Fire Luke Richardson

[BobbyJet]

Solid points, some people just have total different goals or expectations to reasonable levels.

The goals I disagree with and even think it's down to some fans being impatient. Which is fine, but I think you need to expect totally tanking your team does more damage cause of talent than anything. I don't really expect success until 27-28 from a playoff total team talent wise.

To me, Its year 2 of 3 years of wanting to be bottom 3 and despite your points of bad streaks or periods... we aren't even the worst team in the league. Should they fire Rocharsson and hire David Quinn?

Reichel is the only prospect of having an underwhelming year for expectations. Idk who your multiple players refers too. Who else? What 19 year Olds succeed well better than Korchinski a lot in the NHL? What 19 year old dmen get pp1 time? He's grown but he also wasn't really ready for the nhl yet.

I thought all offseason keeping Caleb Jones/vet LD would be better. Kaiser didn't look nhl ready Full time last year. He fits the timeline of expecting him to be mostly in the AHL this year but I felt he was rushed a bit too. I know some expect DEL or Allen next year... they can still learn with multiple AHL years to develop. Let it happen.

Exactly, and a good post.

And I might add that KK is not only a teen but a 19-year-old playing DEFENSE in the NHL. Very few can do that - TBH he should be in RFD but the rules handcuff Hawks into keeping him up.

 

[Giovi]

Only 36 Centers have taken over 1,000 faceoffs to date. I counted 4 of those 36 that are below 47 % at the dot.

There were 29 Centers that took over 1,200 faceoffs in the 2022-23 season. Exactly 1 was below 47 %.

Bedard is sitting at 39 % on the season. Foligno is at 54 %, but apparently Foligno should take 0 draws if he is out there with Bedard. The braintrusts here have really figured things out.

Again, I don't care who is at what percentage in the circles this year. I care about the Hawks star center developing. And you've shown absolutely nothing that indicates that him taking less draws is somehow better for his development.

You can spit out all the stats you want, they don't matter this season.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Again, I don't care who is at what percentage in the circles this year. I care about the Hawks star center developing. And you've shown absolutely nothing that indicates that him taking less draws is somehow better for his development.

You can spit out all the stats you want, they don't matter this season.

Bedard is being developed. He doesn't need to take 1200 faceoffs to develop because faceoffs aren't the only aspect of what he needs to improve on. He has other areas that he should be focusing on as well. If you don't think 400+ faceoffs is helpful for his development then I don't know what you expect an additional 800 to do. That's just a raw force approach and ignores all the time he's likely spending working on that outside of games and all the other areas that an 18 year old rookie is working on. He's not being developed to be a 4th line PK faceoff specialist. If you throw too much at him, he won't develop as well in any area.

I can one thousand percent guarantee if the Hawks rebuild doesn't go well, we won't be looking back in seven years saying "...and it's all because Bedard didn't take an extra 800 faceoffs in 2023-24"

 

[Space umpire]

The typical top 6 center takes over 1000 faceoffs per season. Most #1 centers will take 1200-1400+, with your top FO guys regularly taking like 1400+ . Bedard is a #1 C as of right now, and needs to improve on that aspect of his game, yet he has basically taken 1/3 of the faceoffs that he should be taking for his role. That's ample opportunity to develop this aspect of his game, obviously.

What your most critical of is actually a positive.
Bedard takes most of the offensive zone faceoffs because the forecheck has a chance to recover the puck in the corner.
Foligno takes most of the defensive zone faceoffs because if the draw is lost the line will spend the entire shift defending what is usually the opponents top line.
So that’s Bedard who is weak defensively, Kurashev, a 3rd liner and Foligno, a 4th liner spending a full minute trying to defend (often) 3 1st liners.
It is a legitimate attempt to help Bedard succeed.
I’m not really a huge Richardson fan. It’s his 1st real (lengthy) coaching stint and some mistakes are part of that but the more you swing and miss pointing out why he sucks the better he looks.

 

[Space umpire]

As for Korchinski (and the 3 #7 veteran dmen) many bitch about usage but again it as best you can putting in a position to succeed.
This team isn’t winning anything, do you really want him getting burned 10 times a night? Do you really think that’s how you develop?
After Jones and Vlasic (with Murphy out) nobody is qualified to defend the opponent's top 6.
Tinordi, Megna, Zaitsev are throwaways left them deal with the windburn from getting beat. I don’t want that for my 19 year old who (by force) is clearly playing one league above what he is capable of.
Guys are being eased into roles. Other younger guys come up for a look and I’m sure when sent back they know what the team wants them to work on. This would probably go a lot better if they had the chance to do that with Korchinski.

 

[ChiHawks10]

What your most critical of is actually a positive.
Bedard takes most of the offensive zone faceoffs because the forecheck has a chance to recover the puck in the corner.
Foligno takes most of the defensive zone faceoffs because if the draw is lost the line will spend the entire shift defending what is usually the opponents top line.
So that’s Bedard who is weak defensively, Kurashev, a 3rd liner and Foligno, a 4th liner spending a full minute trying to defend (often) 3 1st liners.
It is a legitimate attempt to help Bedard succeed.
I’m not really a huge Richardson fan. It’s his 1st real (lengthy) coaching stint and some mistakes are part of that but the more you swing and miss pointing out why he sucks the better he looks.

Is Bedard always going to play with a second center on his line for the rest of his career? Or have one to start the shift, who then has to try and jump the boards to switch up for a winger once the Hawks have possession? Is he forever going to only take draws in one zone? I simply disagree, both with your opinion on it, and Richardson's decision on it.

This year was a throwaway year, purely developmental, when he was 18, and a rookie. A year where we knew they'd suck, so he's out there only to get better at aspects of his game at the NHL level. The only meaningful things he could accomplish were to work on the things he's deficient in at the NHL level, and winning the Calder. There is literally no reason not to let him learn to take draws in the NHL, against NHL competition, and regularly the best centers in the league, since that's the line he normally matches up against. He's gonna have to do it the rest of his career.

The idea of this being an attempt to help him succeed is nonsense. You don't get better at something by being given the easy road. Adversity drives a person to be better.

I don't like a lot of what I've seen from Richardson. He may get better as a coach, or he may not. I doubt they fire him after this season. My guess would be he gets next season too, and then the front office goes from there.

 

[MarotteMarauder]

I’m not really a huge Richardson fan. It’s his 1st real (lengthy) coaching stint

He has had 4 full seasons as head coach AHL, then it took 5 seasons as an Asst. Coach in NHL with 2 other organizations before getting a head coaching gig again.

I wonder why?

 

[ClydeLee]

He has had 4 full seasons as head coach AHL, then it took 5 seasons as an Asst. Coach in NHL with 2 other organizations before getting a head coaching gig again.

I wonder why?

Wonder what? That's a normal timeline for coaching hire. Your tone makes it seem like you think being an NHL assistant is lower than being an ahl head coach

 

[Pez68]

I mean, whatever your opinion on Bedard and faceoffs is, there's ZERO reason he isn't taking the mostly meaningless neutral zone faceoffs. Perfect situation to be getting experience at the dot....

 

[MarotteMarauder]

Wonder what? That's a normal timeline for coaching hire. Your tone makes it seem like you think being an NHL assistant is lower than being an ahl head coach

Very few current NHL coaches have that same trajectory, very few.

 

[hockeydoug]

Luke getting outshot combined 73-36 last two games.

Loving the new lines.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Luke getting outshot combined 73-36 last two games.

Loving the new lines.

Have you considered the opposition has more talent?

 

[hockeydoug]

Have you considered the opposition has more talent?

54-40, 65 -38, sure

Two games over 3 dozen against and under 20 4 is next-level special. C'mon now.

 

[WarriorofTime]

54-40, 65 -38, sure

Two games over 3 dozen against and under 20 4 is next-level special. C'mon now.

What coaching adjustments would you recommend?

 

[hockeydoug]

What coaching adjustments would you recommend?

1. Have staff look up definition of culture. Make them take a quiz on why a team culture and identity could be useful.
2. Look at Tinordi's toi and slash it.
3. Move skaters up to better support a forecheck instead of just tucking back preemptively. Maybe letting the other team make decisions allows for learning instead of the rigid nonsense we see.
4. Let defenders not named Megna or Tinordi be more creative with the puck to create offense instead of square-peg-round-hole playing to their weaknesses. Jones is fine. Who cares about turnovers? Get the reps and confidence from experience trying to make plays instead of figuring out how to let your goalie bail you out.
5. I'm too exhausted to continue. See previous pages of thread.

 

[Hattrick Kane]

Another non effort. Maybe one day the defenders will wake up and understand that no matter how bad the team, that cannot be allowed to continue. But Luke allows it.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Another bump up from the OP any time the Tank Hawks get their a*sses handed to them.

 

[hockeydoug]

Another metric of note for Luke's season.

Hawks were only the 12th team in the cap era to hit 11 times shut out.

Now they're at 13. Only s 15' Buffalo with 14 and 07' CLB with 16 are ahead of them.

CAR and LA are the league leaders in the opposite side of the shutout category, so it could be interesting.

KD will have to be quite the mental gymnastics expert to justify keeping this staff around next year. CLB fired up the coaching carousel for the 07' BJs and Nolan was fired right after the 15' season.

 

[DisgruntledHawkFan]

Another bump up from the OP any time the Tank Hawks get their a*sses handed to them.

It's not just getting kicked in the dick it's getting bullied and not responding. We were worse last year but we were tough to play against at least.

 

[BHawk21]

Another metric of note for Luke's season.

Hawks were only the 12th team in the cap era to hit 11 times shut out.

Now they're at 13. Only s 15' Buffalo with 14 and 07' CLB with 16 are ahead of them.

CAR and LA are the league leaders in the opposite side of the shutout category, so it could be interesting.

KD will have to be quite the mental gymnastics expert to justify keeping this staff around next year. CLB fired up the coaching carousel for the 07' BJs and Nolan was fired right after the 15' season.

I think its fairly simple. The team was constructed so that they would lose. Nobody should be suprised when they lose.

 

[EddieTheEagle]

It's not just getting kicked in the dick it's getting bullied and not responding. We were worse last year but we were tough to play against at least.

I feel like we were better last year and tougher to play against.

This year has been such an oddity from Hall being donezo from the start, the Perry situation, and then add in another slew of injuries to odds and ends.

I think KD keeps Luke Nukem around for one more year. They would've all gone into this season with incredibly low expectations, and just hoping to build a hardworking culture.

 

[Hawkaholic]

It's not just getting kicked in the dick it's getting bullied and not responding. We were worse last year but we were tough to play against at least.

Definitely not

 

[hockeydoug]

I think its fairly simple. The team was constructed so that they would lose. Nobody should be suprised when they lose

Nobody cares about losing or the record. I'm pretty sure we're all hoping for 4-3 losses in regulation and expecting plenty of 5-1 dumpster outings.

This is about the players on the roster, in aggregate, being better in 3 years with pretty much any other coaching staff out there.

The record setting suckage are just tangible data points where few or no gms were able to justify keeping a staff around. He should have been gone after 21 losses straight on the road. 13 shutouts is a big deal, few coaches have achieved such a feat in the cap era.

 

[Hawkaholic]

Nobody cares about losing or the record. I'm pretty sure we're all hoping for 4-3 losses in regulation and expecting plenty of 5-1 dumpster outings.

This is about the players on the roster, in aggregate, being better in 3 years with pretty much any other coaching staff out there.

The record setting suckage are just tangible data points where few or no gms were able to justify keeping a staff around. He should have been gone after 21 losses straight on the road. 13 shutouts is a big deal, few coaches have achieved such a feat in the cap era.

Few coaches have had this bad of a team, as well.

 

[hockeydoug]

Few coaches have had this bad of a team, as well.

19 years of the cap.
At least 3 dozen built to be terrible the year before, 2.5 times that intentionally tanking same year and 5 times that teams that threw in the towel before Thanksgiving.

At some point, worse is just worse and there just aren't any excuses.