Coach Discussion: Paul Maurice: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

[Puckatron 3000]

This looks like the most recent “coach” thread. If not my apologies.

Maurice was out coached last night and it started with the lineup card.

Laviolette knows Maurice enough to know that if he dressed Hartnell, Maurice would keep Hendricks in the lineup. This then made th Jets a 3 line team and advantage Preds.

Early on the Preds went right at that 4th line by making quick changes and getting a couple favourable match ups.

In playoff hockey when the line is so close between teams small things make a big difference.

Hendricks certainly did not cost us the game but he did not give us the best chance to win.

We could have had a much better balanced lineup on the ice last night. Would be nice to get a 4th line goal rather than be fishing the puck out of our own net. For their 6 minutes of play the 4th line stunk for the most part.

Hopefullly Maurice can have a bounce back game. He can start by dressing a more competitive lineup and making some adjustments.

I hope he can change my view of him as an NHL coach.

I'm about as big of Maurice supporter as you'll find around here. But I would agree this is a plausible explanation of what happened. Laviolette dressed some goons, which may have tilted Maurice to play Hendricks over Roslovic. Then Laviolette unexpectedly had his team play a super disciplined, tight game, causing Maurice to underplay his 4th line. We're guessing here on the thought processes behind the benches, but this strikes me as a decent guess.

We cannot say whether Roslovic would have made any difference to the outcome. Despite his talent, his "rookie-ness" has been evident in the series. And who knows, maybe Laviolette would have gooned it up a bit more, depending on how Maurice played his hand. Perhaps if both Roslovic and Perreault*** had played last night, in place of bigger/tougher players, Laviolette would have taken more liberties with our guys, and we could even be looking at a loss, plus injured players right now. But regardless, we can say that our 4th line didn't help very much last night. And we lost, albeit to the best team in the league, staring down the barrel of a 3-1 deficit.

The only disagreement I have with your post would be your last line: "I hope he can change my view of him as an NHL coach". In my opinion you, like many others on this forum, hyper-magnify the things disagree with the coach on (even though we as fans are operating with only a fraction of the information that the coaches base their decisions on), and seem to ignore the much larger body of work that has resulted in us playing dead even in the playoffs against the best team in the league. Coaches get outplayed sometimes. Players get outplayed sometimes. Teams get outplayed sometimes. They can still be good coaches, players, and teams.

*** Note: I'm operating under the assumption that Perreault is not fully healthy. If he was, of course I would agree he should be in the line-up.

 

[blues10]

I'm about as big of Maurice supporter as you'll find around here. But I would agree this is a plausible explanation of what happened. Laviolette dressed some goons, which may have tilted Maurice to play Hendricks over Roslovic. Then Laviolette unexpectedly had his team play a super disciplined, tight game, causing Maurice to underplay his 4th line. We're guessing here on the thought processes behind the benches, but this strikes me as a decent guess.

We cannot say whether Roslovic would have made any difference to the outcome. Despite his talent, his "rookie-ness" has been evident in the series. And who knows, maybe Laviolette would have gooned it up a bit more, depending on how Maurice played his hand. Perhaps if both Roslovic and Perreault had played last night, in place of bigger/tougher players, Laviolette would have taken more liberties with our guys, and we could even be looking at a loss, plus injured players right now. But regardless, we can say that our 4th line didn't help very much last night. And we lost, albeit to the best team in the league, staring down the barrel of a 3-1 deficit.

The only disagreement I have with your post would be your last line: "I hope he can change my view of him as an NHL coach". In my opinion you, like many others on this forum, hyper-magnify things disagree with the coach on (even though we as fans are operating with only a fraction of the information that the coaches base their decisions on), and seem to ignore the much larger body of work that has resulted in us playing dead even in the playoffs against the best team in the league. Coaches get outplayed sometimes. Players get outplayed sometimes. Teams get outplayed sometimes. They can still be good coaches, players, and teams.

I just think there is room for him to be a better coach. At home last night with a chance to go up 3-1 he should have been the one dictating lineups and matchups.

I certainly realize he didn’t hit posts, miss assignments or pinch at wrong times. The part of the game he was in direct control of he lost last night.

I hope he can get the job done. Will need a win on the road without last change. We did it once and can do it again. Would be much better if we had a 4th line that could be out in most situations which he had an option of dressing at home last night.

The games will play out and the discussion will continue. When Maurice has the cup over his head in June I will certainly eat crow and lineup decisions in the 2nd round will be long forgotten.

Jets are a damn good hockey team too. We lost a chance last night and Laviolette seized it. Let’s see what Maurice has planned next game.

Letting PK shoot from the point on the PK is not working out, I would expect an adjustment.

Go Jets Go

 

[Whileee]

Just an interesting tidbit. JMo and Trouba let the team in shifts, yet played ten minutes less than Buff and Myers. That is what you call tinkering gone wrong.

Buff is a master of stealing ice time time by extending every shift by a few seconds. He only needs to extend each shift by 5 seconds to gain an extra 10% ice time. Wily vet.

Seemed like Myers just got caught a bunch of times for long shifts due to general clumsiness.

 

[surixon]

I just think there is room for him to be a better coach. At home last night with a chance to go up 3-1 he should have been the one dictating lineups and matchups.

I certainly realize he didn’t hit posts, miss assignments or pinch at wrong times. The part of the game he was in direct control of he lost last night.

I hope he can get the job done. Will need a win on the road without last change. We did it once and can do it again. Would be much better if we had a 4th line that could be out in most situations which he had an option of dressing at home last night.

The games will play out and the discussion will continue. When Maurice has the cup over his head in June I will certainly eat crow and lineup decisions in the 2nd round will be long forgotten.

Jets are a damn good hockey team too. We lost a chance last night and Laviolette seized it. Let’s see what Maurice has planned next game.

Letting PK shoot from the point on the PK is not working out, I would expect an adjustment.

Go Jets Go

Well said. I think Moe at times can get into his own head and over think things. I have found that at times he has a tendency to be too reactive as a coach. Perhaps this is a learned trait due to him having rosters that weren't very good for the vast majority of his career which dictated that he learn to react to what other coaches did.

He now has a roster in which he is in the drivers seat with regards to dictating play. It requires a more proactive mindset and to be fair to Moe he has been much better in that this year but sometimes old habits creep in like last night.

I was pretty down on his last year, but imo he has grown substantially as a coach this season. This points to a person that is willing to self asses and admit their weaknesses and work towards fixing them. Even though I don't agree with a lot of what he does I give him a lot of credit for the strides he's made. It points to him being smart and adaptable. If he is able to continue to learn and adapt it really bodes well for us as a team moving forward.

Having said that as with everyone there is always more growth to be had.

 

[Eyeseeing]

I'm about as big of Maurice supporter as you'll find around here. But I would agree this is a plausible explanation of what happened. Laviolette dressed some goons, which may have tilted Maurice to play Hendricks over Roslovic. Then Laviolette unexpectedly had his team play a super disciplined, tight game, causing Maurice to underplay his 4th line. We're guessing here on the thought processes behind the benches, but this strikes me as a decent guess.

We cannot say whether Roslovic would have made any difference to the outcome. Despite his talent, his "rookie-ness" has been evident in the series. And who knows, maybe Laviolette would have gooned it up a bit more, depending on how Maurice played his hand. Perhaps if both Roslovic and Perreault*** had played last night, in place of bigger/tougher players, Laviolette would have taken more liberties with our guys, and we could even be looking at a loss, plus injured players right now. But regardless, we can say that our 4th line didn't help very much last night. And we lost, albeit to the best team in the league, staring down the barrel of a 3-1 deficit.

The only disagreement I have with your post would be your last line: "I hope he can change my view of him as an NHL coach". In my opinion you, like many others on this forum, hyper-magnify the things disagree with the coach on (even though we as fans are operating with only a fraction of the information that the coaches base their decisions on), and seem to ignore the much larger body of work that has resulted in us playing dead even in the playoffs against the best team in the league. Coaches get outplayed sometimes. Players get outplayed sometimes. Teams get outplayed sometimes. They can still be good coaches, players, and teams.

*** Note: I'm operating under the assumption that Perreault is not fully healthy. If he was, of course I would agree he should be in the line-up.

Great response as usual.
I lol’d at earlier posts in this thread mine especially.
Emotions do make some of us overreact and it’s nice to see posts like this.
Although I do enjoy every spectrum of opinions on this site.

 

[Guffman]

If Maurice listened to the rabble, Tanev would have been in the press box and replaced with Dano or Petan long ago. He has made a lot of roster decisions that fans disagree with but turned out better than most thought.

Inserting Perreault in Game 5 will give the Jets a boost. Perhaps it wasn’t a boost that was needed for Game 4 given we were coming off a win.

 

[kelsier]

Well said. I think Moe at times can get into his own head and over think things. I have found that at times he has a tendency to be too reactive as a coach. Perhaps this is a learned trait due to him having rosters that weren't very good for the vast majority of his career which dictated that he learn to react to what other coaches did.

He now has a roster in which he is in the drivers seat with regards to dictating play. It requires a more proactive mindset and to be fair to Moe he has been much better in that this year but sometimes old habits creep in like last night.

I was pretty down on his last year, but imo he has grown substantially as a coach this season. This points to a person that is willing to self asses and admit their weaknesses and work towards fixing them. Even though I don't agree with a lot of what he does I give him a lot of credit for the strides he's made. It points to him being smart and adaptable. If he is able to continue to learn and adapt it really bodes well for us as a team moving forward.

Having said that as with everyone there is always more growth to be had.

I've seen this too. The other game vs the Preds for instance, almost immediately after the Preds had acquired a few goals lead in the first period he hit the emergency button and switched Ehlers to first unit and Connor to second. Of course he thought this was the winning combo and decided to start the next game with the same first and second lines resulting into Ehlers disappearing almost entirely and Connor having to adjust playing with less space as usual (Wheelers & Scheifele are excellent creating that space). Needless to say how it ended. He is also stubborn in a sense of having his mind set on something that couldn't work so lets not even really try it all and pretty much hesitant of making the top lines as balanced as possible, resulting into exhaustion of first line in tight games where they are double-shifted and seem tired by the third period like we saw in the last game. This could be due to lack of playoffs experience and not knowing that you can't win with one line alone. So much talent and so many ways to use it, but never really trying to optimise to the fullest and try balance the ice time with the best scoring lines. That has been his weakness.

 

[Ducky10]

If Maurice listened to the rabble, Tanev would have been in the press box and replaced with Dano or Petan long ago. He has made a lot of roster decisions that fans disagree with but turned out better than most thought.

Inserting Perreault in Game 5 will give the Jets a boost. Perhaps it wasn’t a boost that was needed for Game 4 given we were coming off a win.

The difference between Tanev, Petan, Dano is fairly marginal at best.

The difference between Perreault and Hendricks is not.

It's not about a boost, it's about putting your best hockey players on the ice every chance you get.

 

[Ducky10]

One thing I do find kind of funny is that all the people jumping on Laviolette outcoaching Mo, seem to have completely forgotton he dressed Hartnell and they roundly trounced him for it.

Funny how winning changes perspectives.

 

[AlphaLackey]

The difference between Tanev, Petan, Dano is fairly marginal at best.

The difference between Perreault and Hendricks is not.

It's not about a boost, it's about putting your best hockey players on the ice every chance you get.

Yeah, surprise surprise here, but I'm not a big fan of the emotional calculus that some coaches try and do. May as well consult their biorhythms.

Having said that, holy shit is Perreault in trouble. Already rolling down the triple valley and all three will be on course to completely bottom out by game six. Yikes!

 

[Daximus]

One thing I do find kind of funny is that all the people jumping on Laviolette outcoaching Mo, seem to have completely forgotton he dressed Hartnell and they roundly trounced him for it.

Funny how winning changes perspectives.

Yep. Common theme among every team.

 

[Adam da bomb]

The difference between Tanev, Petan, Dano is fairly marginal at best.

The difference between Perreault and Hendricks is not.

It's not about a boost, it's about putting your best hockey players on the ice every chance you get.

I disagree. I think Tanev is quite a bit better than Petan or Dano. I do agree that there is a bigger gap between Frenchy and Henpicked.
Henpicked really is not catching on as a nickname so may just stop using it.

 

[blues10]

The big picture needs to be looked at. Laviolette had a game plan to limit the Jets to a 3 line team and actually attempt to expose the Jets 4th line with quick on the fly line changes to get preferred match ups. He knew if Hendricks was in the Jets were a much weaker team. Maurice fell for the Hartnell insertion. Preds media was saying Frenchy was playing. I can see why some Preds fans were initially upset. Once Maurice countered with Hendricks the plan looked great for the Preds. Perhaps the majority of the Preds fan base didn’t see what he was doing but I am sure some recognized it. If Maurice countered with anyone but Hendricks it may not have worked out.

I believe when Maurice rolled out line 4 for their customary 1st shift of the game , Lav immediately got his 2nd Line on the ice on the fly.

I expect much better from our team and coach tonight.

 

[Gnova]

There is zero chance Maurice is fired any time soon.
The soonest conceivable to me would be at the end of next season if the Jets miss the playoffs. There is NO chance that they miss the playoffs next year.

 

[Gnova]

The big picture needs to be looked at. Laviolette had a game plan to limit the Jets to a 3 line team and actually attempt to expose the Jets 4th line with quick on the fly line changes to get preferred match ups. He knew if Hendricks was in the Jets were a much weaker team. Maurice fell for the Hartnell insertion. Preds media was saying Frenchy was playing. I can see why some were initially upset. Once Maurice countered with Hendricks the plan looked great for the Preds. Perhaps the majority of the Preds fan base didn’t see what he was doing but I am sure some recognized it. If Maurice countered with anyone but Hendricks it may not have worked out.

I believe when Maurice rolled out line 4 for their customary 1st shift of the game , Lav immediately got his 2nd Line on the ice on the fly.

I expect much better from our team and coach tonight.

And in game two the Jets completely turned a game around between periods one and two and made Laviolette look foolish.

Maurice gets the blame when the team loses but never.any credit when they win.

 

[KingBogo]

The big picture needs to be looked at. Laviolette had a game plan to limit the Jets to a 3 line team and actually attempt to expose the Jets 4th line with quick on the fly line changes to get preferred match ups. He knew if Hendricks was in the Jets were a much weaker team. Maurice fell for the Hartnell insertion. Preds media was saying Frenchy was playing. I can see why some were initially upset. Once Maurice countered with Hendricks the plan looked great for the Preds. Perhaps the majority of the Preds fan base didn’t see what he was doing but I am sure some recognized it. If Maurice countered with anyone but Hendricks it may not have worked out.

I believe when Maurice rolled out line 4 for their customary 1st shift of the game , Lav immediately got his 2nd Line on the ice on the fly.

I expect much better from our team and coach tonight.

Except they were then forced to play Hartnell who is even slower than Hendricks. The game hinged on if the Jets were able to score early. If the Scheif chance in the 1st minute clicked and Morrissey shot doesn't hit the but end of a stick the Jets are up 2 and the game is wide open and Lavy can't go into trap mode. Lavy is then forced to staple Hartnell to the bench and they become a 3 line team as they would badly miss Fiala in a track meet.

 

[Stumbledore]

It is absolutely hilarious at the end of year of 114 points and second place overall to go back and read the first page of this thread.

I doubt that any of you who posted will be as amused as the rest of us, but after the year we've had it's a total hoot to go back and read what you "experts" wrote.

 

[ulf]

Don't play your 5 least effective players together or the other coach will do everything possible to take advantage of it.
Not sure it was a plan of Laviolette but his actions turned the deepest forward group in the league into a very tired and demoralised short-handed crew.
Tonight it's not a do or die elimination game but it's going to be a great win.

 

[ItchyScratchy77]

Legitimate question. Why did Maurice change the lines, from a very successful game 5? It makes absolutely zero sense to me.

 

[KingBogo]

Legitimate question. Why did Maurice change the lines, from a very successful game 5? It makes absolutely zero sense to me.

Probably to put Ehlers in a position to shoot more as he has continually deferred to Laine even when he was in a much better position to shoot.

 

[tntkid]

Maurice is not going to get fired for a while especially after this season and post season run.

I would still like to see a coach like Joel Quenneville here and see what he can do with our line up.

 

[10Ducky10]

Mairice is not going to get fired for a while especially after this season and post season run.

I would still like to see a coach like Joel Quenneville here and see what he can do with our line up.

He finished in last place this year.........

 

[tntkid]

What does he got like 3 cups.

I am sure he can figure out how to make a run for a cup with a team that has 4 strong lines.

He finished in last place this year.........

 

[White Out 902]

It is absolutely hilarious at the end of year of 114 points and second place overall to go back and read the first page of this thread.

I doubt that any of you who posted will be as amused as the rest of us, but after the year we've had it's a total hoot to go back and read what you "experts" wrote.

I correctly predicted the Jets to finish second in the central, how did you do?

 

[Jets4Life]

It is absolutely hilarious at the end of year of 114 points and second place overall to go back and read the first page of this thread.
I doubt that any of you who posted will be as amused as the rest of us, but after the year we've had it's a total hoot to go back and read what you "experts" wrote.

How is it hilarious, when the general consensus of the fan base in summer of 2017 was that the Jets finally had a team that should make the playoffs, and if hypothetically the Jets were out of playoff contention around December, Maurice should be fired. I'm neither amused nor non-amused. It was the consensus at the time.

Should we also make fun of anyone who said Vegas would be in the Conference Finals, during the same time frame?