2018 franchise draft Quarterfinal series: Chicago Cougars vs. Ottawa Senators

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I'm surprised to see this from an experienced GM about a coach who regularly gets drafted as a top 10-ish coach in the ATD. Shero coached in the NHL for 10 years, went to 4 Cup Finals with 2 different teams, won his division in the regular season 4 times, won a Jack Adams trophy, finished runner-up for the Jack Adams with a different team (this was his first year with the Rangers, they had an 18 point improvement from the previous year). And on top of all of that, he was a great innovator, there are several examples in the following bio...Fred Shero - ATD 2011


Here's one innovation that's particularly relevant to this series...


Guess we'll have to settle for Patrick Roy instead

Not sure why so many people are so surprised that I have different opinions on a few things (ranking coach(s), or adjusting for missed years as we discussed earlier). We can't agree on everything, all the time.

Fred Shero to me, is overrated. His career as a coach wasn't particularly long, and at this level his only 2 real valuable years of note were the back to back titles. Those titles came with a niche playing style that was fairly quickly erased from the league (figured out so to speak) and I find him to be rather limited in terms of his ability to adapt on the fly. I got pushback in the ATD against Tommy Gorman because of his "limited" career and lack of any real value outside 2 Cup seasons. And Gorman was every bit as innovative, if not more so considering era, with the game and took a pair of low hanging fruit teams to titles, in back to back years. I'm aware of the couple of other close calls that Shero had but he also was bounced pretty handedly following the 75 title by Montreal (76 finals sweep) and Boston (77 semi finals sweep and 78 4-1 drubbing again in the semi's), hence why I think he's limited overall.

I think Toe Blake would eat Shero's lunch if we're matching wits and/or resumes. That's just based on historical and anecdotal evidence IMHO. I mean the Jack Adams award only began the year Shero won it. How many would Blake have won if it were around during his time? 7, 8. 9?

We're talking about somebody you could at least argue is the greatest coach of all time. A tough but still players coach, who simply won almost every time he got behind a bench. Now he's got his old war horse in Harvey, plus Bobby Orr on the back end with an elite C in Mikita anchoring things up front and a strong stable of top 6 wingers. He has very strong defensive C's in the bottom 6 to work with, one of whom (Kopitar) is a lot like Henri Richard in style and 2 way ability (Richard slightly better offensively, Kopitar slightly better defensively). Strong special teams units with players who fit the the Blake mold (ie, keeping stars off the PK, namely at F).

Hopefully it's a tight series because I honestly think overall our 2 teams are pretty even on the whole. Been a pleasure as always HT! Appreciate the back and forth sir.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Not sure why so many people are so surprised that I have different opinions on a few things (ranking coach(s), or adjusting for missed years as we discussed earlier). We can't agree on everything, all the time.

Fred Shero to me, is overrated. His career as a coach wasn't particularly long, and at this level his only 2 real valuable years of note were the back to back titles. Those titles came with a niche playing style that was fairly quickly erased from the league (figured out so to speak) and I find him to be rather limited in terms of his ability to adapt on the fly. I got pushback in the ATD against Tommy Gorman because of his "limited" career and lack of any real value outside 2 Cup seasons. And Gorman was every bit as innovative, if not more so considering era, with the game and took a pair of low hanging fruit teams to titles, in back to back years. I'm aware of the couple of other close calls that Shero had but he also was bounced pretty handedly following the 75 title by Montreal (76 finals sweep) and Boston (77 semi finals sweep and 78 4-1 drubbing again in the semi's), hence why I think he's limited overall.

I think Toe Blake would eat Shero's lunch if we're matching wits and/or resumes. That's just based on historical and anecdotal evidence IMHO. I mean the Jack Adams award only began the year Shero won it. How many would Blake have won if it were around during his time? 7, 8. 9?

We're talking about somebody you could at least argue is the greatest coach of all time. A tough but still players coach, who simply won almost every time he got behind a bench. Now he's got his old war horse in Harvey, plus Bobby Orr on the back end with an elite C in Mikita anchoring things up front and a strong stable of top 6 wingers. He has very strong defensive C's in the bottom 6 to work with, one of whom (Kopitar) is a lot like Henri Richard in style and 2 way ability (Richard slightly better offensively, Kopitar slightly better defensively). Strong special teams units with players who fit the the Blake mold (ie, keeping stars off the PK, namely at F).

Hopefully it's a tight series because I honestly think overall our 2 teams are pretty even on the whole. Been a pleasure as always HT! Appreciate the back and forth sir.

We definitely have a different opinion on what are valuable years of note if you only think Shero's 2 Cups winning years are the only ones that qualify. Making it to a Cup Final 2 other years is a tremendous feat, one of which was with a Rangers team that no one expected to be a contender.

I know several people were chiming in on Gorman during the ATD, but from my memory the great majority of the criticism was because of Gorman's fit with your team (particularly Gretzky) and not his worthiness as a top 10-ish coach all-time, the challenge of which was really only coming from one poster. Either way, you were championing Gorman's innovation in the ATD and now don't seem to be giving Shero any credit for his, for which there is mounds of information on the Bio I linked.

To be clear, I am not arguing Shero is better than Blake, coaching is an advantage for Ottawa.


I also have to address your Henri Richard/Kopitar comparison. Defensively I'd say they're about even, and mostly because Richard wasn't a PKer. Offensively, the comparison is not even close, Richard has a large advantage, not a slight one. Looking at 7yr vs.X Richard has a 85.2 - 79.2 advantage, but then you have to factor in the Richard got very little PP time. This is shown by ES vs.X in which Richard has a 65 - 52 lead. Kopitar is fine player, but he's got a very long way to go before he reaches Henri Richard's level.

 

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If I were personally ranking coaches, it'd be the following:

1a - Bowman
1b - Blake
3 - Arbour
4 - Patrick
5 - Day
6 - Tarasov
7 - Quennville (3 Cups in 6 seasons in the cap era is mighty impressive as is his consistent winning in the regular season. I have him well above Babcock for example)
8 - Ivan
9 - Imlach
10 - Gorman, Irvin, Shero, Sather, etc

 

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We definitely have a different opinion on what are valuable years of note if you only think Shero's 2 Cups winning years are the only ones that qualify. Making it to a Cup Final 2 other years is a tremendous feat, one of which was with a Rangers team that no one expected to be a contender.

I know several people were chiming in on Gorman during the ATD, but from my memory the great majority of the criticism was because of Gorman's fit with your team (particularly Gretzky) and not his worthiness as a top 10-ish coach all-time, the challenge of which was really only coming from one poster. Either way, you were championing Gorman's innovation in the ATD and now don't seem to be giving Shero any credit for his, for which there is mounds of information on the Bio I linked.

To be clear, I am not arguing Shero is better than Blake, coaching is an advantage for Ottawa.


I also have to address your Henri Richard/Kopitar comparison. Defensively I'd say they're about even, and mostly because Richard wasn't a PKer. Offensively, the comparison is not even close, Richard has a large advantage, not a slight one. Looking at 7yr vs.X Richard has a 85.2 - 79.2 advantage, but then you have to factor in the Richard got very little PP time. This is shown by ES vs.X in which Richard has a 65 - 52 lead. Kopitar is fine player, but he's got a very long way to go before he reaches Henri Richard's level.

I know about Shero's innovations. I give him credit for video usage, setting up the box on the PK, weird motivational tactics, etc. Again, it's not as much about that as his limited coaching record on the whole. He won a pair of Cups using pretty abnormal tactics, which included bashing the shit out of the other team(s) all while taking diving to another level which I always found ironic. It's no wonder that didn't catch and carry onward in the NHL. Teams/coaches/league, figured his game plan out. Just my .02

Oh I didn't say Kopitar was on Richard's level (I have Henri in my top 50 players ever btw), just that their styles are quite similar, which I don't think it s a stretch. I think he's a player Toe Blake would love to have given his ability at both ends, on the kill and in big spots.

Kopitar has been that twice (leagues' best defensive F) and in the conversation a few other times already. I certainly think Kopitar is roaring towards being one of the all time great 2 way C's. I'd take him over Toews every day of the week and Bergeron as well, because he's better offensively then both and is a Hart caliber player. Kopitar, playing in a cap era has proven himself extremely valuable in the postseason multiple times. He can absolutely play the PK, something Richard shouldn't be doing in the ATD because as far as I know, didn't do it much in real life.

I don't find the gap offensively as crazy large as you say either. It's 6 points, and I completely agree Richard would be higher if he had gotten regular PP chances, but even if you give him say a 5-6 point bump. we're not talking about a drop off to Patrice Bergeron levels here (90ish to 60 something). Kopi is just barely below 80 and should be in position to improve that number moving forward looking at what he just accomplished this past season. Take somebody like Datsyuk. I don't see a whole lot of difference between he and Kopitar all things considered. A bit deeper Selke record but that's largely because Anze's career is nowhere near over. Datsyuk was barely better offensively as it stands and while he won a pair of Cups was nowhere near as impactful as Kopitar was for the Kings IMO in his 2 Cup wins.

But yeah, Richard >> Kopitar overall. Better offensively and certainly a deeper postseason record but again that requires context to some degree.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Oh I didn't say Kopitar was on Richard's level

I suspected that wasn't what you meant, but when you say one guy is slightly better offensively and the other guy is slightly better defensively, it implies that overall they're about the same, so just clearing that up.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Good series IE, I enjoyed the discussion.

 

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Good series IE, I enjoyed the discussion.

Absolutely! Good luck the rest of the way sir.