Gulutz-end

[Ace Rimmer]

Ruff works as an assistant with the Rangers, he would need their permission to even interview and I think that is unlikely to be granted mid-season.

I totally forgot Tippett was unemployed. I don't want him, but with his ties to Treliving and Maloney, he could very easily be their guy.

A huge case of "be careful what you wish for" if that were to come to fruition.

 

[Mobiandi]

Tippett would certainly be the more thrifty option over Sutter, should the owners be reluctant to open up their checkbooks :s

Edit: that is to say, if GG ends up losing his job

 

[Lunatik]

A huge case of "be careful what you wish for" if that were to come to fruition.

I'm not sure anyone is wishing for it, I can just see it happening if Gully does get the Axe.

 

[Anglesmith]

Dave Tippett is a successful coach. Horrible to watch his Coyotes play, yes, but I wonder if that would be a problem with Gaudreau.

Same reason I'm on board with Sutter. I think this team has the personnel to be exciting no matter who the coach is.

 

[Lunatik]

Dave Tippett is a successful coach. Horrible to watch his Coyotes play, yes, but I wonder if that would be a problem with Gaudreau.

Same reason I'm on board with Sutter. I think this team has the personnel to be exciting no matter who the coach is.

I'm not sure I buy that Tippett would stifle the Flames offense. The problem in Arizona, was they were forced to play an extreme defensive system because they didn't have the offensive weapons at their disposal to play any other style of game.

Players like Mike Modano, Mike Ribeiro, Sergei Zubov and Jussi Jokinen flourished under Tippett in Dallas. Matthew Lombardi was a 50 point player under Tippett in Phoenix. Keith Yandle always flourished under Tippett as well.

 

[Fig]

TL;DR - I'm getting frustrated. But I'm beating the "Let Gully's system mature" drum even though I'm angry and it would be easy to join the we need a coaching change bandwagon. I think our roster is fine. IMO it's a improperly deployed system and square peg/round hole sort of thing going on that's making our team do this Jekyll and Hyde thing.


I honestly think it's a combination of system and bad mix of players. For Gulutzan, he has been with us 1.5 seasons and we are literally on a 3rd iteration of his system.

Prior season
1.0. Overly complicated, had issues with buy in. Most of it was shrugged off as growing pains for a coach.
2.0 Simplified system. What our team was playing last season when they started surging. However, I believe it's a rush styled system, not a cycle styled system that 1.0 and 3.0 are based upon.
--------------------------
Current season
3.0 Smith system designed to use the goalie as a puck mover. I have never EVER seen so many players crashing into each other during the pre season and beginning of season. It was ridiculous. The players at first would bunch up together in groups of nearly 3 players. Whatever the heck it is, it's a modified complicated system 1.0. Rittich can somewhat survive in front of this system. Sometimes it seems to work. Other times, it's an abomination.
1.5 Whatever the crap was in front of Lack. It was 1.0 complications all over again, but different. D felt passive and sluggish. Somewhere in between a swarm and Hartley collapse the front.

Then the corps
Gio - Good D, good offense. Sacrificing offense to be defensively responsible for his partner.
Hamilton - Meh D, great offense. Unsure if offense is good and just relying on Gio to cover for him.
Hamonic - Good D, crap offense, horrible understanding of the system in d zone and o zone. Hamonic is attacking, but I don't think he should. I bet they told him to be offensive minded because we know even guys like Russell and Engelland attacked under Gully's system.
Brodie - No d, meh offense. He is way too aggressive and with Hamonic being new, it's a really confusing style to play with. This isn't a LD/RD thing. He played fine on LD with Engelland. He's essentially hanging his partner out to dry. IMO he needs to be told to play shut down D to build chemistry with Hamonic.


Personally I think it's a combination of things.

1. System is forcing players to play in ways not necessarily flattering to their style. I'm guessing Gully wanted the team to quickly transition from a run/gun style to a new theory cycle/puck moving game. It's way too different a system. I don't know whether to blame Gully for not bridging and simplifying the system, or say that the team needs to learn the system and we need to wait through the growing pains.

2. The system relies heavily on puck movement, but is designed too passively. The amount of time I see players waiting for the puck to come to them is ridiculous. Sure, it helps greatly to reduce injuries of players, but there are serious flaws IMO in terms of zone entry and positioning. We can scare teams at the blue line using Hartley's zone entry system (Edmonton game p3). Gully's is not remotely close to menacing which allows teams to hold their ground at the blue line (most other games). The system also has a flaw which causes our players to run into one another.

3. The system is not fluid. Watch how often players are standing around waiting then accelerating from a stand still. This makes our players look slower than they really are, and puts them at a disadvantage IMO. This is why our players (especially dmen) look several steps behind. Because the system expects them to plant. They are always several steps behind on acceleration IMO when the puck bobbles.

4. Glender mix. Other than 3M, the chemistry for players elsewhere is a mess.

5. I am wondering if the physicality of some of our players was removed in the name of "discipline".

Overall, I honestly feel that what Gully has on hand for a roster is better suited for a trap style rushing game, perhaps somewhat similar to what Ottawa employs. This team is fully of players great for rushing, not cycling as Gully seems to like doing. The greatest flaws in Gully's system were strengths of the Hartley system so I'm leaning towards misuse of the roster/bad match in system. This IMO was most evident in period 3 vs Edmonton. As insane as this sounds, we have a roster that IMO would flourish under a defense first style system. As long as the team is defensively responsible, the group as a whole can game break due to the complete randomness of which players can suddenly rush and be dangerous. Sutter and Tippett might not be bad coaches to whip them into shape. I also think the play style is giving the team less space to play with.


However points for Gully
- He's got a winning ratio. He's not as bad as Eakins at the NHL level.

- The system is designed for player health. This might begin to shine more later in the season in comparison to Vegas' GG whose team is fizzing out now due to injuries. We probably would have lost just as much of the roster to injuries under a Hartley styled system. However, I would have liked to see our roster limping off the ice after that series rather than healthy.

- His system has more structure than Hartley. However, as I mentioned, I think he's on iteration 3.0 in 1.5 seasons. The system might be too complex.

- His system broke the Honda Centre Curse.

- He's been with us 1.5 seasons and made it to the playoffs. He is not doing a Jack Adams level of flop worthy of a firing.

- He's been scarily average, but also holds a system that is arguably not even properly deployed yet.

 

[FlamerForLife]

That Larry Fischer guy posts on here, so I'd probably take that with a grain of salt.
As much as most people want to see a coaching change, I find it hard to believe we'd fire Gully right now, considering we haven't lost 3 in a row yet this season.

 

[FLAMES666]

This thread reeks of shit. Are people honestly suggesting Sutter, Tippet and Ruff? We spent a decade watch Flames team fail with this style of coaching and now we want to go back to it. Either a bunch of posters on here are really young or you truly have gone mental. Hire these coaches and we can watch Johnny drop to a 50 - 60 point player and go back to the anemic offense we had for years. We can do all this without having one of the best goalies in Kipper, ya that would just be f***ing wonderful. People are throwing Gully under the bus and not giving him credit for the amount of good he has done in his short time here. People need to be f***ing patient, this team is far from being as bad as everyone is making it out to be.

 

[Lunatik]

This thread reeks of ****. Are people honestly suggesting Sutter, Tippet and Ruff? We spent a decade watch Flames team fail with this style of coaching and now we want to go back to it. Either a bunch of posters on here are really young or you truly have gone mental. Hire these coaches and we can watch Johnny drop to a 50 - 60 point player and go back to the anemic offense we had for years. We can do all this without having one of the best goalies in Kipper, ya that would just be ****ing wonderful. People are throwing Gully under the bus and not giving him credit for the amount of good he has done in his short time here. People need to be ****ing patient, this team is far from being as bad as everyone is making it out to be.

Like Modano dropped to a 50-60 point player under Tippett? Oh wait, nope an older Modano still had seasons of 85 and 77 points under Tippett. What about Zubov? His offensive game was shit under Tippett too, right? Oh wait, multiple 50 point seasons and even a 70 point season. Jason Arnott put up career numbers under Tippett. Brendan Morrow's best offensive years were under Tippett. A 32 year Lehtinen put up career numbers under Tippett. Mike Ribeiro's best seasons were under Tippett. Hell he even made Niklas Hagman look like a legitimate star.... etc

Maybe the problem isn't what others remember and what you remember. When Tippett had teams that actually had some talent on them, he didn't stifle their offensive games in the slightest.

 

[Anglesmith]

This thread reeks of ****. Are people honestly suggesting Sutter, Tippet and Ruff? We spent a decade watch Flames team fail with this style of coaching and now we want to go back to it. Either a bunch of posters on here are really young or you truly have gone mental. Hire these coaches and we can watch Johnny drop to a 50 - 60 point player and go back to the anemic offense we had for years. We can do all this without having one of the best goalies in Kipper, ya that would just be ****ing wonderful. People are throwing Gully under the bus and not giving him credit for the amount of good he has done in his short time here. People need to be ****ing patient, this team is far from being as bad as everyone is making it out to be.

We spent a decade watching the Flames fail under Sutter? I seem to remember Sutter taking the Flames to the Cup. I also seem to remember Sutter being ragged on when he was announced as the Kings' head coach. I seem to remember him then winning two Cups with them.

 

[InfinityIggy]

We spent a decade watching the Flames fail under Sutter? I seem to remember Sutter taking the Flames to the Cup. I also seem to remember Sutter being ragged on when he was announced as the Kings' head coach. I seem to remember him then winning two Cups with them.

Dutter was always an excellent coach. I think a lot of people cloud their memory of him by correlating what he did as GM, which was....not good.

 

[Anglesmith]

Dutter was always an excellent coach. I think a lot of people cloud their memory of him by correlating what he did as GM, which was....not good.

Yeah. The funny thing is that the year he decided he should stop coaching was a year he won the division.

 

[FlamerForLife]

Yeah. The funny thing is that the year he decided he should stop coaching was a year he won the division.

That division title is the last banner we've had go up.

 

[djpatm]

Sutter was a fantastic coach and a terrible GM.

I think he would be smart enough to know to let Johnny play his game but I don't know that he could get anything done with this team and his style of hockey. This team isn't physical and no matter how many times you remind Monahan that he's a big guy, he will continue to play like Gaudreau.

 

[Anglesmith]

Sutter was a fantastic coach and a terrible GM.

I think he would be smart enough to know to let Johnny play his game but I don't know that he could get anything done with this team and his style of hockey. This team isn't physical and no matter how many times you remind Monahan that he's a big guy, he will continue to play like Gaudreau.

But there is so much more to him as a coach then telling guys to hit a bunch. There is an entire system of play there. One that has been proven over and over to lead to positive results with and without the puck.

Sure, he eventually gets tune out. But if we can achieve success over a couple of years, that's a small price to pay.

 

[djpatm]

I just dont think his system will work with our soft Defense.

They play dirty and with an edge which is okay but they don't have the size to play like Sutter teams do. Then again, I'd be interested to see what he would do with this team. But can he come up with a new system based on personnel?

 

[Mobiandi]

The biggest problem with our defense is that they play based on mitigation of chances rather than prevention. Look around at any of the top defensive teams in the league and you'll see that none are as passive as ours is at our own blueline.

Sutter would fix that

 

[Flameshomer]

I just dont think his system will work with our soft Defense.

They play dirty and with an edge which is okay but they don't have the size to play like Sutter teams do. Then again, I'd be interested to see what he would do with this team. But can he come up with a new system based on personnel?

I think they're being told to play"soft"- or more accurately, as mobi describes, the system gulu employs tells them to play more passively and "mitigate" chances. It reminds me of the "prevent" defence in football, the common joke being that it ends up preventing nothing.

My hope is that Sutter would start to maximize the skills of some of our defencemen. Could you imagine if he could teach Dougie how to be intense/physical- it might be a dream but I could see a strong coach with a good history of cup victories inspiring that sort of change in our young players.

 

[Fig]

Sorry for the wall of texts... Mostly rants I guess.

I think Gully's system isn't horrible, but the type of transition he is requesting from Hartley's and his own systems are too aggressive on top of having a risk filled system (D and G take more risk than other typical teams). Having a defensive minded assistant coach IMO would do amazing wonders for the team. Tippett or DSutter as AC would be amazing, but I have no idea why either guy would bother agreeing to that.

Nut shell observations of mine. I wonder what you guys think.

Hartley
- Rush
- Stretch pass/aggressive zone entries
- High energy/higher injuries
- Counter attack style employed in dzone (which means offense swings first)
- Scary 3rd periods and PP for opposing teams
- We owned the neutral zone. Non stop movement from players. No one ever flat footed.
- Players cluster to support one another as needed
- Physicality is high. (ie: Ferland as Lucic lite in ploffs)

Gully
- Cycle
- Carry in/passive dump and chase/opponents often poke the puck outside blue line
- Low energy/lower injuries
- Rope a dope style in dzone?
- PP/PK is a holiday for other teams
- Neutral zone is clogged in a bad way with players sitting flat footed waiting for the puck to enter the neutral zone
- Players have less room to work with due to goalie puck handling.
- Players spread out (in less space) and are requested to manage their own areas? "Support" is weirdly executed with a rover?
- Physicality is low (ie: Ferland looking like Glencross just before retirement)


I think a successful team has elements of both systems as there's pros and cons to both. I also think a successful team strengthens the "boring" defensive structure of the team and utilizes the randomness of where we can derive offense as it's own game breaking attribute rather than rely on individual players being game breakers as they seem to be doing now. (And breaking our game rather than the opposition I might add) I'm looking at Ottawa and their rush/trap styled system looks like something that could work great with our roster. Less of this passive cycling crap our team is not designed for. Tippett and Sutter could do well with such a system. I'm not saying fire Gully, I'm saying add more defensive structure to offset the riverboat gambling risk our dmen constantly engage in.

 

[InfinityIggy]

I just dont think his system will work with our soft Defense.

They play dirty and with an edge which is okay but they don't have the size to play like Sutter teams do. Then again, I'd be interested to see what he would do with this team. But can he come up with a new system based on personnel?

I suspect that a part of the reason why our Defense is so 'soft' is because of the system that is being used. If the system changed to a more 'preventative' style I think we would see a fair more physicality.

 

[Fig]

I suspect that a part of the reason why our Defense is so 'soft' is because of the system that is being used. If the system changed to a more 'preventative' style I think we would see a fair more physicality.

I would agree. Not a dman, but Ferland is the perfect example of this. He goes back and forth between skill and gritty Glencross IMO. However, he's injured less and producing more. There's pros and cons to both systems.

Gio is also less physical. But again, less injuries. 61/47/64/61/82/81 games played in the last 6 seasons. 82/81 games played in season under Gully. I honestly think injury prevention is part of the system.

 

[ThatHighGuy]

The thing I really don't like about Gully (or the team for that matter) is that we don't show up to the games that count. See all of the BoA in the last year and last years playoffs. I believe it's the coaches job to motivate his team and I just don't see that with Gully.. we know it's possible with this team because of the whole cardiac kids "never give up" with Hartley but it's just frustrating as a fan to watch this team lose constantly in the games that matter most.

 

[Anglesmith]

The thing I really don't like about Gully (or the team for that matter) is that we don't show up to the games that count. See all of the BoA in the last year and last years playoffs. I believe it's the coaches job to motivate his team and I just don't see that with Gully.. we know it's possible with this team because of the whole cardiac kids "never give up" with Hartley but it's just frustrating as a fan to watch this team lose constantly in the games that matter most.

We showed up plenty in the playoffs last year. We just forgot to bring our goalie.

 

[Baxterman]

They also forgot to bring any even strength scoring.

Goalies or not the Flames were clearly the 2nd best team in that series.

 

[Baxterman]

That was what 20 years ago? Some people need to accept that was in the past and forget about it. Keefe has also closed that chapter in his life.

I don't care if it was 100 years ago the guy and the people around him are awful people I don't have any interest in them at all being associated with the Flames, mediocre coach or not.