Speculation: All Coaching Talk - Part 2

Bolt 45

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Oct 19, 2015
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Sometimes that's all it takes. Sergachev is fantastic. Gourde is fantastic. Point (who was MIA with injury for a long time) is fantastic and singlehandedly carried us for periods of time. He was change from within the roster that made a difference albeit one I did not expect and he came on late last year. Dotchin is okay at best but he provides us flexibility we never had until he came along. That's 4 players on a roster of 20. Oh and before I forget. Sustr is being scratched because we have other options.

So let's see that's (in their current capacity) two top 6 forwards and 2 top 4 D worth of changes and the giraffe on the bench and all the men in the room. I'd say that's major change but hey... what do I know? It's not like Nikita Kucherov went out of his way to talk about complacency in the lineup at the exact same time I did.

We get some turnover in important areas and suddenly it's like we have ****ing superpowers because we turned over to players that know what they are doing and have actual chemistry with more than one linemate.

Coop is doing the same thing he always has. It was NEVER a coaching issue. It's a roster that had holes in it that also could not handle the pressure of its own success

If it was that obvious to me then what does that say for your evaluation?
You're right about a lot of stuff, but Coop was part of the problem last year. Sorry. He gets too nostalgic about certain guys. We'd have never seen what Gourde could do if injuries hadn't forced Coop's hand. Which is just dumb.
 
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Hoek

Legendary Poster A
May 12, 2003
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Let's not forget this is only Cooper's 5th full season in the league. A lot of coaches come in hot, look like geniuses for the first couple years, get figured out and suck, then lick their wounds and slowly become wily, savvy vets. Just look at Tort's progression, culminating in a second Jack Adams finally after so many years. So while it may be frustrating how long it's taking him to figure some things out, it's not unheard of.

So far he's pretty clearly passed the benchmark I set for him this season as far as not getting fired early.
 

FinnLightning26

Death and no taxes
Sep 16, 2007
7,165
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It's nice to see the team play to their strengths like speed and offense rather than try to be the turn of the century Devils when you clearly don't have the tools for that. I'm the happiest man on earth to chow down on this plate of crow.
 
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These Are The Days

Oh no! We suck again!!
May 17, 2014
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You're right about a lot of stuff, but Coop was part of the problem last year. Sorry. He gets too nostalgic about certain guys. We'd have never seen what Gourde could do if injuries hadn't forced Coop's hand. Which is just dumb.

Well every coach has their favorites that drives fans up the wall. AV has a sick, strange obsession with Tanner Glass and MT may as well have made David Desharnais the heir to his estate. I know Coop does crazy crap like that too but I try not to get too hung up on it because you'll see things like that league wide. And plus we've literally had the same 10+ core players for going on the 4th year now. If Coop has a nostalgic favorite it might be in part because we haven't gotten anyone else new until Groude lucked into the lineup and Point played so well he basically willed himself to the NHL. And to the point of Gourde, he was rightfully in the AHL. It's nice he proved himself at the NHL level but despite the talent we've seen, it's never a guarantee that a guy is going to put it together the way he has. Otherwise Conacher would be up right now.

But either way your point stands. It drives me nuts but I've grown to deal with it.

So long as we win come playoff time right?
 
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T REX

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Feb 28, 2013
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I said last year that Cooper had the first month of the season to right the ship. He's done it. Yzerman looks like a genius too.

Any talk about firing a coach with the best record is dumb and pointless.

You basically look like a full on hater at this point.
 
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DFC

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Sep 26, 2013
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The regrouping and reregrouping seems to be a thing of the past. We're constantly pushing the puck forward again, and we look like hands-down the fastest team in the NHL.

If we were playing slow because of Cooper, or in spite of Cooper, we'll never know. But we're playing fast as **** right now, which I think is all most of us wanted: To actually play to our strengths, rather than playing like a team we clearly weren't built to be.
 

These Are The Days

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May 17, 2014
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The regrouping and reregrouping seems to be a thing of the past. We're constantly pushing the puck forward again, and we look like hands-down the fastest team in the NHL.

If we were playing slow because of Cooper, or in spite of Cooper, we'll never know. But we're playing fast as **** right now, which I think is all most of us wanted: To actually play to our strengths, rather than playing like a team we clearly weren't built to be.

I can get behind this.

I don't care what the reasons were. I just want to see us do this and keep doing this. I honestly cannot wait for us to start playing more division games against teams like Boston, Ottawa and Toronto because I want to see how we stack up. If we stamp our ticket to the playoffs there's about an 85% chance they'll be the teams waiting for us.

Of course the regular season holds no bearing on playoff performance but given how hungry the Lightning have been this year I think they want to prove it to themselves that we can beat those teams no matter how many times we face them or when in the year it happens.
 

The Macho King

Back* to Back** World Champion
Jun 22, 2011
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The regrouping and reregrouping seems to be a thing of the past. We're constantly pushing the puck forward again, and we look like hands-down the fastest team in the NHL.

If we were playing slow because of Cooper, or in spite of Cooper, we'll never know. But we're playing fast as **** right now, which I think is all most of us wanted: To actually play to our strengths, rather than playing like a team we clearly weren't built to be.
I still think he got spooked in that Detroit series and took a lot of time to recover.
 
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Bolt 45

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Oct 19, 2015
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The league seems faster across the board this year, and we're not the only fast team, but I have hard time believing that there's any team playing faster than we are right now. Anything faster might qualify as a different sport entirely. The first period against San Jose was almost too fast to follow. That being said, Toronto is my litmus test for speed. To my eye they were the only team we struggled to match on pure pace last year.

As far as how we're playing, the regrouping thing is the difference in a nutshell. Was that cr*p for real? What a nightmare. We'll never know if that was entirely on Coop or not, but the team sure looked bored and skeptical last year.
 

Bolt 45

Registered User
Oct 19, 2015
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That regrouping was definitely system based.
I mean, I agree, as that's the take that makes the most sense. The players honestly looked like they were being forced to do something they wanted no part of. They had that exact same look on the bench that dogs and cats get when they're forced to wear humiliating costumes, or that children get when they're forced to eat Lima beans or something. They clearly weren't buying in. The real question is why we stuck with it for so long. Coop looked like he'd all but lost the team, which is usually a point-of-no-return type of deal that you'd think any coach would be pretty wary of.
 

These Are The Days

Oh no! We suck again!!
May 17, 2014
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You guys are dead-on accurate about the regrouping being system based but we have to keep in mind that every system implements a regrouping strategy and method.

We were SOOOO sloppy at everything we did.

1. Couldn't get out of zone (that comes down to coaching)
2. Atrocious first passes unless from Hedman -> thereby we don't have speed
3. Stopped at the offensive blue line due to lack of speed
4a. If we actually gained entry into the offensive zone we had poor passes, even more poor shot selection and even worse tenacity along the boards
4b. But most of the time we missed our netural zone passes and if we did not do that we iced it, we were offsides or the puck would get deflected out of play

When you fail this bad it's going to require A LOT of re-grouping. And keep in mind we haven't seen any of these problems this year.

Coop was directly responsible for the lack of offense we saw during our injury rashes over the last 2 years. So we're down guys like Johnson, Kucherov, Hedman, Palat, Stamkos I mean shit NO ONE was off limits in the last 2 years. So he compensated by

1. Immediately going into the 1-3-1 as soon as we got a lead
2. Would run a passive trap as a base offense -if I'm not mistaken he most often used a 2-3 system with 3 forecheckers high and the 2 D peeling back. But the biggest problem we had was that we could never coordinate a rush with 3 players. Someone was ALWAYS offside.
3. Leaned on Ben Bishop like he was Marty Brodeur

I think it was DFC who alluded to us being an 80's Oilers club being ran like the 90's Devils. And he was exactly right but we have to keep in mind that all of us could see the struggle to score on the ice. It was regroup, regroup, regroup and then low percentage shot.

If we had a lead Coop sat on it because I think even he knew we weren't going to get more. If he's guilty of anything it's that. And truth be told I'm not gonna blame the guy. All of us knew that once a game got past 2-2 we weren't gonna win. We scored a goal or less something like 19 times in 2015 alone and most of it came during injury stretches and we were playing hockey like a soccer game trying to win 1-0.

Coop's always ran an up-tempo forecheck and for the entire month of October 2016 that's exactly what we saw. We were losing games we should not have but you guys remember how many bad nights Bishop had. The offense was fine. But once the injuries and inconsistency set in forget about it! Just everything went to hell all at once.
 
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Rschmitz

Finding new ways to cheat
Feb 27, 2002
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A lot of the players have a better understanding of their progressions and assignments which is definitely helping
 

CupsOverCash

Registered User
Jun 16, 2009
16,353
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What's mind boggling to me was how we basically had the same team that went to the conference final the season before. Possibly better team at the end of the season.

Who knows what happens if we get in but I don't think the competition was really all that great. Even the Pens team that won it all was vulnerable. Then a beat up Preds team at the end. We could have done some damage.

However you could argue missing the playoffs really was a huge reason for what we are seeing today. Every one of them including Cooper was forced to look themselves in the mirror and they have really come back to prove themselves.

So in a way, yes we missed a great opportunity but I think it really helped get the team motivated. Missing the playoffs really pissed them off and were seeing the result. Amazing.
 

DFC

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Sep 26, 2013
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I mean, I agree, as that's the take that makes the most sense. The players honestly looked like they were being forced to do something they wanted no part of. They had that exact same look on the bench that dogs and cats get when they're forced to wear humiliating costumes, or that children get when they're forced to eat Lima beans or something. They clearly weren't buying in. The real question is why we stuck with it for so long. Coop looked like he'd all but lost the team, which is usually a point-of-no-return type of deal that you'd think any coach would be pretty wary of.

Haha, That's fairly accurate.

But yeah. We actually fixed the problem last year and started pushing the pace and winning games with an AHL lineup. Thus the big finish to the season. But now we're healthy and playing the same way.

And when we don't have a play entering the zone, rather than slowing down and waiting for help, we're dumping the puck and outskating the D to retrieve it. Last year we just skated right into defenses.

Also, we're generating odd man rushes and breakaways, the lack of which nearly gave me an aneurysm over the last two years.
 
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The Macho King

Back* to Back** World Champion
Jun 22, 2011
48,607
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Good thing he did take a good long look in the mirror and make changes. All we asked really.

Although my first choice to replace him in Gallant would've also been capable.
I can't believe Florida fired him...
 

Volodya Krutov

Lost Cosmonaut
Jan 18, 2012
8,135
1,036
I have personally zero issue with the way Cooper has been coaching this team once Yzerman traded his chew toy at the TDL : Valtteri Filppula. Might be a bit coincidental, but It's like he suddenly realized he had nothing to lose and he finally tried to rely on speed and asserted a more bold, aggressive system, particularly supporting a greater involvement from the defenders in the offensive game.

His system became really too conservative once we got our eyes on the Prize, aka playoffs 2015, and kinda nullified the team strength. Felt the pressure of what was at stake probably. A lack of experience I believe. Now it feels like they're all on the same page once again, and that's fun to watch.
 

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