Whatever we do, I want a coach who is aggressive with the defense in the neutral zone and entering at the blue line. If you watch teams like Pittsburgh and other teams who control the play, they have their defense aggressively pursue the puck carrier coming through the zone. Our team literally just allows them to enter the zone pretty much. Coburn and Schenn are probably the only two who have any means of stopping players approaching the zone. Schenn is usually only effective when the player is coming down the boards.
Clearly one problem is we are not mobile enough back end for our team to play that type of aggressive style. It needs to be improved. Morin will definitely help and I bet that's why the Flyers were wanting to keep him up. Gap control is huge and our team is terrible at it. Throwing away Grossmann and Schenn will improve our blue line a lot.
A few other things about Tippett I haven't heard mentioned:
1.) He's a North Dakota guy. Tippett played for the Fighting Sioux just as Ron Hextall's uncle Dennis and Ron's son Brett. (And Brett's buddy Vandevelde. Ha.)
2.) Tippett was the head coach for Canada at last season's World Championships, where Hexy was assistant GM.
If Babcock is about the money this offseason, we've got his services in the bag.
Why wouldn't we be an attractive team for him to sign with? We've got great young players, top 5 talent, a competitive organization, a will to spend to improve the team, Hextall as GM, great prospects, etc.
My hope for this team is to ride it out with Berube, fire him in the offseason, Babcock pursues other options besides Detroit, Hextall pursues Babcock, and he agrees to coach here.
I've watched a lot of Detroit games under Babcock and his system would fit our roster really well. Obviously, we'll need to get rid of the dead weight on this team still and that's up to Hextall, but the core would be really effective under Babcock.
If Babcock is about the money this offseason, we've got his services in the bag.
Then why hasn't he re-signed yet?
I think that Babcock sees himself as Scotty Bowman pt. II. He'll coach but he wants to get into a GM position in time.Then why hasn't he re-signed yet?
I bet Snider would give him $5 million if Hextall recommended it.
Luke Richardson.
Luke Richardson.
I think Luke Richardson could be a name potentially. He's been gaining some traction over the years as a potential up & comer. He's currently the head coach of the Sens farm team. He was offered their head coach job when MacLean was fired but turned it down so who knows what his intentions are but he's got the connections with the organization & Hextall from his playing days here though.
I agree. We need a player who was great on the ice and was never a Flyer as the next coach.
What's Gretzky up to?
So you'd take Gretzky over Tippett as Flyers coach, because Gretzky was great on the ice and never a Flyer, and Tippett was a bottom line forward and played a year in Philly?
Funny that Gretzky sucked as head coach of Arizona, and Tippett took over and immediately turned them around (50 wins).
Skill on ice has nothing to do with skill coaching.