Bruce Boudreau out per Friedman, Russo

[Eggtimer]

“Oh we are almost in a playoff spot and might play ourselves into one ! Quick ! Fire the coach and hopefully we start losing again .”

 

[JESSEWENEEDTOCOOK]

That would be really dumb by Guerin.

Of course, that's his old buddy.

Inject more old boys club GMs into my veins

 

[rynryn]

coaching has to be the worst job in hockey. Entirely at fault before any others, because its the easiest change for a team to make

srsly. I mean, BG pretty much said he fired him to let the players know what happened now was all on THEM. It sort of makes sense i guess if he wasn't planning on bringing him back next season but it's still a shitty thing to realize that as one of the best coaches in the league you can be fired as a goddamn wake-up call to a group of players that had been playing well lately, and who cannot lose their jobs no matter how shitty they had been playing.

 

[Kuznetsnow]

coaching has to be the worst job in hockey. Entirely at fault before any others, because its the easiest change for a team to make

Lmao no you get to stand there behind the bench and play NHL 20 with real people for 7 figures and get a leash that lasts for years, doesn't get much better than that.

 

[TaLoN]

Lmao no you get to stand there behind the bench and play NHL 20 with real people for 7 figures and get a leash that lasts for years, doesn't get much better than that.

When you play NHL20, you get to control the players. The players success/failure to execute is on you. Coaches have no control over player execution. The Players failed Bruce. Bruce didn't fail the players. The GM (and those who came before) limited what Bruce had to work with this season. I seriously doubt any other coach will get more blood out of this stone than Bruce has.

 

[Ulysses31]

only thing that makes sense to me. team was overperforming their roster on paper.

 

[SoundAndFury]

“Oh we are almost in a playoff spot and might play ourselves into one ! Quick ! Fire the coach and hopefully we start losing again .”

Pretty much this.

I mean the biggest winner here is Boudreau himself, he can go to the competitive team now once there is an opening.

 

[Ciao]

Pretty much this.

I mean the biggest winner here is Boudreau himself, he can go to the competitive team now once there is an opening.

Getting fired is one of the few perqs of professional coaching. A paid vacation if you will.

 

[sabremike]

Doug Weight is literally just about the worst most incompetent coach to ever stand behind an NHL bench. Only a complete lunatic would ever even consider making him their coach.

 

[Atas2000]

The man who taught Ovechkin swearing in English. The end of an era?

 

[egelband]

I'm with you. Boudreau is not the problem.

Exactly this. I’d actually take Boudreau over any of the free agent coaches out there now. There should be plenty of teams lining up for Boudreau and Gallant.

from what i saw of Minnesota, they bust their asses and play good defense but simply lack scoring talent.

 

[pbgoalie]

Has Randy Carlyle been hanging around Guerin’s seats during games lately??

 

[klozge]

Lol wut

Would you not replace Bednar with Boudreau? Bednar is an okay coach imo but his refusal to even look at special teams, his idea of not being responsible for motivating the players and his relative weakness when it comes to developing young players (I know the last point can be argued) are becoming tiresome.

 

[LOFIN]

Would you not replace Bednar with Boudreau? Bednar is an okay coach imo but his refusal to even look at special teams, his idea of not being responsible for motivating the players and his relative weakness when it comes to developing young players (I know the last point can be argued) are becoming tiresome.

Get rid of the assistants then. I don't want to do a total 180 in terms of the style of play with this team now.

 

[howkie]

Xhjätzigzkg lh lh lh ljuryxhkx!

Why did Jets extend Maurice, would love to have BB instead..
Cheavy is really making it hard for me

 

[GreatSaveLuongo]

Only explanation is Bill wants Minny bottom 3 of league by TDL.

 

[King 88]

Fired last year wouldnt be surprised but now seems like weird move.

 

[klozge]

Get rid of the assistants then. I don't want to do a total 180 in terms of the style of play with this team now.

I could live with that solution.

 

[Mbraunm]

I'm no expert on the Wild but it would seem that the roster is the issue here. I'm not sure if another coach can squeeze any more points out of that team.

Exactly. I was really impressed with how Boudreau was able to overachieve this year with that roster and subpar goaltending. Perplexing to fire the biggest strength of that team! And on the flip side, a coach who pulls out terrible analytics from his team over the last 15 months in Maurice gets extended. Strange times.

 

[CharasLazyWrister]

They must be hiring one of the “big names” currently available.

Otherwise, the timing makes no sense. That roster isn’t good on paper and it’s even worse in gameplay. And they’ve been playing well lately.

Not like he’s been there long, but Guerin hasn’t done anything remotely impressive with that team thus far.

 

[57special]

Wild fans were fine with the Zucker trade. Not so much with the BB firing. Seemed unnecessary, unless there is another shoe to drop. Guerin goodwill with the fans dropped a little after this firing. Could've easily waited till the off season, and treated BB with more class.

 

[Bazeek]

This Wild fan's good with it.

I like Boudreau and think he did a good job. Someone will hire him this summer and he'll do a good job there, too. Maybe it'll be a team with a decent goalie and he'll actually be able to make the push he wasn't able to in Minnesota (which I don't think was his fault).

He was never going to get renewed here though, and I do think Guerin's right to be concerned with the way he's been using players: not necessarily catering to veterans, but leaning too much on certain guys regardless of how they or others are playing. Accountability's one part of it, but it also makes it harder to evaluate what he's got at a time where he needs to make some critical decisions about who stays and who goes.

As an example: all the rumors this autumn were that anyone could have Kevin Fiala for a song. He was struggling to find a place in the line-up and was healthy scratched a few times. Eventually he gets a shot on a line with Koivu and Parise (who was also in a major funk early, but kept leading the team in ice time), he goes on a hot streak, and after that he's pretty much untouchable. At this point he's not only off-limits for a trade, he's the guy that Boudreau's been using to try to get the scoring lines "going" again.

So if you're Guerin, you just watched a bullet whiz by your head because of how your head coach manages his players. Not that Boudreau's peculiar in that regard at all, because I think most coaches work that way. But he's got a very similar situation with Ryan Donato right now, a skilled young player who's got 11 goals playing mostly 4th line minutes with periodic healthy scratches. How comfortable should he be auctioning this kid off right now? How comfortable should he be hanging on to Eric Staal as his 1C for next year? And he's probably got a lot of other questions that haven't occurred to me.

Anyway, Boudreau's a good coach and he'll land on his feet. Despite the initial anger I have to think that getting away from this team right now is at least a little bit of a relief.

 

[Mpasta]

This thread reminds me so much of the thread when the Bruins fired Claude Julien and he went to Montreal and so many people were wrong.

 

[Night Shift]

Guerin could (or maybe should of) waited till the end of the year, but figured when Guerin was hired BB wasn't his choice going forward and probably looking for a reason to release him. I think Guerin is acting on this now to see how the team responds and to send a message. It's probably how he wants to evaluate the personnel the rest of the season,

 

[Channelcat]

This thread reminds me so much of the thread when the Bruins fired Claude Julien and he went to Montreal and so many people were wrong.

I think Julien has done an amazing job in Mtl. They've got maybe 5 nhl players.