GDT: 2018 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships

[Pokecheque]

I’m hoping for Subban when it comes to Makar. Don’t know whether that has any basis in reality though.

Someone on Twitter (TMV?) compared Timmins to a young Ryan Suter. I’m okay with that too.

 

[henchman21]

So maybe after winning Gold, and only losing to the US the past two years... maybe people will give Ducharme some slack? The guy did a great job leading the Canadians to the gold. I know many wanted to see Makar more (and I'll say it would have been nice to see as a fan), but Ducharme had a plan to bring Gold back to Canada and it worked pretty damn well. Even against a better team, he gave them a plan to win.

 

[Piestany88]

I hope not. Shattenkirk is a slug.

Yeah Makar is a far superior skater

 

[Patagonia]

So maybe after winning Gold, and only losing to the US the past two years... maybe people will give Ducharme some slack? The guy did a great job leading the Canadians to the gold. I know many wanted to see Makar more (and I'll say it would have been nice to see as a fan), but Ducharme had a plan to bring Gold back to Canada and it worked pretty damn well. Even against a better team, he gave them a plan to win.

Is he really that good of a coach?

Makar was named by writers as a Tournament All-Star, yet, was benched most games. He still finished in limited play 2nd in team scoring, 9th overall and led all DMen in scoring. The Gold Medal game, when the PP sputtered, he sat on the bench. Hockey Analysts were stunned by his benching considering he's been their best offensive player.

Is this politics, favoritism or plain stupidity? Fortunately, Canada won and Makar will be too old to return next year. I tend to believe he was a terrible coach that was fortunate they won. Sweden was the much better team. Some of the roster choices were simply bizarre without any high end 1st round forwards on the team. Still all this doesn't matter since they won Gold, but would be wary on any team that decides to hire by evaluating his decision making.

 

[henchman21]

Is he really that good of a coach?

Makar was named by writers as a Tournament All-Star, yet, was benched most games. He still finished in limited play 2nd in team scoring, 9th overall and led all DMen in scoring. The Gold Medal game, when the PP sputtered, he sat on the bench. Hockey Analysts were stunned by his benching considering he's been their best offensive player.

Is this politics, favoritism or plain stupidity? Fortunately, Canada won and Makar will be too old to return next year. I tend to believe he was a terrible coach that was fortunate they won. Sweden was the much better team. Some of the roster choices were simply bizarre without any high end 1st round forwards on the team. Still all this doesn't matter since they won Gold, but would be wary on any team that decides to hire by evaluating his decision making.

He's won a Q title, a Memorial Cup, WJC Silver, WJC Gold, has never missed the playoffs as a head coach, and has a Drummondville team without a boatload of talent near the top of the Q... the guy is a great coach. People might be confused with some decisions, but he consistently wins. He had a plan and executed it very well. The goal for Ducharme was to win the gold... not put together an all star team. The results speak for themselves.

I wouldn't say Makar was benched... Ducharme leaned heavily on his top 4 and played the rest in favorable situations. Makar got plenty of PP time and was used as a specialist. In that limited time, Canada got a lot of Makar.

 

[the_fan]

What a shot pass by Timmins on Canada's game winning goal!

 

[Foppa Frossa]

I dont see Sandis. I see Kevin Shattenkirk.

Barrie's better, and Makar is supposedly already better than Barrie who is obsolete, so by the transitive property, Makar >>> Shattenkirk

 

[BoxOfChocolates]

He's won a Q title, a Memorial Cup, WJC Silver, WJC Gold, has never missed the playoffs as a head coach, and has a Drummondville team without a boatload of talent near the top of the Q... the guy is a great coach. People might be confused with some decisions, but he consistently wins. He had a plan and executed it very well. The goal for Ducharme was to win the gold... not put together an all star team. The results speak for themselves.

I wouldn't say Makar was benched... Ducharme leaned heavily on his top 4 and played the rest in favorable situations. Makar got plenty of PP time and was used as a specialist. In that limited time, Canada got a lot of Makar.

Are you his cousin or something?

 

[Patagonia]

He's won a Q title, a Memorial Cup, WJC Silver, WJC Gold, has never missed the playoffs as a head coach, and has a Drummondville team without a boatload of talent near the top of the Q... the guy is a great coach. People might be confused with some decisions, but he consistently wins. He had a plan and executed it very well. The goal for Ducharme was to win the gold... not put together an all star team. The results speak for themselves.

I wouldn't say Makar was benched... Ducharme leaned heavily on his top 4 and played the rest in favorable situations. Makar got plenty of PP time and was used as a specialist. In that limited time, Canada got a lot of Makar.

Final game being tied and time running out, 5 consecutive PP and Makar was on the ice for about 30S on only 1 play? With everything on the line, he benched Makar most of the game. I believe he played 13 mins total for the night.

As for his coaching record, he missed the playoffs in 2015/16 with Halifax. He quit to join a stronger playoff Drummondville team and was swept in the 1st round. This season, they're off to a great start, but will see if they perform well in the playoffs.

Ducharme is just a terrible coach, he should win a lot more given the team assets year after year.

 

[S E P H]

Am i the only one who see some Sandis Ozolinsh in Makar? .......... i’m old i know....

Don't see it at all, Sandis Ozolinsh was a monster being like 6'5", you rarely see defenders that big have the elegance and offencive tools as he had even though he wasn't good defensively.

I said it right after the draft and still keep to the comparison that Makar is going to be a lot like Tyson Barrie. They share a lot of the same strengths and attributes; both like going forward, have great puck rushing ability, and both have good offencive strengths. Makar of course has some better characteristics over Tyson such as a MUCH better first pass and way better QBing on the PP. While I think Barrie still has better elusiveness in parts of the rink such as the corners. Both of their shots are below-average, but Makar has shown the potential to become good with the accuracy he displayed in this tourney. I still believe you might want to pick a defender who's going to be better than Barrie at 4th overall, but it is what it is.

So maybe after winning Gold, and only losing to the US the past two years... maybe people will give Ducharme some slack? The guy did a great job leading the Canadians to the gold. I know many wanted to see Makar more (and I'll say it would have been nice to see as a fan), but Ducharme had a plan to bring Gold back to Canada and it worked pretty damn well. Even against a better team, he gave them a plan to win.

He might have a good resume, but he still showed a lot of "meh" decisions in this years WJC. Canada had a pretty weak team, but fortunately for them the rest of the competition was weaker.

 

[henchman21]

Final game being tied and time running out, 5 consecutive PP and Makar was on the ice for about 30S on only 1 play? With everything on the line, he benched Makar most of the game. I believe he played 13 mins total for the night.

As for his coaching record, he missed the playoffs in 2015/16 with Halifax. He quit to join a stronger playoff Drummondville team and was swept in the 1st round. This season, they're off to a great start, but will see if they perform well in the playoffs.

Ducharme is just a terrible coach, he should win a lot more given the team assets year after year.

Sorry 1 year he missed the playoffs. Makar played 8 minutes IIRC, but that isn't benching... To me it is nonsense thinking a coach that has done as much as he has is a terrible coach (at least at the junior level). If Makar wasn't on the team, people here wouldn't be questioning him... I get it, people wanted to see Makar more and dominate. Makar has that talent to do that, but winning the Gold was the most important thing and Ducharme delivered exactly that.

 

[Pokecheque]

I think he got ridiculously conservative in the US/CAN game, but then again the conditions were awful and the Americans were the heavy favorites going into this tournament so I guess I can kinda see why he tried to sit on the lead. In the end that was his biggest mistake of the tournament though.

 

[Freudian]

Timmins remind me of Gormley before Gormley decided he didn't want to be good at hockey.

 

[The Mars Volchenkov]

One of my friends had dinner with Arik Parness, the Avs analytics guy the other night. He had a major role in the Avs taking Timmins.

 

[Avs_19]

Ducharme got it done as the HC so props to him. It's nice to see him finally win without MacKinnon and Drouin carrying his team. He's having a solid year in the Q as well after having trouble cracking .500 over the last three seasons.

 

[Balthazar]

Ducharme is just a terrible coach

You don't actually believe that Team Canada would bring back a "terrible coach" 3 times in a row do you? It's been said several times before; he had a plan and stuck with it. It worked in the end.

 

[Pokecheque]

I didn't love Ducharme's gameplan during the tournament but I think it's definitely a feather in his cap that he went into the tournament with a roster not many experts were crazy about and still got them to win gold. From my understanding Canada was the third-best team on paper going into this.

 

[Balthazar]

I too was angry that he didn't use Makar more but:

- Ducharme said from day one that he didn't want to change his lines/pairings. Makar was his 7th dman and Steenbergen was his 13th forward (despite being maybe the best goal scorer on the team). He stuck with that plan for the entire tourney.

- When Fabbro and Clague got hurt, Makar jumped straight to the 1st and 2nd pairings. That means that he didn't think Makar was a lesser dman otherwise he'd have adjusted and put Makar on the 3rd pairing.

Gallant in Vegas is coaching in a similar way.

 

[henchman21]

The coaches also named Makar one of their 3 best players. He just didn’t fit how they wanted to play 5v5. Makar got a lot of PP minutes over the course of the tournament and that was obviously the plan from the start. Ducharme knee what he had to do to win, and he did exactly that. That said, Makar showed his phenomenal skill set in his limited minutes. When he gets more experience against better players, he’s going to be a damn good player... that is pretty obvious.

 

[Freudian]

It's a bit too easy to tunnel vision on your guys in a tournament like this, so you lose view of the big picture.

Since the game was more or less 50/50 Ducharme got lucky that they won. If they would have lost he would have been roasted over playing the highest scoring D in the tournament 8 minutes.

Even if he viewed Makar as a PP guy, playing Clague over Makar on the first PP makes no sense. Clague had a weak tournament.

 

[Foppberg]

It's a bit too easy to tunnel vision on your guys in a tournament like this, so you lose view of the big picture.

Since the game was more or less 50/50 Ducharme got lucky that they won. If they would have lost he would have been roasted over playing the highest scoring D in the tournament 8 minutes.

Even if he viewed Makar as a PP guy, playing Clague over Makar on the first PP makes no sense. Clague had a weak tournament.

Yep, Makar should have been on the PP as much as possible.

 

[Foppa2118]

So maybe after winning Gold, and only losing to the US the past two years... maybe people will give Ducharme some slack? The guy did a great job leading the Canadians to the gold. I know many wanted to see Makar more (and I'll say it would have been nice to see as a fan), but Ducharme had a plan to bring Gold back to Canada and it worked pretty damn well. Even against a better team, he gave them a plan to win.

You're hilarious. Canada didn't win gold because Ducharme benched the guy who was their leading scorer at one point last game. They won despite the fact he was benched.

Before this gold, the only thing Ducharme won was a Q title and a MemCup in the same year with a powerhouse Halifax team led by MacKinnon and Drouin. Aside from that he'd won nothing. Even got swept in the first round of the Q playoffs last year. Not sure why you're fixated on making him into Scotty Bowman to justify his benching of Makar.

They went 0 for 6 on the PP against Sweden and were unable to even get shots on net, and Ducharme still refused to play Makar on the PP who's their best at this by a mile.. There is no way you can rationalize that decision.

Canada was 1-1 with less than 2 minutes to go. They easily could have lost that game. Clearly they won because of a great play by Timmins, not because Ducharme was right in benching Makar.

 

[Patagonia]

It's a bit too easy to tunnel vision on your guys in a tournament like this, so you lose view of the big picture.

Since the game was more or less 50/50 Ducharme got lucky that they won. If they would have lost he would have been roasted over playing the highest scoring D in the tournament 8 minutes.

Even if he viewed Makar as a PP guy, playing Clague over Makar on the first PP makes no sense. Clague had a weak tournament.

Absolutely agree...Team Canada was extremely lucky they won despite his terribly poor decisions.

You have the hottest scorer on the team, yet, benched when the PP sputtered. Fabbro struggled, but played twice as many minutes, including the PP. Mete was not the offensive force they expected, yet played nearly 3X more minutes. Bean is a disaster and still played more minutes.

Makar ice time:

1st - 3:12
2nd - 3:12
3rd - 2:07

Total - 8:31

If this was not obvious enough, Commentators also wondered why Makar wasn’t playing. I guess the final insult is Makar being named a tournament All-Star and benched most of the game. The positives is CANADA won and Makar/Timmins will be overage and likely never having to play with Ducharme again.

 

[avsfan09]

Sorry 1 year he missed the playoffs. Makar played 8 minutes IIRC, but that isn't benching... To me it is nonsense thinking a coach that has done as much as he has is a terrible coach (at least at the junior level). If Makar wasn't on the team, people here wouldn't be questioning him... I get it, people wanted to see Makar more and dominate. Makar has that talent to do that, but winning the Gold was the most important thing and Ducharme delivered exactly that.

He's not a bad coach obviously but it seems hard to argue that he couldn't have used Makar better. He played favorites because he was comfortable with returnees but should have been more flexible when Makar proved he was a difference maker. He won so it doesnt matter but that doesn't mean he couldn't have been better.

 

[Piestany88]

Barrie's better, and Makar is supposedly already better than Barrie who is obsolete, so by the transitive property, Makar >>> Shattenkirk

Exactly