Poll: How is everyone feeling about Derek Lalonde?

[Rzombo4 prez]

Mixed bag with him. Great stretches and terrible stretches. His seeming lack of ability to shake the team out of the bad stretches is concerning. My main gripe with him is that the worst parts of the team's overall performance this season don't reflect particularly well on him. The most damaging one being a consistent lack of preparation for games. A handful of guys are slow-starters, that's one thing. The entire team consistently coming out anemic to start games and you have to start looking a bit more critically at the coach.

That said, the roster still has some major holes so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But if there's a better roster next season and the team still struggles with the same issues that's a problem.

Why is this on the coach exactly? Do the players not know when the game starts? Do the players not know what they need to do to their individual bodies to have them ready to go from the first drop of the puck? I understand over-practicing a tired team and load management, but I am not about to absolve the people who actually play the f***ing game. Not being prepared is not having an answer to your opponent's powerplay or forecheck. Coming out stone cold flat is something completely different.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

You would think that people would eventually settle in on a happy balance, but no. Blashill was too quick to mix and match lines when things weren't working or when one line was having success. Lalonde is too slow to react when a line isn't working because the only solution is to throw things in a blender.

I have complaints about this team and doubts about Lalonde, but we can't do this f***ing Goldilocks routine on lineup decisions with every single coach.

Yes we can. One coach (Blashill) was too wishy-washy and made changes too erratically. Another (Lalonde) is to slow to try something different when it's clear to see we need to try something different.

We're now in season two of Lalonde showing us that he's slow to adjust.
40+ games of Seider-Chiarot when we knew it wasn't working.
25+ games of Husso-Reimer when we knew that wasn't working and Lyon was on the bench.
Taking DeBrincat off Larkin's wing for 30+ games this year and we wonder why DeBrincat isn't scoring.
How many more am I missing here? Does splitting Maatta-Hronek count? Or how about Copp-Compher-whomever as a scoring line? How long has Perron been on PP1 when not really providing PP1 numbers?

There is a happy middle ground solution. It's not pulling out the blender after 1 or 2 bad games, and it's not letting it ride for 20+ when something isn't working either.

 

[Rzombo4 prez]

Was it Larkin getting injured alone the root cause for the recent skid, or was it the inability of Larkins’ teammates to pull it together and play like an NHL club ?

If you want to play the comparative fault game, 90% Larkin's injury and 10% the remainder of the team. We don't have a second line center. That means we are playing a 3rd line center 22 plus minutes a night. Like it or not, how goes Larkin goes the team.

 

[norrisnick]

Why is this on the coach exactly? Do the players not know when the game starts? Do the players not know what they need to do to their individual bodies to have them ready to go from the first drop of the puck? I understand over-practicing a tired team and load management, but I am not about to absolve the people who actually play the f***ing game. Not being prepared is not having an answer to your opponent's powerplay or forecheck. Coming out stone cold flat is something completely different.

You are correct. Why even have coaches? Players can just figure that shit out.

 

[FMichael]

If you want to play the comparative fault game, 90% Larkin's injury and 10% the remainder of the team. We don't have a second line center. That means we are playing a 3rd line center 22 plus minutes a night. Like it or not, how goes Larkin goes the team.

I would accept that with this team 3 seasons ago, but this team on paper is clearly better than that…I find the lack of execution, poor/indifferent play a fault on both players and coaching staff.

 

[RedHawkDown]

Not impressed at all. Long losing streaks and lack of any in-game adjustment are fully on the coach. If you disagree and think “these athletes should be able to figure it out”, then the argument is that we shouldn’t have coaches at all.

If you want to play the comparative fault game, 90% Larkin's injury and 10% the remainder of the team. We don't have a second line center. That means we are playing a 3rd line center 22 plus minutes a night. Like it or not, how goes Larkin goes the team.

Washington has 0 first line centres and barely any top 6 players outside of Strome and ovechkin and they’re ahead of us. Not an excuse for these absurdly long losing streaks

 

[Bench]

NHL coaches aren't infallible, but these threads always make me wish I could hand a whiteboard to the loudest critics and see what they'd draw up before a game instead.

Surely if you're capable of saying things are objectively wrong, you're also capable of not making an ass of yourself in front of everyone, right?

I have my doubts, given the biggest complaints are usually just around lineups. Oh and making sure the guys play strong all the time! Set the "correct" lineups, give a rousing speech 82 times a year, and boom instantly better.

And before "but what do we talk about if not..." Yeah, this is a good topic to discuss, I'm just saying the depth of analysis showed here is so surface level and superficial it's hard to ween much from it other than "I wish we'd win more and play the guys I like to watch."

I see little to nothing about systems and the difference between an inherent failure in what is being coached versus what is an individual player's responsibility. If you can clearly demonstrate what Lalonde fails to do in this aspect versus your average NHL coach, then you'll have infinitely more cache to your criticism.

 

[FMichael]

Not impressed at all. Long losing streaks and lack of any in-game adjustment are fully on the coach. If you disagree and think “these athletes should be able to figure it out”, then the argument is that we shouldn’t have coaches at all.


Washington has 0 first line centres and barely any top 6 players outside of ovechkin and they’re ahead of us. Not an excuse for these absurdly long losing streaks

While I’m on the fence between 3 and 4 - I’d like to give Newsie and Co the benefit of the doubt and reserve my vote until after the season…For all we know this team goes on an incredible stretch and sneaks in to the playoffs.

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

I think he is doing a good job with the talent he has had. With that said I hope his exit meeting has a montage of moments where Stevie stops the video and asks why didn’t you call a timeout? Really my biggest issue with him is there. All coaches have guys up the lineup people don’t like or defensive pairings we object to. I think he is progressing as a coach but that aspect of game management is driving me a little crazy.

I am still happy with his performance. I hope for an adjustment in my current gripe when he has the offseason to breakdown his own performance.

 

[Bench]

With that said I hope his exit meeting has a montage of moments where Stevie stops the video and asks why didn’t you call a timeout? Really my biggest issue with him is there.

This is an excellent example of a concrete criticism that's easy to quantify and compare. +50 Bench Bucks for TZE.

That's right, the bucks are back, baby.

 

[FMichael]

This is an excellent example of a concrete criticism that's easy to quantify and compare. +50 Bench Bucks for TZE.

That's right, the bucks are back, baby.

I’d rather have Mexican Pesos to buy tacos with…

 

[acetehubernoob]

there really should be a "too early to tell" option

 

[Axel Sandy Pelikan]

Right. Because it's wholly unreasonable to hold the belief that one coach did something poorly in one manner and that another coach did something poorly in the opposite manner. The Wings have only had 2 coaches over the last 9 seasons. I think it's ok to have such complaints...

Goldilocks is a good thing. You should want what works and fits best.

You're putting way too damn much emphasis on what a coach can actually accomplish. There have been a handful of coaches all time who are remotely worth the praise they get. Mostly, the coach should be there to keep everyone pulling the same way.

The Wings didn't win because of Mike Babcock. They won because they had a team with basically 3 #1Ds (Lidstrom, Rafalski, Kronner) and a #2 (Brad Stuart) in 2008, Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg were both 1C equivalents, and they got enough goaltending and secondary scoring from everyone else. They had a literal juggernaut team (WCF loss to a similarly stacked Ducks team in 07, Cup in 08, and a loss in game 7 in '09).

 

[Hen Kolland]

You are correct. Why even have coaches? Players can just figure that shit out.

Why have coaches when you’re here to tell everyone what the right thing to do is.

 

[Axel Sandy Pelikan]

Only asinine under the assumption that coach knows best.

As for the bottom bit, it's coach's inability to find working solutions that is the problem. And defaulting to "solutions" that didn't work in the past but are sure to now is asinine.

Walman is out and ChiaPet just had the 2nd worst game of the season. Time for Benny on the top pairing as if Maatta isn't right there. Defense was in shambles for weeks and it didn't occur to him that maybe sticking Olli with Mo and swapping Holl for Ghost might help stop the bleeding.

And if a line is working, you don't have to blow it up to fix the other three. There are 9+ moving parts up front (counting scratches and GR) to fix things.

If you can't jot down
DBC - Larkin - Ray
Fischer - Copp - Ras
And then make two other functional lines how and why are you even in coaching?

Oh no, it's asinine in far more ways than that.

I mean, if not for Debrincat zinging a pass into Mo's feet instead of on his stick blade, the Wings win a couple days ago.

I mean, yeah, there aren't "you tried" moral victories in this league that mean anything... but with the lines they chose the last couple games, they lost 1-0 to Nashville and they lost 4-3 in OT vs. Washington with the Caps being just as desperate as they are... and honestly, a couple goals in that Washington game were either bad luck (bounds off the Washington foward's foot behind the net and Lyon is hung out to dry and Copp loses a faceoff but acts like he won it and leaves Strome alone). The team doesn't need a massive shakeup to stop the bleeding. The "bleeding" was losing one goal games.

 

[RedHawkDown]

NHL coaches aren't infallible, but these threads always make me wish I could hand a whiteboard to the loudest critics and see what they'd draw up before a game instead.

Surely if you're capable of saying things are objectively wrong, you're also capable of not making an ass of yourself in front of everyone, right?

I have my doubts, given the biggest complaints are usually just around lineups. Oh and making sure the guys play strong all the time! Set the "correct" lineups, give a rousing speech 82 times a year, and boom instantly better.

And before "but what do we talk about if not..." Yeah, this is a good topic to discuss, I'm just saying the depth of analysis showed here is so surface level and superficial it's hard to ween much from it other than "I wish we'd win more and play the guys I like to watch."

I see little to nothing about systems and the difference between an inherent failure in what is being coached versus what is an individual player's responsibility. If you can clearly demonstrate what Lalonde fails to do in this aspect versus your average NHL coach, then you'll have infinitely more cache to your criticism.

This is the most frustrating line of argument that we see on these boards. The "well could you do better???". No, I couldn't, because I'm not privy to the locker room, how practice goes, how the interactions between players and between coaches/players are, or anything else. I'm also not paid millions of dollars to do the job of coaching hockey at the highest level in the world. So no, I couldn't do better, but that does not at all absolve the coach of criticism.

The comparison of the coach is to other coaches. When we see teams with worse lineups without the same issues we have (going on long losing streaks, failing to start on time, etc.), then we can reasonably argue that the coach is in at least part to blame, when the players themselves are better on paper than those other teams.

 

[Axel Sandy Pelikan]

You are correct. Why even have coaches? Players can just figure that shit out.

During games? You're damn right they can. The coaches are there to keep everyone pulling the same way. Like a manager at an office. You're not doing people's work for them, but you're setting up the environment where they are empowered to take ownership.

Look at any super successful coach, let's just say in Detroit history to keep it easy.

Bowman, Babcock, Campbell, Leyland.

Each of these guys had a different way of doing it, but they had their players ready to run through a wall for them. In Bowman's case, he had the cache to sit Sergei Fedorov down and bust him down to playing defense. He worked with Yzerman and got him to buy into being a two-way player. Babcock was a shithead far too often, but read what Tatar said. He f***in hated Babcock, but he was a better player for being challenged by him. Campbell embodies the grit, grind, bite kneecaps identity that his whole team now embodies. Jim Leyland would go to bat for his guys and chew them out if they were bitching about things that didn't mean anything.

A coach is supposed to set the stage and the team is meant to take that tone and run with it.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

He seems like a good X's and O's type coach, but not great at the interpersonal element. He's not a great motivator, and his players probably aren't going to ever enjoy playing for him.

I'm sure he'll get better as he gets more coaching experience, though. It seems like the jump from assistant coach to head coach is pretty rough. It's a different skillset.

 

[Axel Sandy Pelikan]

This is the most frustrating line of argument that we see on these boards. The "well could you do better???". No, I couldn't, because I'm not privy to the locker room, how practice goes, how the interactions between players and between coaches/players are, or anything else. I'm also not paid millions of dollars to do the job of coaching hockey at the highest level in the world. So no, I couldn't do better, but that does not at all absolve the coach of criticism.

The comparison of the coach is to other coaches. When we see teams with worse lineups without the same issues we have (going on long losing streaks, failing to start on time, etc.), then we can reasonably argue that the coach is in at least part to blame, when the players themselves are better on paper than those other teams.

It's not about absolving him of criticism. It's that the criticism people offer up is the type of hogwash that sports radio brings up. I know it's a movie, but this reminds me of "Little Big League" where the kid becomes manager of the Twins after his grandpa gives him the team. It shows his dipshit kid friends saying like "Start this guy, he always beats the Yankees" without any understanding of what goes on.

Lalonde is definitely part to blame.... but he's also a huge part of why they're here within striking distance of the playoffs with 9 to go.

And no. the most frustrating argument to see is from people who don't understand the slightest thing about sports spout cliches about mid-game adjustments or "get 'em into halftime/period" and change something. That's very rarely a thing. The "adjustment" is usually just the team that was getting their asses kicked get a breather. And also the argument that a kid should be playing over a veteran and somehow a 5-4 loss is better than a 2-1 loss because yay scoring.

 

[RedHawkDown]

It's not about absolving him of criticism. It's that the criticism people offer up is the type of hogwash that sports radio brings up. I know it's a movie, but this reminds me of "Little Big League" where the kid becomes manager of the Twins after his grandpa gives him the team. It shows his dipshit kid friends saying like "Start this guy, he always beats the Yankees" without any understanding of what goes on.

Lalonde is definitely part to blame.... but he's also a huge part of why they're here within striking distance of the playoffs with 9 to go.

The criticism is simple because the information the fans have access to is simple. If Lalonde was coaching the team from his couch and from the stands, he would have similarly few adjustments to offer. Saying "well what would you do?!?!?" is asinine because it's impossible to know what you would change without being on the ground with these guys and seeing how they're playing and interacting with one another.

The Wings have marginally improved from this time last year, with a significantly better roster. Further, the same issues of not starting on time and going on long losing streaks have persisted all season. That's not really acceptable. We don't need to have solutions in order to be able to say that.

It's like if a surgeon has consistently bad outcomes, and the response is "well could you do better?". No, a random person probably couldn't, because they aren't paid to be a doctor, and they don't know the intimate details of what happened. That doesn't absolve the physician of criticism...

 

[norrisnick]

During games? You're damn right they can. The coaches are there to keep everyone pulling the same way. Like a manager at an office. You're not doing people's work for them, but you're setting up the environment where they are empowered to take ownership.

Look at any super successful coach, let's just say in Detroit history to keep it easy.

Bowman, Babcock, Campbell, Leyland.

Each of these guys had a different way of doing it, but they had their players ready to run through a wall for them. In Bowman's case, he had the cache to sit Sergei Fedorov down and bust him down to playing defense. He worked with Yzerman and got him to buy into being a two-way player. Babcock was a shithead far too often, but read what Tatar said. He f***in hated Babcock, but he was a better player for being challenged by him. Campbell embodies the grit, grind, bite kneecaps identity that his whole team now embodies. Jim Leyland would go to bat for his guys and chew them out if they were bitching about things that didn't mean anything.

A coach is supposed to set the stage and the team is meant to take that tone and run with it.

Anyone consider that the players are running with the tone that has been set?

Why have coaches when you’re here to tell everyone what the right thing to do is.

Welcome to the internet. You might want to consider bringing a helmet.

 

[odin1981]

He's fine. It's still a pretty underwhelming roster, and he's managed to squeeze some pretty impressive stretches of success out of it. I have no major problem with him for now.

Yeah, I don't like him, but I would say I feel indifferent to him.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Ability to judge an NHL roster’s actual talent level is at an all-time low.

 

[DoMakc]

I generally like the team play, they usually don't get hammered in the D zone for long streteches, have good transition and are even decent at passing in the O-zone. The issues that this team has are in my opinion personell driven and fall on Yzerman - too many defensemen and forwards who don't know how to defend.

 

[The Zermanator]

Why is this on the coach exactly? Do the players not know when the game starts? Do the players not know what they need to do to their individual bodies to have them ready to go from the first drop of the puck? I understand over-practicing a tired team and load management, but I am not about to absolve the people who actually play the f***ing game. Not being prepared is not having an answer to your opponent's powerplay or forecheck. Coming out stone cold flat is something completely different.

I said why it's on the coach. If it was a handful of players that's one thing. If it's been a consistent problem for the entire team, then you look at the coach. Each player can only look after themselves at the end of the day, it's up to the coach to manage the team as a whole.

Needing an entire period to get up to game speed is absolutely a matter of preparation. It's not a question of 'not having an answer' if they've shown, as they have on many occasions, that they're capable of coming up with that answer in the 2nd and 3rd periods. It's a matter of their heads not being in the game at puck drop. What's more likely here, that 20+ players are each individually sandbagging at the starts of games, or that the guy responsible for managing all of them as a group needs to improve on his end?

Does holding the coach accountable necessarily mean the players are being absolved? Why is it so black and white? Roster needs to improve overall, individual players need to perform better, and the coach needs to do a better job at preparing his team.