Coaching Mistakes For Team Canada

Canada rode this entire tournament on pure talent alone. This worked on the US like the Europeans until the US changed lines and strategies for the third period. And Canada was dominated in that period from my understanding of it.

Maybe the coaching could be as much to blame as anything. Canada seemed outcoached by Mike Eaves.

 

They lost by one goal...that the USA didn't even put in the net themselves.

It was one game. Yes, the pressure was very much there...but it was still one game.

Why can't people just accept the fact that the USA was the better team today and earned the win?

I can't stand how so many Canadian hockey fans (yes, I see that your location is American, but I am venting here) always try to blame such a loss on their own team instead of blaming who is really responsible.....the team in the other dressing room.

 

Not only was coaching the problem, but I think that selection was a bit of a problem, too. Don't get me wrong; we had a great team, good enough to beat the Americans, but our team could have been better.

Crosby should have got more ice time in this game, IMO. Also, I don't think he was out in the last 2 minutes. He should have been.

Also, I think the choosing of this team MAY have too skiewed towards filling roles and quotas, and no simply chosing the best pure players available.

They felt that they had a lot of big, strong players that can score, and some skilled offensive small guys (Crosby, Dawes, Tambellini), so they figured they needed some checkers, some role players so they chose guys like Tim Brent, Jeremy Collitan and Steven Dixon.


For example, Jeremy Colliton is a solid defensive hockey player, but will not provide much offense. But oftentimes, the main guys killing penalties were players such as Carter and Getzlaf and Richards, guys that were also on your top scoring line. So what is the use of Colliton?

IF, for example, we dropped Colliton and Dixon and chose two of Perry, Brodziak, or Henrich, I think we would have had a better team.

I really think the phillosophy should be to build THE BEST team comprised of THE BEST players, and I'm not sure this was done hear. They were picking some players to fill certain 'perceived' roles instead. On this team, we have enough guys that can play on the PK, and good lines to match up against other good lines.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't think --at least when it comes to fowards-- that Canada picked THE BEST forwards available.

 

Team USA had the bounces go their way in the end. That was the difference. If Fleury doesn't pull a once in a lifetime score on himself by banking it off his own defenseman, they are tied.

 

1. Sidney Crosby is 16 years old. Scoring 5 points while on the 4th line exceeded my expectations of him. To expect him to lead this team at 16 years of age isn't right.

2. When choosing a team, you don't simply select who you think the best players are, you have to consider team chemistry as well. Guys like Corey Perry and Kyle Brodziak had the talent to play for Team Canada, but obviously guys like Colliton and Dixon worked better with the team concept Durocher had.

Four scoring lines doesn't win games. The reason Colliton and Dixon made the team over Brodziak and Perry is because Durocher felt they have the defensive abilities as forwards that is ever so important to a checking line.

That is why Durocher is the coach, and we are not. Replacing Colliton and Dixon with Perry and Brodziak might have helped Canada score a few more goals, but it likely would have resulted in more goals against as well.

 

Four scoring lines don't win...?

Sure they do...give me a break...I mean if the Canucks had 4 lines of Bertuzzi Naslund Morrison they wouldn't win...?

Give me a break...and while Corry Perry is not the same as Bertuzzi is like Jeff Carter or Anthony Stewarts he's much better at this level offensively then say Matt Cooke at the NHL level....

This is my point....

So you've got say the big lin on Vancouver for example or the better examplet he big line on the Bruins since the Bruins numer one line is so often compared to the Burns, Getzlaf, Carter line....

THen you've got Corry Perry and Henirch being your Savard's or Brad Richards or whomever as your second line centre...

Canada has talent...a lot of talent...in the Olympics are could put in 10 teams and most of them would still be better then most teams.....

but that's not the point....IMO Canada get's type cast with being big and having pluggers.....

Why not cultivate talent and let more skill reign...Like Nigel Dawes, while samll and skilled was also fiesty and threw his body around...he's Canadian....and yeahn he was on teh first line and played great....

and yeah Stewart and Richards created room out there for Dawes...absolutely...but like Corry Perry couldn't have played....and Steve Bernier and more upper echelon prospects...then all of these Olympic Rob Zaumner's but hey


that 's just me

 

The coaches did a fine job and have nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone seems to point to the coach. The coach doesn't play the game all he does is tell his players the right thing to do. If they f*** up it's there own fault not the coaches.

 

If they win: "Those players went out and did the job."

If they lose: "What a rotten coach."

I disagree.

And as far as Crosby, he did relatively little with the ice he got, so I don't see why he should have been played more.

 

I don't think they picked the best Canadian team available to them, and I've felt that way from the beginning.

But, after the first couple games it was easy to see this was a good team, and going into the final, I wouldn't have changed a thing. This team was very capable of winning, and probably should have even walked all over the US. For whatever reason, it didn't happen, and there's always next year.

 

Well I agree with coaching Mistakes to a small part...

What surprized me most was that Team Canada was so consumed about size this year that they forgot about the little things...

The one incedent in the game that surprised me most in the Gold medal game came late in the 3rd with Fleury on the bench for an extra attacker..

You would think that after calling a timeout ..that they would but their best snipers on the ice for the tieing goal attempt..

Durocher throws out all Size...Burns,Getzlaf,Carter and Mike Richards to take the face off.. yet little Nigel Dawes who was holding the Hot hand Team Canada Scoring leader who already had 2 in the game and his linemate Anthony Stewart who are both leading the team in scoring sit on the bench...

Burns had yet to score in tourney and Getzlaf while gifted, misssed some wide open nets in the tourney as he does not have the best hands..

That was just one incedent that If I was coach I would do different....

 

I couldn't agree more.

IMO the layers on the ice should have been Richards, Dawes, Stewart, Carter, Phaneuf and then either Meech or Crosby.


The only other thing I thought of was for Durocher to call his TO after the US tied the game at 3-3. I thought Canada was back on their heels and needed to regroup.

 

I didn't mean to seem like a typical pointing the blame here. It just seemed that the US coach did a better job than the Canadien coach. Not really saying that the Canadien coach did a bad job, just Eaves did a better job.

 

I think Mario Frenchnameimnotgoingtotrytospell did a good job this year, but since they change the coaches pretty much every year, here is my one suggestion:

Get a US College Coach. Some people will think this is heresey, but as Gord and Pierre mentioned during the game, they don't play with the Red Line in NCAA, and a coach from down there would be used to that. Personally, It doesn't matter to me if a Canadian or American is coaching.

Since that isn't very likely, why not try getting an established NHL coach who is currently out of work?? Somebody like Larry Robinson or Mike Keen- Um, never mind...

 

Don't need a US College coach----just put GARY GREEN behind the bench----his team won the SPENGLER CUP ......and when it was all on the line in the final championship game,his team came to play for the entire 60 minutes...did he not coach one of our WJC gold medal teams when we won all those in a row before our current 7 year drought?

 

I couldn't agree more. I try to explain this to my father and brother every year but it never gets through.