Confirmed with Link: Leafs fire goaltending coach Steve Briere

[makbeer]

Appreciate it. Funny how I, some guy who played a couple years of jr a, is saying the same thing as legitimate NHL goalies Bernier and Reimer. Yet it takes boywonder Dubas 5 years to realize Briere isn't worth the paper his contract is printed on. And Briere wasn't even a Dubas guy.



Exactly. Anyone could see it, except Dubas apparently

agreed. I coach goalies and was able to see it through the goaltenders’ play and how it changed after time with Briere. Not sure how people close to the situation couldn’t see it.

 

[usernamezrhardtodo]

This is a wildly inaccurate description of their "management styles", and everything that happened. Just because a GM doesn't make meaningless rules about facial hair, and just because a coach isn't abusive to their players, it doesn't mean they treat them like they're their "best friends", or let them "run the asylum". There's been zero indication of anything close to that.

You can have mutual respect and still be strict, and have the structure and guidance we have now - which is way more than anything we had under Lou and Babcock.

You mean like the way Dubas got rid of the dress code to start the season and then implemented it again after they shit the bed for the first 10 games?

 

[Dekes For Days]

You mean like the way Dubas got rid of the dress code to start the season and then implemented it again after they shit the bed for the first 10 games?

What are you talking about?

 

[Lightsol]

Neither Canada or the USA had a lot of success on the world stage in ice hockey for decades, yet some want to definitively say that the nhl had all the best players?

To be fair, Nyth, that's because Canada and the US couldn't use their NHL players for years, but the Soviets were allowed to send the entire Red Army team...

 

[Nylanderthal]

To be fair, Nyth, that's because Canada and the US couldn't use their NHL players for years, but the Soviets were allowed to send the entire Red Army team...

Yes, of course. I just feel this idea that no one else played hockey at any sort of high end prior to the iron curtain being lifted via the summit series or Canada cup etc. is nonsense. Really we never no clue ho good or not good some of the best elsewhere might’ve been and just never got a chance to be seen because of their era.

 

[Niagara Bill]

Did any of them play in a 6 team league for nearly 4 decades? Did they play with all the best players from all over the world, or was it 95+% Canadians?

2nd round of the NHL playoffs was the finals.

Yes, it means far less.

Yes. The Packers played in a small league with only Americans.
Yankees played in a small league consisting of American whites predominantly.
Bobby Orr played in a very week league that allowed the Blues to reach the finals because ig alignment.

 

[Niagara Bill]

And this is exactly it. It's rather presumptuous to think that the NHL had all the good players in the 6 team era.

One playoff round win puts a team in the finals. And 1 vs 4 was usually a beatdown.

So all stats and records before 67 are bs? That is ridiculous.
Gordie Howe was a fluke?

Yes, of course. I just feel this idea that no one else played hockey at any sort of high end prior to the iron curtain being lifted via the summit series or Canada cup etc. is nonsense. Really we never no clue ho good or not good some of the best elsewhere might’ve been and just never got a chance to be seen because of their era.

So based on your logic the Leafs are not 0 for 55, they are 0 for 125. Because anything prior to 67 was garbage?

 

[Niagara Bill]

The packers are champs, just like the leafs were, that doesn’t make it something to be held on par with current day success and championships.
You’re halfway right that rocket and Orr benefitted from being elite while playing against guys who spent their summers paving roads or working the farm.
The games all have changed tremendously since those eras

Eras do change but Roger Bannister 3:59 was as brilliant as anything today. Food, drugs, training shoes, track surfaces, stadiums all have an effect, but discounting historic events because of evolving technology is ridiculous.

 

[ITM]

Did any of them play in a 6 team league for nearly 4 decades? Did they play with all the best players from all over the world, or was it 95+% Canadians?

2nd round of the NHL playoffs was the finals.

Yes, it means far less.

Another way of looking at it is that the absolute best players were on those six teams. Farm clubs had NHL level talent. Expansion proved the point. BUT, the NHL remained definitive summit of professional hockey. Not the Olympics and not the Canada Cup.

What the Canada Cup did was introduce familiarity in so far as technology provided for it.

But aspirational migration didn't flow to Europe. Europe came to the NHL.

Consider that a number of records either remain or hover in the midst of modern records. Gretzky and Lemiuex sing Howe's and Orr's praises. Is their assessment misplaced? Naturally their bias doesn't necessarily conclude any hockey matter, but it sure provides enough reason to reassess our own biases.

Gretzky has noted McDavid's technical abilities and the speed of the game in general. In a way he's making the point that the game is beyond his abilities. But with a caveat. Always with a caveat: Technology has supplemented what Gretzky and others built on top of the foundation players like Howe and Richard cemented...on top of those who came before them.

So the league actually can't be lesser in an absolute sense. It's indivisible from the improvements. That's the nature of evolution isn't it? Going from change to necessary inevitable change? Well, that change has to have a pre-condition to move on from and without it, it does not exist.

I think the reverse scenario raises the more interesting questions:

Could Andrei Vasilevskiy get into a net and make a career out of Terry Sawchuk's means, training and equipment and do what Sawchuk did?

Would Patrick Kane have made it when Maurice Richard was terrorizing the league? Would he want any part of that environment? Without his family's support, could he rise to Richard's level while working in a railway construction factory?

We all know the stories. How we don't know them in such a way that staggers us into admiration and respect is beyond me.

###

 

[SeaOfBlue]

It is worth mentioning that the Leafs are also looking for a new strength and conditioning coach. IDK if it is an addition or replacement, but they may be fed up with the groin injuries that seem to be commonplace among our goalies.

Or maybe they need another guy to get the players prepared.

 

[Nylanderthal]

So all stats and records before 67 are bs? That is ridiculous.
Gordie Howe was a fluke?


So based on your logic the Leafs are not 0 for 55, they are 0 for 125. Because anything prior to 67 was garbage?

That isn’t at all what I said, that’s quite a leap. Its just not the same, but it’s what it is for the time period.
You can appreciate and respect past accomplishments and still see them for what they are with consideration for the era and level of play/evolution of the sport and athletes in general.

 

[Niagara Bill]

That isn’t at all what I said, that’s quite a leap. Its just not the same, but it’s what it is for the time period.
You can appreciate and respect past accomplishments and still see them for what they are with consideration for the era and level of play/evolution of the sport and athletes in general.

Eras change. Playing 6 team hockey was like playing a playoff series every week. SAT in Toronto Maple Leaf Gardens and an overnight train to New York Madison Square Gardens.
Same players, war continued. Survival was the game at times.
The Leafs earned every Stanley Cup.

 

[kb]

That isn’t at all what I said, that’s quite a leap. Its just not the same, but it’s what it is for the time period.
You can appreciate and respect past accomplishments and still see them for what they are with consideration for the era and level of play/evolution of the sport and athletes in general.

Exactly this - well said. For the time period, 1 in 6 had to win the Cup and it only took winning one round to make the finals. And the #4 team in the league during that era was rarely going to be a powerhouse like a TB/Tor or Boston/Tor matchup.

Right now 16 teams miss the playoffs, back then it was only 2 teams that missed.

I obviously respect the accomplishment.....but it is nowhere close.

 

[ITM]

Exactly this - well said. For the time period, 1 in 6 had to win the Cup and it only took winning one round to make the finals. And the #4 team in the league during that era was rarely going to be a powerhouse like a TB/Tor or Boston/Tor matchup.

Right now 16 teams miss the playoffs, back then it was only 2 teams that missed.

I obviously respect the accomplishment.....but it is nowhere close.

But in stratifying the accomplishment you're minimizing it.

The common denominators amongst all championships is equivalency: Of technology, training, complexity or simplicity of the game. And they are all absolute events; The Stanley Cup in 1967 was the pinnacle of competition for all concerned every bit as much as 2022 will be for all concerned.

The integrity of each championship is self-contained and retains it's own absolute value. Part of what having pre-conditions means is having to acknowledge the absolute value of successive iterations.

When you compartmentalize years and eras you're atomizing the integrity of the whole.

Case in point: Dynasties. It's easier to be a dynasty in a league whose talent base is spread out or concentrated? I'd think the former. But it might not matter given the understood parameters of competition.

But there are no real modern dynasties. Tampa's knocking on the door, but the definition is pretty elastic when trying to find something comparable to the Canadiens or the Islanders and so people play with the definition in order to lend credence to the claim.

I don't think it renders the past more glorious than the present or the future, but it's an interesting conversation to be had in the one that attempts to glorify the present and the future at the expense of the past.

 

[keonsbitterness]

Eras do change but Roger Bannister 3:59 was as brilliant as anything today. Food, drugs, training shoes, track surfaces, stadiums all have an effect, but discounting historic events because of evolving technology is ridiculous.

Interesting you said that. A few years ago, someone did a study on Jesse Owens's 1936 Olympics 100 metre run, and concluded that, based only on changes to shoes, starting blocks, timing methods and running surfaces, his times would be competitive with Usain Bolt.

That isn’t at all what I said, that’s quite a leap. Its just not the same, but it’s what it is for the time period.
You can appreciate and respect past accomplishments and still see them for what they are with consideration for the era and level of play/evolution of the sport and athletes in general.

You should have expected blow-back after calling it a six-team house league.

Exactly this - well said. For the time period, 1 in 6 had to win the Cup and it only took winning one round to make the finals. And the #4 team in the league during that era was rarely going to be a powerhouse like a TB/Tor or Boston/Tor matchup.

Right now 16 teams miss the playoffs, back then it was only 2 teams that missed.

I obviously respect the accomplishment.....but it is nowhere close.

Just dripping with respect.

 

[usernamezrhardtodo]

Another way of looking at it is that the absolute best players were on those six teams. Farm clubs had NHL level talent. Expansion proved the point. BUT, the NHL remained definitive summit of professional hockey. Not the Olympics and not the Canada Cup.

What the Canada Cup did was introduce familiarity in so far as technology provided for it.

But aspirational migration didn't flow to Europe. Europe came to the NHL.

Consider that a number of records either remain or hover in the midst of modern records. Gretzky and Lemiuex sing Howe's and Orr's praises. Is their assessment misplaced? Naturally their bias doesn't necessarily conclude any hockey matter, but it sure provides enough reason to reassess our own biases.

Gretzky has noted McDavid's technical abilities and the speed of the game in general. In a way he's making the point that the game is beyond his abilities. But with a caveat. Always with a caveat: Technology has supplemented what Gretzky and others built on top of the foundation players like Howe and Richard cemented...on top of those who came before them.

So the league actually can't be lesser in an absolute sense. It's indivisible from the improvements. That's the nature of evolution isn't it? Going from change to necessary inevitable change? Well, that change has to have a pre-condition to move on from and without it, it does not exist.

I think the reverse scenario raises the more interesting questions:

Could Andrei Vasilevskiy get into a net and make a career out of Terry Sawchuk's means, training and equipment and do what Sawchuk did?

Would Patrick Kane have made it when Maurice Richard was terrorizing the league? Would he want any part of that environment? Without his family's support, could he rise to Richard's level while working in a railway construction factory?

We all know the stories. How we don't know them in such a way that staggers us into admiration and respect is beyond me.

###

If anything it was probably a bit harder to play in the 6 team league when almost all 6 teams had 4 great lines and were packed with talent. Think about all the top canadians and Americans today spread out over just 6 teams...it would be like Leafs vs TB vs Florida vs boston every single matchup.

 

[rocketman588]

I went back through that thread and copied what you said so others can save some time digging. What you say aligns with what either Bernier or Reimer said in private to a friend of mine who pseudo works at MLSE. He said that Briere wanted to tinker with EVERYTHING about a goalie to make him like he thought they should be without giving a thought to the fact they are all slightly different. He said Briere kept telling him to "unlearn" some of the stuff he had been taught. He also said Briere is an idiot and he was thrilled to get away from him. Anyways...here is what you wrote:

For sure. I had him as a goalie coach when I was in my early teens, and after a few sessions I knew he was a quack. He spent way too much time on the mental aspect and not enough on actual skills. Dumb shit like packing/unpacking your bag a certain way, visualize success and all those new age mental buzzwords. On the ice he was more concerned with turning guys into perfect little robot clones of his ideal goaltender. He didn't understand that different goalies have different styles/weaknesses.

I moved on to GDI, now called Rink Hockey Academy. They're the best in the business here (They trained Chris Dreidger, as well as just about every goalie in the WHL and NCAA that's from Winnipeg and surrounding area). My coach there tailored my game based on my strengths/weaknesses and adapted his coaching to teach me a style that was best for me. He didn't have some cookie cutter coaching for every goalie. When I needed help on the mental side he fixed me up there too, again with a more personal approach. He told me how and why things work (or don't) for me, as opposed to Briere's "do this cause I said so" style.

Now if you don't believe me that's fine, I wouldn't blame you. I'm just some dickhead on a message board. But one thing I'll never understand is how Briere jumped from being a Jr. A goalie coach in the NAHL, with his own private coaching business on the side, straight to the NHL. Don't get me wrong, the NAHL is a great league if you're trying to go play NCAA. But they aren't known for producing NHLers. So how does this nobody move up from there to the Leafs of all teams? And even more so, how does he stay around this long when in his entire tenure in Toronto he hasn't actually produced a single NHL goalie? Literally all he's done is make Andersen worse, and churn out a revolving cast of backups. No prospect has turned out in his 5+ years. That to me is the most telling of all

Turning players into robot clones of what is thought to be the preferred way a hockey player should play based on one person's (Dubas's) philosophy of hockey that's counter to a lot of what's been done is literally our entire organizational philosophy no wonder Steve was here for so long

 

[Arthur Morgan]

what about our PP guy? wasnt it Manny Malhotra or something

 

[rocketman588]

I mean, it’s an accomplishment but it’s not at the level of modern championships. Neither Canada or the USA had a lot of success on the world stage in ice hockey for decades, yet some want to definitively say that the nhl had all the best players? I’m sure there were dozens of European players capable of playing in the nhl had the world been one where that was a true option.

Until 1998 nhl players didn't play tournament hockey in the Olympics or world championships

Only time they did was

The summit series: Canada win

Canada cup: 3 Canadian titles to 1 Soviet

This is all while the eastern block teams played year round together ( what would happen on the international stage if we ran team Canada as the leafs). The soviets also lost to a bunch of college kids in the interim in the Olympics

In best on best hockey Canada still pumped the Soviets. So yes they still had the best players especially up to the mid to late 60s when the soviets hadn't really developed their game

This is a wildly inaccurate description of their "management styles", and everything that happened. Just because a GM doesn't make meaningless rules about facial hair, and just because a coach isn't abusive to their players, it doesn't mean they treat them like they're their "best friends", or let them "run the asylum". There's been zero indication of anything close to that.

You can have mutual respect and still be strict, and have the structure and guidance we have now - which is way more than anything we had under Lou and Babcock.

Dubas literally took all comers into his office for bullshit like ice time complaints.

They obviously know that he's an easy target. Keefe compliments them in the press for losing they're soft

 

[All Mod Cons]

I'm surprised the fans in favour of running it back again, are happy to see someone get fired.

 

[TheGoldenJet]

Don't like someone losing their job but it had to be done.

You could say the same about a certain Dubious GM.

 

[Niagara Bill]

Exactly this - well said. For the time period, 1 in 6 had to win the Cup and it only took winning one round to make the finals. And the #4 team in the league during that era was rarely going to be a powerhouse like a TB/Tor or Boston/Tor matchup.

Right now 16 teams miss the playoffs, back then it was only 2 teams that missed.

I obviously respect the accomplishment.....but it is nowhere close.

Right so now half your games are against nobody teams.
Pre 67 the NHL was a war, every night. Now you see a team rarely.
Richard, Howe, Bower, Sawchuck, Keon, Horton, Brewer...
Today's NHL is soft, in comparison, but good in other ways.
Please do not discount Leafs cup wins.
0-55 is bad enough.

 

[kb]

But in stratifying the accomplishment you're minimizing it.

The common denominators amongst all championships is equivalency: Of technology, training, complexity or simplicity of the game. And they are all absolute events; The Stanley Cup in 1967 was the pinnacle of competition for all concerned every bit as much as 2022 will be for all concerned.

The integrity of each championship is self-contained and retains it's own absolute value. Part of what having pre-conditions means is having to acknowledge the absolute value of successive iterations.

When you compartmentalize years and eras you're atomizing the integrity of the whole.

Case in point: Dynasties. It's easier to be a dynasty in a league whose talent base is spread out or concentrated? I'd think the former. But it might not matter given the understood parameters of competition.

But there are no real modern dynasties. Tampa's knocking on the door, but the definition is pretty elastic when trying to find something comparable to the Canadiens or the Islanders and so people play with the definition in order to lend credence to the claim.

I don't think it renders the past more glorious than the present or the future, but it's an interesting conversation to be had in the one that attempts to glorify the present and the future at the expense of the past.

I highlighted the logical fallacy in your argument.

Here's the thing. We now have players from dozens of countries, whereas back then 95% were Canadians, and Canada was not winning every Olympic gold medal or World Championship. So that means several things.

A) It wasn't the pinnacle of competition as it didn't include all the worlds best players, just mostly Canada's best. Which is like the "house league" comment that got this all started. It's not incorrect in applicability.
B) The atomizing occurs when you imply that the competition level of the individual players predominantly from 1 out of 200 countries (that wasn't always the best) is equivalent in the context of having players from many dozens of countries in a 32 team league vs a single country 6 team league.
C) Absolutely, being in a 6 team league doesn't render past accomplishments moot. It does render them entirely non-equivalent however. It is now up to the individual to decide for themselves if winning a cup in 1962 was similarly or more difficult than in 2022.

 

[ACC1224]

What does any of this nonsense have to do with the ex goalie coach?

 

[kb]

Right so now half your games are against nobody teams.
Pre 67 the NHL was a war, every night. Now you see a team rarely.
Richard, Howe, Bower, Sawchuck, Keon, Horton, Brewer...
Today's NHL is soft, in comparison, but good in other ways.
Please do not discount Leafs cup wins.
0-55 is bad enough.

Half your games then were against nobody teams. Look at the record of a 9th place team in 2022 vs a 5th place team in a 6 team league.

Pretty sure you will see the total destruction of your argument.

What does era toughness have to do with anything?

Just dripping with respect.

You beat 5 other teams to win it all. 3 if you include playoffs.

I gave it it's due respect. I'm proud but not stupid.