McDavid's leadership and how it is affecting the team as a whole just by watching the Oilers play on TV though? What specifically have you seen? And do you not think that there might be some confirmation bias in play here? I think that once people think that a certain player has a particular flaw (especially if it's the kind of attribute that's not really perceptible) they start to "see" pieces of evidence everywhere ("oh look, his teammate got poked by someone and he didn't back him up!"). It's a very human thing.

It's kinda the same thing I talked about earlier... McDavid is the constant so there must be something wrong with him, and it must be something that affects other players as well. But why couldn't the explanation be that he's part of a shitty organization that makes mistakes every step of the way because it has problems from the top down? There seems to be more evidence for that hypothesis and it's the kind of thing that acquiring one special player is not going to be able to solve.
 
DragonFromTo said:
But how do you analyze McDavid's leadership and how it is affecting the team as a whole just by watching the Oilers play on TV though? What specifically have you seen? And do you not think that there might be some confirmation bias in play here? I think that once people think that a certain player has a particular flaw (especially if it's the kind of attribute that's not really perceptible) they start to "see" pieces of evidence everywhere ("oh look, his teammate got poked by someone and he didn't back him up!"). It's a very human thing.

It's kinda the same thing I talked about earlier... McDavid is the constant so there must be something wrong with him, and it must be something that affects other players as well. But why couldn't the explanation be that he's part of a shitty organization that makes mistakes every step of the way because it has problems from the top down? There seems to be more evidence for that hypothesis and it's the kind of thing that acquiring one special player is not going to be able to solve.
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What I've seen is that McDavid is a little too frequently lacking effort and engagement in the defensive end of the ice. In any environment, when your leader doesn't put his best effort into something, that same mentality trickles down to the rest of the group. If McDavid was more engaged defensively, you would see greater effort defensively from the rest of the Oilers players. Once they get that defensive buy-in from everyone, we'll see winning hockey in Edmonton.

One other note - Dave Tippett got some pretty garbage Coyotes rosters into the playoffs. He had no one anywhere near as talented as McDavid & Draisaitl, but he got buy-in.
 


For real though… after wanting an NHL team my whole life, having recently witnessed all the hoops that had to be jumped through and benchmarks that had to be met, this is just offensive.

We could have had a team years ago, they could play at our WHL arena.
 
TheDayMan said:


For real though… after wanting an NHL team my whole life, having recently witnessed all the hoops that had to be jumped through and benchmarks that had to be met, this is just offensive.

We could have had a team years ago, they could play at our WHL arena.
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Fiserv Forum - the brand new state-of-the-art arena in Milwaukee's "Deer District" - holds 17,000+, was built compatible with hockey, is in a sports fandom hotbed and has natural hockey rivalries just waiting to burst.

Hell, even the Resch Center in Green Bay across Oneida Street from Lambeau Field holds 10,000+. That place would be overflowing every night if the NHL held games there.

For realz... Bettman needs to give that Arizona shit up and move that franchise to a market that will appreciate it!
 
DragonFromTo said:
I like Trotz and think he's an excellent coach but I'm not sure that I buy the Ovie narrative entirely either though. I'm not convinced that their win wasn't largely just a case of a really good team that just kept hacking away until they hit paydirt. There's no story (and no outsized "credit" for anyone) in that explanation though so I understand why you'll never hear it from the media and/or the players. And as I said, I don't say that to throw shade on Trotz at all or suggest that he had no impact.

Ovie also has had a much better supporting cast around him, even during the years when they were winning games but not the Cup. The problem with the Oilers really isn't McDavid (or Draisaitl for that matter) but what's been built around them. But I find that the best players on bad teams always get "blamed" because they are generally one of few roster constants and they have "expectations" on them (plus if you're talking about shaking things up with trades they are usually the only ones with real trade value).

I think that Stevie's point drop had as much to do with aging and Fedorov's emergence as anything. He may have decided to play a different style and that may have come after a conversation with Bowman. But I guess I think that his role (and his scoring totals) were going to change as he aged no matter who his coach was (it's certainly to his credit that he embraced this of course).

I absolutely agree that the best players can and should adapt their games when needed. But I'm not similarly convinced that changing McDavid's game and potentially bottling him up is the right way to get the best results from him (and the team) that you can get.
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Well said. Year after year the guy that disappeared in the playoffs was Backstrom and everyone else. OV’s playoff numbers are really good and thankfully Holtby got his shit together for a change that year.
 
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