Coach John Hynes Discussion

[TheUnseenHand]

My biggest two issues:

1. Personnel choices on the PP. Zajac and Boyle should never been on the same PP. Talk about a perfect place for Zacha to gain confidence. But no, we get Zajac and Boyle for 1:30 and Nico with Bratt for the tail end only... Hard to argue with the results to this point though. Still seems like it could be better.

2. Personnel choices in OT. This is where I think he is literally trying to throw games. The choices are asinine. You seriously wonder if he has a legitimate mental disability when you see the OT lineups.

I don't care about the shootout. It's a crap shoot and I can't blame any coach for throwing any player out there.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Yeah those would be my biggest gripes as well.

I don't think we are getting the most out of our PP. I am not sure what is an optimal set up since you need to factor in positions but we shpild do better.

Our OT strategy is bad. Bleed is generally wrong about us "playing not to lose " in regulation. We don't Do that.

Unfortunately we absolutely do do that in OT and it has cost us points.

 

[Bleedred]

2. Personnel choices in OT. This is where I think he is literally trying to throw games. The choices are asinine. You seriously wonder if he has a legitimate mental disability when you see the OT lineups.

THIS right here has been a huge problem lately.

It's almost like he feels we aren't good enough yet, so he may as well give the OT minutes to guys like Greene and Zajac, and starting off OT with them. It's just like when he'd put out Lovejoy on the first shift after a stoppage in OT last year. Playing defense isn't really going to do much to get you the extra point in OT. It isn't conducive to winning in OT and scoring that goal that you need to score if you wanna win in OT. I don't understand the rationale for this.

And it can't be that Greene is an offensive dynamo, because he really isn't anymore. Zajac has been hot lately, so I'm warmed up to playing him in OT, more than I was a week or two ago. I can't stand Greene out there, unless it's a PK. And he's really not good enough to shut down the top talents anymore, that we need him at 3 on 3. And even if he was still good enough for that, all it does is get us to the shootout. He's not terribly slow, but he's also not fast enough to justify playing him in OT, when he really isn't good anymore at anything else that you'd want at 3 on 3.

 

[Bleedred]

Yeah those would be my biggest gripes as well.

I don't think we are getting the most out of our PP. I am not sure what is an optimal set up since you need to factor in positions but we shpild do better.

Our OT strategy is bad. Bleed is generally wrong about us "playing not to lose " in regulation. We don't Do that.

Unfortunately we absolutely do do that in OT and it has cost us points.

I don't think we ''Play not to lose'' in regulation so much lately. We've (thankfully) moved away from that in the last 1.5-2 months. We were doing a lot of that early in the season, and Hynes throwing out his ''Shutdown'' guys in the 3rd period with a lead seemed to indicate that. That Vancouver 1-0 shutout really illustrates that. That was the epitome of ''We played to win 1-0! Look! All my shutdown guys helped!'' even though it was Cory that did that for us.

The only game in the last month+ that I felt we played not to lose in regulation was the last 10 or 12 minutes of regulation in Sunday's game.

 

[TheUnseenHand]

OT has to be a heavy dose of Hall, Nico, Bratt, Palms, Moore, Vats, Sevs with maybe Gibbons and Coleman a bit. You don't play to defend in OT. Zajac, Bolye, Greene, Santini; these guys shouldn't see any ice. You go balls to the wall speed offense. It's not like attempting to play D has helped any. All it does is either lead to an OT loss or SO loss.

 

[Billdo]

His OT selections and SHO choices are questionable at best... the Zacha thing confuses me tbh... other than that he’s been ok to average.

 

[Bleedred]

OT has to be a heavy dose of Hall, Nico, Bratt, Palms, Moore, Vats, Sevs with maybe Gibbons and Coleman a bit. You don't play to defend in OT. Zajac, Bolye, Greene, Santini; these guys shouldn't see any ice. You go balls to the wall speed offense. It's not like attempting to play D has helped any. All it does is either lead to an OT loss or SO loss.

I agree on all of those guys, except maybe Zajac with the way he's been in the last week of play.

The only need for Greene or Santini or even Boyle in 3 on 3 would be if we had a faceoff in our zone with under 10 seconds left (really with 5 or fewer seconds left) and we needed to have a guy win a faceoff (Boyle) and also defend (Greene and Boyle) the last 5 seconds of OT to get it to a shootout, because we literally don't have enough time left to get to the other end of the ice and score a goal. That's the only time I could justify playing for the shootout and defending, since at that point, that would be all we possibly could do to stay alive in hopes of getting the extra point.

 

[TheUnseenHand]

Hell, I'd even give Wood a chance in OT. Who cares if he can't defend. He can certainly wreak havoc with all that open ice and the puck on his stick.

 

[Bleedred]

Hell, I'd even give Wood a chance in OT. Who cares if he can't defend. He can certainly wreak havoc with all that open ice and the puck on his stick.

Once again, I don't understand why Wood doesn't get any OT time/minimal OT time, since he got time in it last year. Why was that? Because it was a development year and we're in win mode right now?

Well if we're in win mode right now, then why the hell is Greene out there during the first shift (or at all) of 3 on 3?

 

[Emperoreddy]

I get why Wood doesn't get time and honestly he doesn't need to. We have enough other forwards.

It is weird because we played balls to the wall last season and found success.

 

[glenwo2]

Hynes is bald.

I got nothing.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Once again, I don't understand why Wood doesn't get any OT time/minimal OT time, since he got time in it last year. Why was that? Because it was a development year and we're in win mode right now?

Well if we're in win mode right now, then why the hell is Greene out there during the first shift (or at all) of 3 on 3?

I don’t think Greene is the worst choice for the D as long as you have two skill forwards on the same shift.

The forward combos are a lot more baffling to me.

 

[Jets012]

Not as much as a problem with him this year as I had last year. For the most part his forward lines have been fine. Didn't agree with his Henrique top 6 usage at times and Zacha riding the pine for Stafford/Hayes, but over the last few weeks, he's done a good job in that regard.

His 3 on 3 choices are dumb. Greene should never be out there. He's one of the worst defenseman statistically on the 3 on 3 in the league.

Really just have a problem with how he's playing Severson. Shouldn't be over reliant on one pairing to receive all the tough zone stats/minutes/competition. And I understand that all the defensive pairings receive tough minutes, but I really would prefer if he just distributed the tough competition evenly with our three pairings considering Santini/Greene have shown that they get pinned against it.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Yeah I have been pretty fine with the forward lines overall. Really not much I would change unless Zacha shows some more to deserve a promotion.

He is playing better but for now I think it is best to keep him with Wood.

I didn’t like going 11/7 on Sunday though. He isn’t the only coach that does that, and I really don’t understand why anyone would do it.

 

[Jets012]

Yea 11-7 has to go. But with the emergence of our defensive depth, I really think these zone starts should be distributed evenly. We shouldn't be overly reliant with our top pairing. Not really a good strategy in any situation IMO unless you have a Vlasic/Braun type pairing. Greene isn't in his prime anymore and we simply don't have a Vlasic guy who can just eat minutes against top competition. Moore/Vatanen actually have done fine the last few games as Hynes has gradually increased the difficulty of their match-ups and zone-starts. And everyone says Butcher is this grenade in his own zone, but I've never really noticed that being the case. Maybe he's not as strong as Greene in his own zone, but he certainly could handle receiving a few more tougher zone-starts/minutes.

 

[Emperoreddy]

He isn’t a grenade, he just is raw. His positioning can be better, and his slow foot speed has got him caught a few times.

 

[HoliksGhost]

IMO Hynes is starting to look like a very good assistant coach candidate.

 

[jkrdevil]

IMO Hynes is starting to look like a very good assistant coach candidate.

Danger of hiring a first time coach. It is boom or bust

 

[Cult of Hynes]

Jesus christ is this staff f***ing clueless. The PP unit is finally switched up, but Hischier is off of it and Stafford gets PP time instead and Boyle is still on the PP.

Can they just ice all the skilled players on it instead of regressing players and 3rd liners?

Hynes, Ward and Nasreddine need to go.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Boyle is one of the few guys who hasnt sucked on the power play.

 

[MadDevil]

Boyle is one of the few guys who hasnt sucked on the power play.

It's obvious he's there to be a big body in front of the net and to look for rebounds, like PPs have done for years. There's really no reason to complain about him on the PP. Stafford, well I'm not thrilled about that, but at least they're trying something different, which everybody has been asking for. I guess they're just damned if they do and damned if they don't with some people.

 

[JimEIV]

Wood-Coleman OT

 

[Emperoreddy]

Also the idea that it is some big crime to use a “third liner” on the power play is really absurd.

Forget for a second that many teams use their third liners on their PPs. By numbers alone you have to use someone from the bottom 6 on a power play unless you run a two D set on both units.

One D on each unit means you need to use eight forwards. They aren’t going to run Hall out there for both shifts if they can help it.

Seriously come on with that.

 

[Bleedred]

Wood-Coleman OT

Certainly not next game, since Coleman is scratched!

 

[Zippy316]

Boyle is one of the few guys who hasnt sucked on the power play.

It's incredibly irritating how many times Boyle loses puck battles he should win on the power play. You would think being 6'7" with his reach he would be an animal along the boards, but he's awful there.

Aside from that, I don't think you can complain too much about Boyle on the PP.