All I remember is some of the worst stretch of hockey I've seen this team play. Weren't we on a 6 or so game losing streak when he was axed? Certainly looked like the team wasn't responding to Bruce. I don't think anyone disagreed that Bruce needed to be gone at that point.
As for Selanne... to me it sounded like he was more pissed off about Bruce not properly communicating with him. Which goes back to what I said about Bruce, that he is a terrible manager of players. We want all the players to be pros and understand everything, but athletes, in every sport, are fickle and need to be talked to like human beings.
One thing I like about Trotz, which I saw during the road to WC, was the fact that he is constantly talking to the players. The segment about how difficult it was to tell Chimmers that Trotz was gonna scratch him was a good one, then we see him actually taking the time to talk it out with him. Things like that matter to players.
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A couple points:
1. We were on a 5 game losing streak. But again up to that point, even in those 5 games, our advanced stats weren't bad. We had a similar 8 game losing streak the year before too.
2. RE: Communication - Scotty Bowman, perhaps the greatest coach ever, was an abysmal communicator. His wannabe twin Keenan was much the same. There were stories about Bowman:
In one instance he was on the elevator with Dino and Dino tried to talk to him and Bowman didn't say a word. Bowman hated Dino. He hated Coffey. Barely talked to either.
Once Bowman asked Dave Barr (or maybe it was Sean Burr?) what he thought of him. The player responded something like "Your an idiot who likes to play with toy trains" or something to that effect.
Point being is that there are far worse communciators than BB. Hunter never even talked to Knuble or Erskine to tell them why they weren't playing. Same with Halpern.
I don't think this is a legit concern here. Selanne was obviously sucking.
Every fanbase does it, which is why it's pointless to complain about it. May as well carp about the weather.
So yeah, BB was probably unfairly judged as underachieving, but in DC at least it was based in part on the expectation of going deep in the playoffs with a team that had been marketed as something much more than a first round flameout. The upward trend with the Young Guns was part of the "building the nations hockey capital" or whatever and the waves peeled back from the Prez Trophy peak.
If BB were given 15+ years to make the playoffs over and over he might have eventually broken through, but IMO a lot of that would depend on the locker room dynamic. I do think he lost the room toward the end and maybe it was the country club environment or maybe it was BB losing effectiveness from having essentially two volumes...chatty and pissed.
IMO..again just me...it wasn't a country club atmospher that sunk him.
It was the trash D GMGM always gave him. No vet stabalizing force. Half promising youngsters and half AHL fodder.
GMGM also always gave him a fresh faced 20 year old goalie as his best option too. Theodore was a castoff. Vokoun wasn't much better and BB didn't even have a full year with him.
When a GM gives a coach a crappy D and young goalies the results aren't going to be pretty. BB made them so and thus was a victim of his own doing...making a roster look better than it actually is.
I think he is doing the same in Anaheim.
