Coaches Who Clearly Made Teams Better?

[FissionFire]

I think the trappy coaches are a bit overrated personally. It's just that the "system" is so visible and makes it easy to specifically point to them and give credit, whereas well thought offensive systems tend to result in credit that gets passed around to the star players.

Building on this, good offensive systems usually take more than a season to fully implement while the GM reshapes the roster to get players to fit the system.

Defense systems, especially the trap, are designed to work with any player no matter how mediocre or bad they are. They can show immediate results even with bad rosters.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Those are both pretty tough over-simplifications. But I understand the thought...kinda...

Everyone talks about the 1-2-2 and the trap like it's some magical potion for automatic [positive result here]. How many teams do people think do NOT play a 1-2-2 regularly in the NZ these days? Or 10 years ago? Or 20 years ago?

"Offensive systems", as it were, don't necessarily take any more or less implementation time...it's more that they tend to get more and more complex and precise until they eventually collapse upon themselves...also, the skill players that help drive it tend to price themselves out of keeping the team together...so there's a level of attrition there too...

 

[reckoning]

Ironic that at the exact time I'm getting ready to make a post on a thread that mentioned Lindy Ruff, I see the notice that Buffalo just hired him.

Anyways, the two post-lockout coaches I was surprised nobody mentioned are Joel Quenneville and Bruce Boudreau.

I know Quenneville is cancelled now, but his coaching record speaks for itself. The three Cups in Chicago were his greatest achievement, but he also did well with St. Louis and Colorado. I wonder if Florida might have done better in last year's Final if he was still there.

The bad last year in Vancouver notwithstanding, Boudreau turned his teams around immediately. He was the guy I was hoping the Sabres might try to sign. But he's 69 and I can't imagine anybody wanting to deal with the stress of being a NHL head coach into their 70s.

 

[ShelbyZ]

My hot take is the Red Wings only winning one Cup post lockout should be a mark of shame on Babcock - instead he got lionized.

I feel like some of that might have been recency bias. I recall Babcock getting a lot of praise for "keeping the streak alive" with those injury plagued aging rosters after Lidstrom retired.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Ruff deserves a lot of credit for his adaptability over the years.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I think the trappy coaches are a bit overrated personally. It's just that the "system" is so visible and makes it easy to specifically point to them and give credit, whereas well thought offensive systems tend to result in credit that gets passed around to the star players.

Is that even a thing?

 

[Voight]

Laviolette is a great example.

Hurricanes - SCF win in year two
Flyers - SCF in year one
Predators - SCF in year three

Less success with the Caps, but this was a post cup team that was on the downswing. TBD on how his Rangers tenure goes but he did win the Presidents Trophy in year one.

 

[reckoning]

Laviolette is a great example.

Hurricanes - SCF win in year two
Flyers - SCF in year one
Predators - SCF in year three

Less success with the Caps, but this was a post cup team that was on the downswing. TBD on how his Rangers tenure goes but he did win the Presidents Trophy in year one.

And before that was his first NHL head coach job with the Islanders in 01-02 when they improved from 52 to 96 points and made the playoffs for the first time in eight years.

It's kind of startling that he's been fired as many times as he has.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Laviolette is a great example.

Hurricanes - SCF win in year two
Flyers - SCF in year one
Predators - SCF in year three

Less success with the Caps, but this was a post cup team that was on the downswing. TBD on how his Rangers tenure goes but he did win the Presidents Trophy in year one.

Was a magician for the Providence Bruins too. The Bruins really screwed up picking Sullivan over him

1 year turn around from 19-49-7-5 (50 pts) to 56-16-4-4 (120 pts) and won the Calder Cup in '99

 

[carjackmalone]

Pat Burns wherever he coached

 

[Melrose Munch]

Mike Keenan everywhere
Pat Quinn everywhere
Lindy Ruff
Roger Neilson

I am going to say Grapes for starters with the late 1970s Bruins comes to mind, the lunchpail gang who got 11 players with 20 or more goals.

No one said Jacques Demers yet? Definitely with Detroit he improved those teams and then the Habs in 1993 winning the Cup comes to mind. By the way, how on earth that guy could hide not being able to read for so long and become so successful is actually impressive.

I am thinking John Torts can be named here

This is a good one. He was actually a good coach and people forget this.

 

[Gorskyontario]

Mike Keenan everywhere

Except the entire 2nd half of his career.

 

[Brodeur]

Pat Burns wherever he coached

It was interesting listening to some stories from his relatively short time with the Devils. Seemed like most of the players respected Pat after the fact but didn't exactly enjoy playing under him at the time. Appeared like he wasn't exactly an Xs and Os type of coach but seemed to know how to push everybody's buttons.

Devils went through a bunch of coaches during that time. Robbie Ftorek was a "bad cop" type of coach and seemed to enjoy pissing off the players. But it got to the point where he lost the room and they almost needed a "good cop" coach. Enter Larry Robinson who would later admit that he never really had the proper mentality to be a head coach and that's why he preferred being an assistant. Devils players then got a bit lazy in 2001-02 and Lou went searching for another "bad cop" coach initially bringing in Kevin Constantine before hiring the actual former cop Burns.