Speculation: Next Head Coach of the Calgary Flames

[Ace Rimmer]

I think there's a difference between faceoffs being important, and the faceoff percentage stat being important. How you follow a lost faceoff or a non-clean win is more important than whether you won 55% of your faceoffs or 48% of your faceoffs. I think everybody agrees the actual details around faceoffs are crucial. Some just think the stat itself is garbage.

Yeah, to over-simplify it's how you win the faceoff not how many you win. It's what you do if you lose, not how many you lose.

It's still important to win - because you can do more offense when you have the puck. It's a matter of adjusting to ensure you do win.

 

[Tkachuk Norris]

Faceoffs 5 on 5 aren’t insanely important imo.

But they are HUGE on the PK/PP

 

[Volica]

Indifferent to the Peters hire.
I don't think there were many good names out there to begin with.

I do like that he's no nonsense and can whip these guys. Way too much entitlement on this team.

Now it's up to Treliving to get the roster organized.

 

[FlamerForLife]

 

[tmurfin]

What kind of numbers do you think will our players have under Peters?

His teams are the least penalized teams in the league, will this have a affect on Tkachuk's game?

I would hope Peters is smart enough to recognize that Tkachuk’s game is played on the line, and penalties can be a byproduct of that from time to time. To harness his game would be an incredibly stupid move. But, if he can get Bennett and Hamilton cleaned up a bit, that would be nice.

 

[Johnny Hoxville]

I would hope Peters is smart enough to recognize that Tkachuk’s game is played on the line, and penalties can be a byproduct of that from time to time. To harness his game would be an incredibly stupid move. But, if he can get Bennett and Hamilton cleaned up a bit, that would be nice.

If Bennett could even develop into a 50pt C, with his physical play and play next to Tkachuk, it would be so massive for this team. I still have lots of hope for Bennett and I love how he plays the game, but he needs to go out and score.

 

[Rubi]

My opinion on hiring Bill Peters as the next head coach...

 

[Fig]

Darryl has a shelf life 3-4 years. He is always highly effective at everywhere he goes in the beginning phases and the Kings were the perfect roster for him to go there and win the Cup.

I like Darryl, I think he would be good for this team. But I like where Treliving has taken this team in all areas and I would be more happy with Peters. Plus and him and Peters Drive In would make for memes on here.

"It's an onion ring evening at the Dome as the X blank the Y, x goals to zero."

"It was like the restaurant tonight. Scrubs at the window serving the fans what they wanted."

"Like the iconic milkshake, there was definitely no sucking in the beginning 30 minutes."

"And quickly, the Flames clog the neutral zone faster than a burger clogs an artery. Welcome back Cardiac kids."

"The opposition was burglarized. They were foiled by the Flames like burgers from a burger joint on 16th."

"Peters has a hard decision to make for his shoot out selection. Perhaps a harder decision tonight than choosing the flavors you want in your milkshake."


Bonus

"Even Pete the plumber wouldn't be able to clear out the neutral zone clog that Peters and the Flames have dumped upon the opposition."

 

[Johnny Hoxville]

"It's an onion ring evening at the Dome as the X blank the Y, x goals to zero."

"It was like the restaurant tonight. Scrubs at the window serving the fans what they wanted."

"Like the iconic milkshake, there was definitely no sucking in the beginning 30 minutes."

"And quickly, the Flames clog the neutral zone faster than a burger clogs an artery. Welcome back Cardiac kids."

"The opposition was burglarized. They were foiled by the Flames like burgers from a burger joint on 16th."

"Peters has a hard decision to make for his shoot out selection. Perhaps a harder decision tonight than choosing the flavors you want in your milkshake."


Bonus

"Even Pete the plumber wouldn't be able to clear out the neutral zone clog that Peters and the Flames have dumped upon the opposition."

Haha this post will be the highlight of my day!

 

[Bounces R Way]

I heard Friedman on the radio mention Peters to Calgary almost 2 months ago. At that time it was purely his speculation, but he noted the relationship Peters and Treliving had and thought their could be something there. Turns out, it looks like he was correct and that’s why I like Friedman so much.

I’m also confused by many people’s comments, that Peters is a lateral move to Gully..

Why is that? Because both play a possession style of system? I’ve got news for you, pretty much every modern system is based on possession metrics. It’s style of hockey that Treliving believes in you need to play today to be successful (he’s been quoted as saying such and it’s why he fired Hartley) and it’s obvious to me that he heavily believes in Peter’s style that he coaches.

Bang on. Also that a good many of the quality NHL organizations have and use analytics departments. Even Ottawa if you consider Melnyk going over his budget every day and yelling at the 3 poor souls left there as data management.

People think it's a lateral move because they've been conditioned to by this franchise. Every coaching hire for the last decade plus has been a coach that sharply contrasts with the one before them. "Well we got enough of A this year, but not nearly enough B. Let's hire someone who brings B and nothing but B."

These people need to look around the league. Jon Cooper? Still doesn't have 500 NHL games coached. Neither does Mike Sullivan, or Bruce Cassidy. The runaway Jack Adams winner this year won't either. Deboer didn't before he was hired in San Jose. These guys are not the old guard of the NHL. Hitchcock and Julien? How did those hires go last year. Ruff and Bylsma the year before? What exactly are Boudreau and Carlyle achieving with their teams? The NHL is evolving at a high rate, with more emphasis being placed on talented youth rather than vets who "play the right way". System implementation is only one facet of coaching. Treliving talked about the team not being "emotionally invested" enough in games that mattered. It's up to the coach to demand excellence and a winning attitude from his team. The last coach to really achieve that here was Darryl Sutter, and I think Bill Peters is more of a clone of his circa 2003-04 than Gulutzan 2017-18.

Usually I sit on the fence for a while for these kind of things, but I really believe Peters would be a terrific hire here and will eat exactly 1 lb (no more no less) of HFBoards shit if he proves not to be.

 

[OvermanKingGainer]

I would hope Peters is smart enough to recognize that Tkachuk’s game is played on the line, and penalties can be a byproduct of that from time to time. To harness his game would be an incredibly stupid move. But, if he can get Bennett and Hamilton cleaned up a bit, that would be nice.

Rookie Bennett had one of the better drawn-to-taken penalty ratios in the league IIRC. I think something about how we forechecked - maybe the angles or the timing - just never clicked under Gulutzan. We weren't a very good team on the forecheck despite a roster made for it.

If Bennett could even develop into a 50pt C, with his physical play and play next to Tkachuk, it would be so massive for this team. I still have lots of hope for Bennett and I love how he plays the game, but he needs to go out and score.

A confident Bennett with quality linemates and power play opporunity is a 70+ point player. Look no further than guys like Brayden Schenn and William Karlsson to see just how thin the line can be. Bennett was our best player in December despite playing his weak position and playing with Garnet Hathaway. Get five months of that instead of one and we're impossible to match up to.

I think the aforementioned forechecking issue is related. We weren't an elite forechecking team under Bob but we seemed more dangerous on it. If we could start cleanly turning pucks over in the o zone like Vegas, Boston, Pitt etc Bennett is the guy who is going to be at the center of it with Tkachuk, Ferland, and Backlund, right there too.

I am very intrigued to see how we play under Peters. I do not believe possession is a system. It is an outcome of a combination of talent and system execution. You can arrive at possession in very different manners and not every possession team plays the same style. The Bruins play a different style unde Cassidy than they do under Julien but both instances were possession teams. The Blackhawks in their cup runs used a lot more tempo and stretch passing than the Kings but both were possession teams. The Penguins are a possession team who still rely heavily on countering as opposing as those ideas may seem.

 

[FlamerForLife]

St. Wardo has spoken.

 

[FerklundCGY]

I love it when people don't dig any deeper than the surface to determine the value of a coach

 

[Master Bill]

From what I've read Peters seems like he will be a pretty good hire for this team. We will just have to find really good assistant coaches for special teams. Getting rid of Cameron already improved this team by miles.

 

[Anglesmith]

[mod]

There is not a whole lot of difference between Peters and Glen Gulutzan, Peters is “just a hard ass” that will tuned out by the players. Brad Trevling is running this team like it is his dad Boston Pizza. There are two very good coaches available (AV and Darryl Sutter) and he goes and hires a coach that does not have a good record and is coming from a losing organization.

Pretty sure you posted the same BP quip three times in a 24 hour span. Without actually attempting to make a point, that comes off as the same kind of "hurr durr Boston Pizza Treliving lol" analysis we've come to expect from HFOil.

Like you said, there are other coaches available. That he is moving fast to bring in this coach tells you that he prefers this coach over those coaches, or else those coaches don't want to coach here. There is approximately 0 chance that he hasn't given consideration to every single option to fill the position. That's his job.

 

[FerklundCGY]

It seems that some people here automatically hate Peters because like Gulutzan, Peters' system tends to result in his teams consistently out-chancing, out-shooting, and out-possessing opposing teams.

Like, are we supposed to only be happy with a coach who's the opposite and gets consistently out-chanced, out-shot, and out-possessed by opposing teams?

Just because their systems seem to lead to the same analytical results doesn't mean they have the exact same system

 

[Ace Rimmer]

My opinion on hiring Bill Peters as the next head coach...

Why?

 

[Johnny Hoxville]

It seems that some people here automatically hate Peters because like Gulutzan, Peters' system tends to result in his teams consistently out-chancing, out-shooting, and out-possessing opposing teams.

Like, are we supposed to only be happy with a coach who's the opposite and gets consistently out-chanced, out-shot, and out-possessed by opposing teams?

Just because their systems seem to lead to the same analytical results doesn't mean they have the exact same system

I get wanting a “safe” coach. But I totally agree with what OKG said, possession is largely a by product of a system. And really teams want a positive possession system only because it yields favourable results. So just because Gully and Peters both coach systems that tend to outchance their opposing teams, doesn’t mean they get there the same way. The fact that Peters plays a system that activates the defence more is a massive difference and will automatically utilize our rosters strengths more. Gully tried doing this moreso at the end of the season but it was to little to late. Too many players underperformed under Gully so I'm looking forward to moving on.

I only ask for a coach that has some adaptability and isn’t married to things. That was one of my biggest criticisms. That and Gully bring one of the guys.

 

[OvermanKingGainer]

Honestly, as much as I hate to throw Gully under the bus while he's hurtin', he was so incompetent than you could put any average NHL coach on the bench and get a division playoff spot out of this group.

 

[JPeeper]

Thank ****ing christ that muppet is gone. The man who featured Gaudreau(a LHS diminutive playmaker) in the Ovechkin, Stamkos, Laine snipers position on a umbrella powerplay that never failed to take no less than 30 seconds to get anything on net.

Can't believe in 2 years running the PP the entire coaching staff never thought to put the opposite side wingers on the powerplay. Gaudreau sitting in the Ovy/Stammer/Laine position is stupid because he is left shooting, the other 3 all shoot right because you get a better angle/open that way. They didn't really use Gaudreau in the same way(ie. feeding him passes to one-time), they never had a good left shooting one-timer on the right side though. Everything about our PP was dumb. No opposite side wingers to open up lanes, Brodie on the #1 unit for 1.5 years instead of Dougie or Gio (Brodie is a good player sure, but he is not a shooting threat so PK'ers never have to worry about him), Brouwer on the PP for the longest time, a set up that focused on getting the puck to Monahan, except no one moved or moved the puck quick enough to open the lane to get it to him so his presence out there was meaningless.

Look at Winnipeg's powerplay, they are similar to Calgary in that they want to get the puck to Scheiffle in the slot (like us with Monahan) except they move the puck a lot quicker, move around the ice and have a good playmaker down low to get it to him when he's open. Instead the Flames have Gaudreau on the half wall doing half-clappers and Tkachuk in front of the net to screen/tip, which could work if there wasn't 3 other guys in the way to block the shot.

 

[DFF]

Seen this movie before?

Many many times, starting with the first home game of the 15/16 season, the Canes would outshoot the opposition by some ridiculous margin (like 45-25) and would lose in regulation, sometimes by 2 or more goals. Some of that is due to not having enough skilled forwards, but Peters is from the Red Wings school of grinding the opponent down and just throwing everything, quality shot or not (and a lot of times it wasn't a quality shot), at the net. This happened many times, they would play a game of darts with the goalies chest, and then the opposition would scoop up the puck and score on a soft goal.

His system isn't bad in theory, but in the end it didn't get winning results here. It may work elsewhere, but it will probably also cause you to pull your hair out.

 

[Rubi]

Why?

Bill Peters is a failure as an NHL coach. His NHL record and the way the Huricanes have performed under his coaching is proof of it. Why should it be any different here?
Glen Gulatzan Ver. 2.0 only a little more hard-ass. Been there, seen that. This movie sucks.

 

[The Gnome]

Anything that activates our dmen more will be huge. Don’t know if peters can do that, but sounds like his style from what I’ve read.

 

[Bounces R Way]

Seen this movie before?

Sounds like a system designed to get the most out of his roster. When you look at the Canes are you impressed with their elite forward talent? No. Are you impressed with the quality and quantity of their scoring depth? Also no. Are you impressed with their great goaltending who they can lean on to stop dangerous chances? Definitely not. Are you impressed with all the star power they have on the blue line? Nope. Their highest paid player is Jordan Staal. This is a budget team that is bottom 5 in terms of talent. You can't squeeze blood from a stone.

What they have is a young and mobile back end. A young and mobile back end that has from all reports flourished under his direction.

In a lot of ways they were actually unfortunate to have Peters as their coach. He kept them from a high pick and the kind of talent that might change their franchise's fortunes. You're also acting like Monahan and Gaudreau didn't set career highs this year playing a similar system. Peter's approach to coaching the Hurricanes and what his approach to coaching the Flames will be are also two different things.

 

[Mobiandi]

Peters will reportedly get the same 3-year deal GG got according to Friedman