Confirmed with Link: Pascal Vincent Named Head Coach

[DarkandStormy]

What's the vibe of CBJ fans on the new coach Pascal Vincent?

Can't be worse than Babcock!

 

[CBJWerenski8]

Thinking about this overnight, this could be a great thing for the CBJ. If you were Vincent right now, what approach do you think he should take with the room day 1?

Do you go "Geez that was awkward eh but let's never talk about it again" or does he turn it into an experience and chance for the team to come together? Not even against Babcock, but more " we've been counted out already, and now people think our season is over before it starts due to this but f*** them. We need to come together, play hard, and show ourselves we are resilient and it takes more than this to bring down a good team".

I think that is going to be the play and I think that is what we hear from players as well. This will be used to bring the group together. I am still bullish on the CBJ this season.

This could work if it was players vs management or coaches. But what do you do if it’s players vs players too? What if the young players affected aren’t necessarily pleased with the three veterans who went to bat for Babs? Some grown up conversations need to happen.

 

[Monk]

This could work if it was players vs management or coaches. But what do you do if it’s players vs players too? What if the young players affected aren’t necessarily pleased with the three veterans who went to bat for Babs? Some grown up conversations need to happen.

Yeah there are a couple quotes that make this seem possible, but I don't really think it's likely tbh. They mostly just recounted their own experiences. But here are the quotes that are a little more problematic in that regard (imo):

"There were no boundaries crossed at all with anyone," Werenski said.

and

"But everyone seemed like they had no problem with the way Babs went about getting to know his players," Gaudreau said. "And if someone did have a problem, I'm sure that we would have heard about it, but no one really said anything."

Sounds like they had an expectation that if someone had a problem, they would have brought it to the team's vet leader players and that didn't happen. Is that going to stir sh!t up? Dunno. Honestly my guess is no.

I think what matters most is what they say directly to each other, not to the media - and we'll never know.

 

[HockeyVirus]

This could work if it was players vs management or coaches. But what do you do if it’s players vs players too? What if the young players affected aren’t necessarily pleased with the three veterans who went to bat for Babs? Some grown up conversations need to happen.

I think that has to be handled for sure. They are all grown men even if some are older, the leadership should address the situation and apologize to the younger players IMO and let them have their say. I don't think this is at "let's step outside and settle it and move on" or anywhere close, I think it was just an awkward situation where the leaders likely didn't know the details of every interaction.

Once people feel heard, I just think the best play is to channel frustrations (which there will be some for literally everyone) into hockey and use it as motivation.

One thing people keep coming back to is that there is some locker room issues. I am not sure if that is just because the team has been losing or if they are founded worries, but from an outside perspective Jenner has always seemed pure class.

I honestly think this is a chance for real growth in the chemistry in the team by pushing the leaders to dig deep and find new ways to lead and most importantly because it made everyone very uncomfortable and I think that is a good spot to start because that is when you find new levels to your craft IMO.

 

[stevo61]

What's the vibe of CBJ fans on the new coach Pascal Vincent?

Fresh coach with fresh idea's, its exciting. We'll just see how he handles the players and vice versa in the tough moments, I think thats the biggest question

 

[NotCommitted]

To sum the following up - we simply don't know what kind of HC Vincent will be, he only had the couple games when Larsen was sick and those at least were highly interesting. For whatever reason I have a good feeling about him though, so I'm somewhat optimistic.

IMO it's entirely case by case and based on the coach/person whether an assistant promoted HC is doomed. They know all the players, they have seen both what works and what doesn't, it can be a great strength also. Best case scenario Vincent has been watching and learning for two years and knows exactly what needs to be done and executes. Just because he was an assistant under Larsen doesn't mean he's anything like Larsen, just like Larsen was really nothing like Torts.

I don't think this team has some kind of bad attitude/room problem that needs some ultimate hardass coach to "fix" it, I think Larsen's ultimate downfall was that he just wasn't a very good coach, or at least lacked experience. I believe you can be a very good HC without being a 'great coach' per se, but in that case you need to be really good at managing people and getting the most out of team of assistants etc. I think Larsen seems to have some traits that could actually make him a good coach in the future if he gets another chance and gains some experience.

Also the circumstances surrounding the team were a bit special around his hire, don't want to excuse things or keep bringing up personal tragedies because in the end they don't have anything to do with hockey and are none of my business, but I think it's fair to acknowledge that within a relatively short amount of time a team member died in a tragic accident, a player lost his father in an unexpected fashion, etc. All that must affect the dynamic within the team, probably for both better and worse.

I think year 1 some of things actually worked in the teams favor, Larsen seemed like a well liked guy and despite apparent lack of structure, probably part in because of his coaching and other part because of the roster, the team overcame that and played with a lot of heart finishing higher in the standings that would've been expected. This gave me a lot of optimism for past year and Larsen as a HC, I thought they had the basics of a very good team young and upcoming team, a bunch of guys who play for each other and don't give up. Year 2 was completely different story, even before the injuries hit full time it was a mess, including the famous new "defensive scheme" and seemingly pointless practice drills.

When the team was visiting Finland for the games, many pundits, who were either coaches, ex-coaches or ex-players instantly picked on difference between CBJ practice and COL practice and it was just not about the intensity or whatever, it was about WHAT was practiced and they couldn't understand or see the point in the drills CBJ were doing. It seems the CBJ players didn't have any better idea either. Now, if you are an established coach with a nice winning resume, then I think you can get by a lot better with "I know what we're doing, just keep doing it and we'll be winning games" because you have that convincing past resume. An inexperienced coach doesn't have that, and doing something you don't understand the point of or how it's helping you and your team just because the coach tells you to only goes so far if the results are not coming. So even if by the end Larsen sort of lost the room, I believe the ultimate reason for that was not doing a good job at coaching rather than being stuck with a roster full of uncoachable problems.

If Vincent gets this team playing winning hockey, or at least hockey the players believe in, I don't think he'll have any problem with buy in. I don't think that was the case with Larsen, the team looked lost under him for a large part of the season. Crap goal tending of course also played a part, basically anything that could go 'wrong' against Larsen did his second year. Now, Vincent was an assistant so of course questions about his credibility are legit, like for all I know he was in charge of the practice drills and came up with the new defensive scheme But just as well it could've been Larsen was just stuck in what he thought 'should' work and wasn't really tapping into his assistants knowledge and understanding. Bottom line I'm not going to judge Vincent as a HC based on Larsen as a HC. I actually believe Jarmo when he says Vincent was high on their list both times, it could be a year from now it looks like they really should've given him the job first time around

 

[Monk]

The players who spoke up publicly are participating here, should be interesting (JG, BJ, ZW)

 

[Marioesque]

Team is so much better off now, good that we got rid of Babs before camp. It's a fresh start.

Laine probably centers then I'd imagine?

 

[NotCommitted]

This could work if it was players vs management or coaches. But what do you do if it’s players vs players too? What if the young players affected aren’t necessarily pleased with the three veterans who went to bat for Babs? Some grown up conversations need to happen.

I don't think this will be an issue. The most likely scenario of what went down at this point seems to be that the vets and youngsters had a completely different experience in their meetings with Babs. So it should be no problem for either party to realize they were dealing with a two-faced manipulative a-hole basically. Why would the vets be mad for the youngsters in that situation or vice versa? Basically all that's needed is for Jenner to go "wow man, I had no idea Babs was like that with you guys, he was so respectful with me and other vets". Add in an apology if needed, he was put into a tricky spot when his name specifically was dragged into the conversation when he had no problems in his meetings with Babs, so he was under a lot of pressure to say something immediately.

Now I admit there is some unknowns how it all went down and whether there was a communication breakdown / withholding of information or something shady in how this was dealt with on some level in the org, that's unfortunate. Might be a non-issue, the way this thing was blown up didn't make it easy to deal with - in hindsight the wise thing by the team would've been to not say anything, or simply state they are taking this serious and will comment when they have heard all players etc. but at the same time I understand why they were in a hurry to release a statement denying things, especially since Jenner was dragged into it.

 

[MAHJ71]

 

[Monk]

Lots of takeaways obviously from the latest 32T podcast, but one thing that surprised me is that Vincent is 51! Thought he was like 40.

 

[Viqsi]

Some part of me is hoping that we get a Best Of Both Worlds scenario in which we have a working system that Babcock designed but without him being around to f*** up the execution.

 

[MAHJ71]

 

[Monk]

I know this is a press conference, it's just words, but man... I like this guy.

EDIT: He just said it himself: "words are cheap"

 

[MAHJ71]

 

[MoeBartoli]

Having Vincent, sitting by himself, was a smart move. I left him there to talk about hockey and going forward rather than continuing the focus on the Babcock issue.

If I were use one word to describe Vincent, it would be, that he comes across as “genuine” ….. either that or he’s a heck of a good actor.

 

[Indy18]

Some part of me is hoping that we get a Best Of Both Worlds scenario in which we have a working system that Babcock designed but without him being around to f*** up the execution.

What I took from that too...Pascal should had been the hire from the start

Having Vincent, sitting by himself, was a smart move. I left him there to talk about hockey and going forward rather than continuing the focus on the Babcock issue.

If I were use one word to describe Vincent, it would be, that he comes across as “genuine” ….. either that or he’s a heck of a good actor.

If he was a good actor his body sure wasn't showing it. I could tell from his body language alone he was not at all comfortable up there but that's fine this is a miserable situation he got placed in and for someone that feels more introverted did a damn good job.

 

[LJ7]

Some part of me is hoping that we get a Best Of Both Worlds scenario in which we have a working system that Babcock designed but without him being around to f*** up the execution.

Vincent got to learn exactly how Babcock would run the team system-wise as if he were going to coach the team himself. It effectively was an extreme version of mentoring or shadowing. Hearing Vincent talk about systems was exciting.

 

[Indy18]

Vincent got to learn exactly how Babcock would run the team system-wise as if he were going to coach the team himself. It effectively was an extreme version of mentoring or shadowing. Hearing Vincent talk about systems was exciting.

After last years shitshow of that defensive system where I am still not sure if it was a tight zone defensive setup or what...I'll gladly take anyone who is going to put an emphases on structure and proper assignments in system play.

 

[Youngguns80]

I will say Pascal used the words “talk is cheap”. So he didn’t shy away. Have to give him props for putting it out there, but we shall see if the team takes nights off or really does play hard every night.

Just a thought but what if they are using Mike Babcock to break down games to recoup some of their investment. I feel if they didn’t have cause to fire him. He wouldn’t have contact with players but only Pascal. Just a shot in the dark these type of arrangements have happened before in other organizations.

 

[Indy18]

I will say Pascal used the words “talk is cheap”. So he didn’t shy away. Have to give him props for putting it out there, but we shall see if the team takes nights off or really does play hard every night.

Just a thought but what if they are using Mike Babcock to break down games to recoup some of their investment. I feel if they didn’t have cause to fire him. He wouldn’t have contact with players but only Pascal. Just a shot on the dark these typeof arrangements have happened before in other organizations.

This is the only thing the guy needed to say to get most people on board. Talk is cheap indeed. Let me how you I can do this.

 

[MAHJ71]

 

[Double-Shift Lasse]

It was Laine.

#sarcasm

 

[Monk]

It was Laine.

#sarcasm

Funny, but also... wouldn't shock me in the slightest

 

[Indy18]

Laine has his guy as HC and probably Fantilli as his centerman even if its on the second line.

Buy Laine stonks for your fantasy league now!