Confirmed with Link: Boucher: to return or not to return, that is the question

[JD1]

I don't think Boucher is the best coach in the world by any means but i do think people get enamoured with certain guy's coaching records where reality suggests they had a pretty strong roster to work with.

If you look at TB, in Boucher's first year they had a good team with good enough goaltending and an aging Roloson caught lightening in a bottle and stood on his head for a great playoff run. The following two seasons it was a merry go round of inadequate goaltending. Bishop played 9 games in 12-13 with a 917 save percentage. Apart from that, the team save percentage was under 900. Is that on Boucher? In 13-14 Bishop emerged as a starter, posted a 924 save percentage and the Lightening were back amongst the elite.

Look at his tenure here. Year one was the year of Nicole Anderson's cancer. It was an odd year but we had more than adequate goaltending all year. Condon posted a 914 and Anderson posted a 926. We make the playoffs. With some TDL upgrades and good playoff goaltending we had a run. Last year? Goaltending was awful from day one. Condon posted a 902 and Andy was worse than that. You can't compete with that. Weak goals was the story last year and always chasing the game. There was a lot more that went on last year. This year Boucher goes into the season with perhaps the weakest D in terms of nhl experience that we've seen in decades? So we have that deficiency and our goaltending has been ok at very best.

Next year this team will start with a far more experienced D and if we have a Nilsson Hogberg tandem likely a better goalie combo than we've had since the run two years ago. Personally i would expect Boucher to get more out of that than what he's able to get this year (assuming our forwards are signed) and i'd expect any new coach to come in and get better results if Boucher is replaced.

Bottom line for me i think Boucher is an adequate coach and not the problem here. As for the common fan complaints, go on the other boards and it's the same thing:

Playing pet vets over rookies
Ice time allocation
Why can't he see what we see, he's so stupid

 

[Crosside]

I don't think Boucher is the best coach in the world by any means but i do think people get enamoured with certain guy's coaching records where reality suggests they had a pretty strong roster to work with.

If you look at TB, in Boucher's first year they had a good team with good enough goaltending and an aging Roloson caught lightening in a bottle and stood on his head for a great playoff run. The following two seasons it was a merry go round of inadequate goaltending. Bishop played 9 games in 12-13 with a 917 save percentage. Apart from that, the team save percentage was under 900. Is that on Boucher? In 13-14 Bishop emerged as a starter, posted a 924 save percentage and the Lightening were back amongst the elite.

Look at his tenure here. Year one was the year of Nicole Anderson's cancer. It was an odd year but we had more than adequate goaltending all year. Condon posted a 914 and Anderson posted a 926. We make the playoffs. With some TDL upgrades and good playoff goaltending we had a run. Last year? Goaltending was awful from day one. Condon posted a 902 and Andy was worse than that. You can't compete with that. Weak goals was the story last year and always chasing the game. There was a lot more that went on last year. This year Boucher goes into the season with perhaps the weakest D in terms of nhl experience that we've seen in decades? So we have that deficiency and our goaltending has been ok at very best.

Next year this team will start with a far more experienced D and if we have a Nilsson Hogberg tandem likely a better goalie combo than we've had since the run two years ago. Personally i would expect Boucher to get more out of that than what he's able to get this year (assuming our forwards are signed) and i'd expect any new coach to come in and get better results if Boucher is replaced.

Bottom line for me i think Boucher is an adequate coach and not the problem here. As for the common fan complaints, go on the other boards and it's the same thing:

Playing pet vets over rookies
Ice time allocation
Why can't he see what we see, he's so stupid

Good post you understand the situation

 

[God Says No]

I don't think Boucher is the best coach in the world by any means but i do think people get enamoured with certain guy's coaching records where reality suggests they had a pretty strong roster to work with.

If you look at TB, in Boucher's first year they had a good team with good enough goaltending and an aging Roloson caught lightening in a bottle and stood on his head for a great playoff run. The following two seasons it was a merry go round of inadequate goaltending. Bishop played 9 games in 12-13 with a 917 save percentage. Apart from that, the team save percentage was under 900. Is that on Boucher? In 13-14 Bishop emerged as a starter, posted a 924 save percentage and the Lightening were back amongst the elite.

You want to know what happened in TBL? Here is a good read:
Why Guy Boucher Needed to Be Fired (And Why It Should Have Happened Sooner)

Now for fun, replace every TBL reference with OTT one. It's pretty eerie how the situations mirror each other.

Look at his tenure here. Year one was the year of Nicole Anderson's cancer. It was an odd year but we had more than adequate goaltending all year. Condon posted a 914 and Anderson posted a 926. We make the playoffs. With some TDL upgrades and good playoff goaltending we had a run. Last year? Goaltending was awful from day one. Condon posted a 902 and Andy was worse than that. You can't compete with that. Weak goals was the story last year and always chasing the game. There was a lot more that went on last year. This year Boucher goes into the season with perhaps the weakest D in terms of nhl experience that we've seen in decades? So we have that deficiency and our goaltending has been ok at very best.

The funny thing is that all the underlying numbers were pretty much the same between year 1 and 2. The only difference is that the goalies bailed out the team in year 1, and did not in year 2. But the point is that both years were bad, we just had Andy and Condon play out of their minds. Boucher is bad and the goaltending masked that in the first year. Year 2 and 3 not so much, and well here we are.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

Yes, the only difference between Year 1 and Year 2 was goaltending.

Nothing else happened that year...

 

[JD1]

You want to know what happened in TBL? Here is a good read:
Why Guy Boucher Needed to Be Fired (And Why It Should Have Happened Sooner)

Now for fun, replace every TBL reference with OTT one. It's pretty eerie how the situations mirror each other.



The funny thing is that all the underlying numbers were pretty much the same between year 1 and 2. The only difference is that the goalies bailed out the team in year 1, and did not in year 2. But the point is that both years were bad, we just had Andy and Condon play out of their minds. Bo
ucher is bad and the goaltending masked that in the first year. Year 2 and 3 not so much, and well here we are.

I tend to disagree. any team that gets top 10 goaltending makes the playoffs. exceptions to that are few. any team with bottom 10 goaltending doesn't make the playoffs and there again exceptions are few.

in TB, Bishop emerged as the starter, played 60+ games and posted a > 920 save percentage. Bishop became a star. it's pretty unlikely that TB team coached by Cooper makes the playoffs with the sub 900 goaltending the Boucher got.

 

[BonkTastic]

Does anyone honestly believe that Boucher gets another Head/asst coach job in the NHL? Or Crawford? Or poor Uber guy?

You get what you pay for.

I could easily see Boucher as an assistant coach in the NHL for decades after this.

He's very good as a support coach. He's detail oriented and deals with the mental side of the game well. With someone above him dictating tean policy and lineup decisions, that takes away his greatest weakness.

 

[God Says No]

Yes, the only difference between Year 1 and Year 2 was goaltending.

Nothing else happened that year...

Well of course there were overall differences, but I was making the point that if you look at the underlying numbers they were very similar between year 1 and year 2 (BTW, those numbers were not good). The only outlier was the goaltending.

I tend to disagree. any team that gets top 10 goaltending makes the playoffs. exceptions to that are few. any team with bottom 10 goaltending doesn't make the playoffs and there again exceptions are few.

in TB, Bishop emerged as the starter, played 60+ games and posted a > 920 save percentage. Bishop became a star. it's pretty unlikely that TB team coached by Cooper makes the playoffs with the sub 900 goaltending the Boucher got.

Well sure, goaltending is a big factor on whether the team has a good year or not. But that's not the point. The point is that the team under Boucher was never good. It's just year 1 we were propped up by amazing goaltending.

 

[Samboni]

The definition of insanity is doing the same things over an over hoping for a different result. No doubt GB has a positive attitude but can’t translate his talk into wins. However, he is getting the same results with less talent this year as compared to last year. Is that due to GB or better team chemistry?

 

[AchtzehnBaby]

Please continue here
Confirmed with Link: - Boucher: to return or not to return, that is the question [Part 2]