Coach Paul MacLean

[Lehner]

This needs to be a bounce back year by the coaching staff. Last year he had some of the worse decisions I've ever seen.

He was an excellent coach the year before, I think he will bounce back but this will be a discussion all season long.

Stop playing the vets, play the best players Mac!

Click to read more...

 

[Rand0m]

Sometimes a bad season after some success is a good thing. The 2 good seasons were far from perfect too, but he/they had success. This is valuable experience for a team that's "rebuilding". You don't only learn from winning, you also learn when you lose.

 

[aragorn]

This needs to be a bounce back year by the coaching staff. Last year he had some of the worse decisions I've ever seen.

He was an excellent coach the year before, I think he will bounce back but this will be a discussion all season long.

Stop playing the vets, play the best players Mac!

What if the vets are the best players in his opinion? Isn't that why he is the coach to make those decisions along with his assistants? A coach is assessed on wins & losses. Is it his fault that the goalies were not very good last yr? Was it his fault the defnce wasn't very good last yr? Was it his fault that Spezza, Karlsson & others had record minus yrs?

The coach does the best he can with what he has but it is the players who play the game & affect the outcome of games, not the coach. Yes he decides on ice time & who plays when but this team had many nights where mistakes by players in certain situations had more to do with outcomes than ice time or which line played more. We'll see if PM changes his style, I'm not so sure he will.

 

[Cosmix]

This needs to be a bounce back year by the coaching staff. Last year he had some of the worse decisions I've ever seen.

He was an excellent coach the year before, I think he will bounce back but this will be a discussion all season long.

Stop playing the vets, play the best players Mac!

To aid the discussion, could you please provide the major support evidence regarding "the worst decisions you've ever seen", and the factors that you believe made him an excellent coach the year before.

That information would provide useful debatable points.

 

[Lehner]

To aid the discussion, could you please provide the major support evidence regarding "the worst decisions you've ever seen", and the factors that you believe made him an excellent coach the year before.

That information would provide useful debatable points.

I dont remember, it was a long season but there was a lot of what are you doing moments last year.

heres a link, that would help

http://www.silversevensens.com/2013/12/22/5234550/time-to-make-paul-maclean-a-healthy-scratch

 

[StefanW]

All it will take is having two goalies at about a .940 save percentage and PM will be Coach of the Year again, and fans will go back to loving him.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

 

[Cosmix]

I dont remember, it was a long season but there was a lot of what are you doing moments last year.

heres a link, that would help

http://www.silversevensens.com/2013/12/22/5234550/time-to-make-paul-maclean-a-healthy-scratch

I just read that article and gleaned the following points from it. These appear to be the author's main points, not mine. Edit and add if you wish.

1. Scratching Methot
2. Not playing Lehner when Anderson was not playing well
3. Maclean doing too much ( not quite sure what this means)
4. Spezza playing the PK when he has poor defensive skills
5. Playing the Greening, Smith, Neil line on the PP
6. Saying it is up to the players to play better when the team was losing
7. Constant shuffling of line mates and not sticking with line combos to allow chemistry to develop
8. Not calling up Grant and using Kassian

 

[Vesa Awesaka]

I don't think he did a poor job. Ultimately i blame the players. A lot of what was perceived to be bad decision was him sending a message to players to grow up and do what he tells them

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

All it will take is having two goalies at about a .940 save percentage and PM will be Coach of the Year again, and fans will go back to loving him.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

lol, yep.

I think all of us need to remove the rose-tinted glasses regarding the lockout-shortened season. It was amazing and fun to watch the pesky Sens, but it was totally unsustainable.

There's no way we can expect the whole team to play like every single game in an 82 game season is a code red. As much as I've love to see it happen, the guys just aren't capable of doing it. No one is.

 

[StefanW]

lol, yep.

I think all of us need to remove the rose-tinted glasses regarding the lockout-shortened season. It was amazing and fun to watch the pesky Sens, but it was totally unsustainable.

There's no way we can expect the whole team to play like every single game in an 82 game season is a code red. As much as I've love to see it happen, the guys just aren't capable of doing it. No one is.

Exactly.

The team road unsustainable numbers after the injuries in the lockout season, and the team as not as good as their record and the second round playoff appearance suggested.

Having said that, the team is also not as bad as their record from last year shows. Everything kind of went wrong for them from goaltending out.

Just as MacLean was given too much credit two years ago, the amount is continues to be slagged for last year is also out of step with the reality of what he was given. People complain about the 4th line a lot, for example, when that was supposed to be the shut down line. If the shut down line does not shut anyone down there is going to be a problem resulting in losses. The whole Andy/Lehner thing has been debated to death on these boards, but suffice it to say when Lehner got the net with the season on the line he stunk so bad I was starting to hope the team would just put him on waivers and be done with it.

It is not bad coaching when you either have nothing but bad options, or if players do not fill the role they are supposed to fill.

 

[Pierre from Orleans]

The players can only take so much blame. It is the coach's job to utilize players that best suits a specific position to succeed

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

Exactly.

The team road unsustainable numbers after the injuries in the lockout season, and the team as not as good as their record and the second round playoff appearance suggested.

Having said that, the team is also not as bad as their record from last year shows. Everything kind of went wrong for them from goaltending out.

Just as MacLean was given too much credit two years ago, the amount is continues to be slagged for last year is also out of step with the reality of what he was given. People complain about the 4th line a lot, for example, when that was supposed to be the shut down line. If the shut down line does not shut anyone down there is going to be a problem resulting in losses. The whole Andy/Lehner thing has been debated to death on these boards, but suffice it to say when Lehner got the net with the season on the line he stunk so bad I was starting to hope the team would just put him on waivers and be done with it.

It is not bad coaching when you either have nothing but bad options, or if players do not fill the role they are supposed to fill.

Agreed 100%.

 

[Caeldan]

There was a post season interview he did that I liked.

BBasically said something to the effect that he had changed some of his demeanour deliberately as he hadn't wanted to have them get tired of his message. Realized now that it didn't work as he'd like and that will probably find somewhere in the middle for this season.

I'm totally paraphrasing off memory so I'll try to find the exact article if someone else doesn't first

So he'll hopefully go back to the friendly neighborhood Paulrus instead of trying to be a taskmaster again

 

[Sensinitis]

He said he was being too harsh compared to the good cop role he was playing the two seasons prior and that Murray, management and himself think he should be more of an in between the two.

 

[HSF]

I just read that article and gleaned the following points from it. These appear to be the author's main points, not mine. Edit and add if you wish.

1. Scratching Methot
2. Not playing Lehner when Anderson was not playing well
3. Maclean doing too much ( not quite sure what this means)
4. Spezza playing the PK when he has poor defensive skills
5. Playing the Greening, Smith, Neil line on the PP
6. Saying it is up to the players to play better when the team was losing
7. Constant shuffling of line mates and not sticking with line combos to allow chemistry to develop
8. Not calling up Grant and using Kassian

I cant say any of these 'decisions' really led to us missing the playoffs. The players didnt execute and so many players had terrible years

People forget how bad Lehner looked at time last year both goalies just couldnt get it going and when they did it didn't last long. You also add in a lot of younger guys underachieving leading Maclean to play the vets it was just a mess.

The pressure seemed to get to the players

 

[Holdurbreathe]

He said he was being too harsh compared to the good cop role he was playing the two seasons prior and that Murray, management and himself think he should be more of an in between the two.

Paraphrased.

Today on 1200 Mac said last year the coaches probably hurried too much and missed components of what they wanted to do and didn't go over old ground they might have.

This year the focus is on being less rushed and more detailed and he thinks camp has been good but yearend results will be the judge.

Personally I really liked what I heard from Mac today, he was very professional, offered great insight into player selection and the criteria used.

He clearly said that while he believes the best players play that contracts can get in the way and people may feel shafted (my word not his).

Mac feels to be an elite team the organization needs 30 NHL players but the team can only keep 23 so there is likely going to be 7 in Bingo.

He talked about the Prince decision and it made good sense.

He also talked about the bubble players Lazar, JGP, Puempel, Robinson and Stone, found his comments very interesting.

Here's the link for those interested.

http://t.co/yGIsGAmDVN

 

[BigRig4]

Exactly.

The team road unsustainable numbers after the injuries in the lockout season, and the team as not as good as their record and the second round playoff appearance suggested.

Having said that, the team is also not as bad as their record from last year shows. Everything kind of went wrong for them from goaltending out.

Just as MacLean was given too much credit two years ago, the amount is continues to be slagged for last year is also out of step with the reality of what he was given. People complain about the 4th line a lot, for example, when that was supposed to be the shut down line. If the shut down line does not shut anyone down there is going to be a problem resulting in losses. The whole Andy/Lehner thing has been debated to death on these boards, but suffice it to say when Lehner got the net with the season on the line he stunk so bad I was starting to hope the team would just put him on waivers and be done with it.

It is not bad coaching when you either have nothing but bad options, or if players do not fill the role they are supposed to fill.

Out of curiousity, what about our short season was unsustainable? From what I understand, our PDO and possession were pretty respectable. Considering we were missing Karl who's by far our best player, I don't see why everyone always says that season was an anomaly when stats don't really support that. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I really don't understand why everyone says this.

 

[Vesa Awesaka]

Out of curiousity, what about our short season was unsustainable? From what I understand, our PDO and possession were pretty respectable. Considering we were missing Karl who's by far our best player, I don't see why everyone always says that season was an anomaly when stats don't really support that. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I really don't understand why everyone says this.

Save percentage. Just watching the games you could tell we would have defensive break downs which would lead to our goalies having to make terrific saves. Were a good possession team but defensively we give up too many prime scoring opportunities because of break downs. Patches getting 3 break aways on us in one game really illustrates my point

 

[BigRig4]

Save percentage. Just watching the games you could tell we would have defensive break down which would lead to our goalies having to make terrific saves

Couldn't the same be said about our shooting % being ridiculously low?

 

[Vesa Awesaka]

Couldn't the same be said about our shooting % being ridiculously low?

Like i said we can out shoot teams but we have defensive hicups. Imo we also didnt have very many natural goal scorers and we had players playing selfishly.

 

[StefanW]

Out of curiousity, what about our short season was unsustainable? From what I understand, our PDO and possession were pretty respectable. Considering we were missing Karl who's by far our best player, I don't see why everyone always says that season was an anomaly when stats don't really support that. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I really don't understand why everyone says this.

We had three goalies riding around .940 save percentage. If you think back to those games, we were outplayed pretty much every game until near the end of the season when guys started coming back from injury. The way the "pesky" Sens won was to ride all-world goaltending, stay within a goal close to the end of a game, pop one in, and get at least a point. If Bishop was in net we were good for two, because he also rode an unsustainable string of shootout wins.

To look at it a different way, we were giving up north of 40 shots a game. Say our goaltending was at about .915 or so rather than in the unsustainable .940 range. That averages out to giving up one extra goal per 40 shot game. Of course some game we would not have given up that extra goal, and others we may have given up an extra 2 or 3 goals. Imagine our drop in point total if about half of the games where we ended up tied (and we gain either 1 or 2 points, depending on the OT and shootout) was an outright loss with no points. Now imagine if about half the games we won outright by one goal ended up tied, where we may still have had 2 points but would occasionally had one instead.

We ended that year as a 7 seed with a five point cushion over 9th place. (note ROW cant be calculated because we are adjusting wins and losses.) So if we drop 5 or more points in the standings by giving up all of those extra goals we are on the outside looking in, and the Jets 2.0 would have had their first playoff berth. I think the difference between .940 and .915 is in the 7 point range, but there is no way of proving it for sure one way or another because it is hypothetical.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

Out of curiousity, what about our short season was unsustainable? From what I understand, our PDO and possession were pretty respectable. Considering we were missing Karl who's by far our best player, I don't see why everyone always says that season was an anomaly when stats don't really support that. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I really don't understand why everyone says this.

Different playing style in a shortened season, plus only playing Eastern teams. We were playing playoff style desperation hockey....no one has the stamina and luck (injury wise) to do that for 82+ games.

And I'll be brutally honest....the refs started calling our games differently when we had our stars injured. They were definitely easier on us than usual. That's one of the big reasons why I think the penalty parade last seaosn was such a shock......a lot of guys found out the hard way what was ok in the lockout year for us suddenly wasn't last season.

And so were other teams took us lightly as well....they thought they could come in and sleepwalk their way to wins. We caught a few teams off guard with the pesky.

 

[PoutineSp00nZ]

We had three goalies riding around .940 save percentage. If you think back to those games, we were outplayed pretty much every game until near the end of the season when guys started coming back from injury. The way the "pesky" Sens won was to ride all-world goaltending, stay within a goal close to the end of a game, pop one in, and get at least a point. If Bishop was in net we were good for two, because he also rode an unsustainable string of shootout wins.

To look at it a different way, we were giving up north of 40 shots a game. Say our goaltending was at about .915 or so rather than in the unsustainable .940 range. That averages out to giving up one extra goal per 40 shot game. Of course some game we would not have given up that extra goal, and others we may have given up an extra 2 or 3 goals. Imagine our drop in point total if about half of the games where we ended up tied (and we gain either 1 or 2 points, depending on the OT and shootout) was an outright loss with no points. Now imagine if about half the games we won outright by one goal ended up tied, where we may still have had 2 points but would occasionally had one instead.

We ended that year as a 7 seed with a five point cushion over 9th place. (note ROW cant be calculated because we are adjusting wins and losses.) So if we drop 5 or more points in the standings by giving up all of those extra goals we are on the outside looking in, and the Jets 2.0 would have had their first playoff berth. I think the difference between .940 and .915 is in the 7 point range, but there is no way of proving it for sure one way or another because it is hypothetical.

Fantastic post!

It remains to be seen which Senators we're going to see this year. It's next to impossible to predict seeing as so much rests on so many young question marks.

Should be a fun ride though, its hard to imagine that things can all go as wrong as they did last year.

 

[Cashin]

I like him. I like his personality, I like the way he handles himself. Sound coaching from what I can see. I like the stache.


MacLean is not what's wrong with this club.

 

[BigBush*]

Should be a fun ride though, its hard to imagine that things can all go as wrong as they did last year.

And if they do at least we have a first round draft pick!
It's gonna be an awesome year!!!