Was Maclean a problem? New: Dean Brown contrasts Maclean and Cameron

[Vesa Awesaka]

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Many sens fans were very displeased with the firing of Paul MacLean. Saying he was doing a fantastic job with the talent he had despite the sens being one of the most outshot teams in the league since he took over and looking terrible outside his first season and maybe the shortened season.

Since Cameron took over the sens have looked imo the best in years despite not winning games and theres been a notable jump in Erik Karlsson. The sens have been outshooting more teams then not of late and people have even gone so far as to say cowen has looked great

Theres also been supposed locker room conflicts caused by maclean namingly with Erik Karlsson and Jason Spezza.

So my question is.

Was MacLean a problem overall, a problem this season only or a success who got the best out of what he had?

https://twitter.com/robvollmanNHL/status/558675172496908288/photo/1

Stats contributed by Mickle and Starling

At even strength this season:
MacLean: 27gp, -9 goal diff, 0.931 save%, 26.8/34.0 shots F/A(26th/29th in the league), 47.7% corsi(24th in the league)
Cameron: 17gp, +1 goal diff, 0.915 save%, 30.9/29.6 shots F/A(8th/7th in the league), 52.5% corsi(9th in the league)

Strange. AHL + team, but despite the goaltending not saving our butts nearly as often, the team has seen a maked improvement in all of it's ES numbers with MacLean out of the picture.

With MacLean the team had a better Sv%, and a better PP.

Without MacLean, the team has a better ES GF%, CF% shots against, Shots for, Shots for %...

Cameron doesn't seem to be hamstrung by the same roster, he's just a better suited it would seem.

You're right about one thing though, the more things change, the more your agenda remains the same.

http://www.tsn.ca/radio/brown-dave-cameron-is-the-opposite-of-paul-maclean-1.242746

Dean Brown gives some insider info on why maclean struggled this season

Click to read more...

 

[Scrub*]

Any coach we hire is dealing with limited talent AND limited salary from ownership. I can't blame anyone coaching this team right now, new or old.

 

[BonkTastic]

Catch me 20 games into next season, and I'll probably have an opinion on this.

I'm not judging anything after 20 games.

 

[Healfezza]

If we judged things on the first 20 games we would have traded a bust in Ben Bishop for superstar Cory Conacher...

Oh wait...

 

[Derivation]

I usually agree with your opinions, but not sure I agree at all with your assessment of the post MacLean Senators. That loss against Dallas was one of the worst in the past 2 years but not just because it was against Spezza but also it was the 2nd game after Andy called the team out.

 

[Lazarrr]

MacLean was a terrible hockey coach, one of the worst we've ever had.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

He got all he could out of this room.

We have to remember, several guys came to camp unfit and were sluggish for a while before coming around to game shape.....and Neil & Smith got injured soon after Cameron's takeover and changed the complexion of the team.

 

[Stylizer1]

A coach who wins the Adams on a team slowly get worse each season that had nothing to do with him but management?

I think by the way he was coaching he was telling the team WTF.

 

[Backpass]

Paul MacLean was not that bad of a coach. He was very opinionated and was not very patient with line combinations at the first glance of not producing. If I had anything to complain about him, it would the fact that he was changing his line combinations way too often and the player did not get sufficient time to build chemistry among theme.

With some lines combinations, I always wondered why a more offensive approach, such as a 2-1-2, his not be used. I always said the best defensive play is your offensive game. If you keep the puck 200 feet away from your net, you should never be scored on.

 

[DrakeAndJosh]

Maclean was stubborn and had a huge ego. If we had the Maclean we had in his first two seasons he wouldn't have been fired, but this year and last year he was atrocious. The sens have been noticeably better under Cameron and are playing hard most of the time, which is all you can really ask for with this roster. He also had the balls to scratch Phillips which Maclean was never able to do. I also much prefer Cameron and his attitude as the face of the Sens as opposed to Maclean, who was really wearing on me with his sarcasm and fisherman from antigonish crap.

 

[MiscBrah]

our record is basically identical to Macleans, and Maclean had a much harder schedule to deal with. So we're probably actually playing worse. I'm not attributing EK's better play to Maclean leaving, I think he's just getting better as the season progresses. Which he would have done regardless of who is coaching.

Sens have looked their best in years? Really? EK won the Norris and Spezza had hart votes under Maclean. The team hasn't looked anywhere near that team this year.

You also have to think about ownership. Maclean never had Melynk on his side, where as Cameron texts him before bed every night. It's a lot easier to scratch the longest serving sen if you can run to the owner to backdoor the GM than if you can't.

I personally haven't seen anything amazing from Cameron. Same team, same ****, different coach. I'll run the numbers in a few games (when he hits 25) to see if there's been any substantial difference.

 

[Fandlauer]

Maclean was not a problem whatsoever. The guy won the Jack Adams and was nominated the year before, he didn't become a bad coach over night. This teams management seems to be living in a fantasy world where we are supposed to be contenders with the lowest payroll in the league and a roster that is mediocre at best. Replacing Maclean with Cameron was not only unnecessary, it was idiotic.

 

[EssendonBombers]

Is this meant to insinuate that we've been any better over the last 20 games?

I really think the only improvements have been Ryan's play (probably something to do with MacLean's departure), Hoffman's play (little to do with Cameron IMO), Karlsson's play (more to do with playing with more competent partners, but has probably benefitted with the coaching change), Anderson's play (one of his hot steaks – little if anything to do with coaching) and the fact that Phillips, Neil and Smith haven't been playing as much (the credit for 1 of those 3 goes to Cameron).

We were 11-11-5 when Mac got the sack and now we're 18-18-8. Tough to expect much else from a roster missing a legit top line and a competent defence corps.

 

[Micklebot]

I liked MacLean, I just don't think he was the right coach for the team we have now.

He was a bit old school in that he leaned on his vets, which in most cases is fine, but the current sens lineup has vets that are simply not well suited for larger roles anymore.

He played an uptempo system that required the D to make quick decisions and skilled plays; we have average at best mobility on the back end (aside from Karlsson) and a very young D prone to mistakes under duress. We also (particularly with the injury to Methot) lacked puck skills on the backend.

Here's the thing; MacLean was brought in and developed his system for a team that had Gonchar, Kuba (the good version), and Karlsson along with a younger Phillips and a promising Cowen pre hip injury. We also had a mix of Lee, Carkner (pre knee injury), Rundblad, and Gilroy to fill in that last spot on D (not bad imo, Carkner was better than Boro currently is, and Lee while disapointing was still an NHL quality defender at that time). That D has 3 guys that can quickly and decisively move the puck logging 20+ mins each a night. It is worlds better (short term at least) than what we currently have.

Fast forward to the last while with MacLean, and you've got a very different type of D corps; Karlsson is pretty much on an island with no other puck movers (Ceci is coming along though). Regression claimed any life Phillips had, and Cowen suffered a setback that he's only now getting over. MacLean created a system to generate offense from the backend, and through the center (Spezza, and Turris), but when the backend no longer had the skill required, things went haywire. His system was always going to take liberties defensively (he was pretty open that he felt offensive won hockey games), but when we had the skill level to get the puck quickly moving in the right direction, it wasn't a problem. When we can't clear the zone, and get hemmed in because the D can't make a skilled play, it's disasterous.

Our team is built for a traping coach (low skill level). We had a puck possession coach. You can argue he should have changed his system to match his players, and that's fair, but you'll never get Jaques Lemaire out of Peter Laviolette. I imagine even had he adapted, it would just stem the bleeding.

I'd like to see how he does with another team though, because maybe part of his downfall was other coaches figuring out his system and exploiting it (much easier to do when the players don't fit the system).

tldr; Coach was a mis-match for the current personel. He'd be fine for a different team imo.

 

[DrunkUncleDenis]

MacLean was a terrible hockey coach, one of the worst we've ever had.

These guys all say hey.

 

[Icelevel]

i don't think maclean is/was a good head coach. Not sure we got the right guy now, but i'm happy mac is gone as much as i enjoyed listening to him.

 

[BK201]

We'll I don't know. He was pretty good for 2 years. But he started going off the rails last season and never recovered.

When he first came in I remember them working in practice against that 1-3-1 system and trapping.

By the end our board play was weak, our break out was non existent, we couldn't establish a decent cycle, the D was joining in the rush but no one would cover him positionally and it would lead to odd man rushes the other way, our D couldn't hold the blue line, the line combos were crazy, and Phillips and Neil were on PP.

 

[Benjamin]

Maclean was stubborn and had a huge ego. If we had the Maclean we had in his first two seasons he wouldn't have been fired, but this year and last year he was atrocious. The sens have been noticeably better under Cameron and are playing hard most of the time, which is all you can really ask for with this roster. He also had the balls to scratch Phillips which Maclean was never able to do. I also much prefer Cameron and his attitude as the face of the Sens as opposed to Maclean, who was really wearing on me with his sarcasm and fisherman from antigonish crap.

Agreed 100% with this.

 

[ChocolateLeclaire]

I liked Maclean. I think his failure is solely on management's inability to build a team that fits the system of the coach they hired (then extended). Murray knew what he had in Maclean (Micklebot had a great breakdown of who Maclean was as a coach) and did nothing to provide him with skilled veterans who could shelter the youth like Maclean wanted to. Instead, they gave him a washed up Michalek, Legwand and Phillips on D.

And I'm not overly impressed by Cameron. Team is playing better defensively which is good. But the powerplay is awful and I find myself questioning his line-up decisions as much as I did Maclean i.e. Stone on the 4th line, Chiasson on the top line and Hoffman not on the PP enough.

Plus, I don't think he's been distributing goalie starts well at all. Lehner sits far too long.

Color me unimpressed with the guy whose sole reason for being the coach of the team is our dumb owner's infatuation with him.

At this stage, I'm looking forward to a clean sweep from the ownership down. Doubt it will happen any time soon though.

 

[ottawah]

Our last 593 games have seen 6 coaching changes. That is close to one per season average. 7 coaches over that time, they barely last a season on average.

This will make it extraordinarily hard to get an established coach, because quite frankly why would they want to come to a team that changes coaches as often as Edmonton changes their number 1 goalie?

There has to be some underlying reason why we are going through coaches so fast. That is the issue that needs to be addressed.

 

[Larionov]

Barring a complete collapse in the second half of the year, Cameron will be our coach going forward, so we might as well get used to him. He is clearly Eugene's guy. That doesn't necessarily disqualify him as a coach, but that fact gives him a lot of leeway.

There is one benefit to his connection to Eugene in that it gives him the sway in the organization to sit Phillips and other non-performing veterans. I don't think it's much of a secret that MacLean butted heads with Murray from time to time, and Murray occasionally got his way. In Cameron, you have a guy whose standing with the owner is probably fairly equal to that of Murray. It changes the dynamic.

I believe that Mac is a good coach who did the best he could with the personnel he had. Does he have a big ego? Sure he does - so do most coaches. Some just do a better job of hiding it than others. To borrow an old line from Donald Trump, show me a guy with no ego and I'll show you a loser. Now, there's a difference between ego and arrogance, and after a while I think some arrogance started to creep into MacLean's act. Getting canned was probably good for him - he'll learn from this, and probably be a better coach for it in his next stop.

I also like Cameron, but for different reasons. Cameron is obviously a very smart guy and a student of the game, and I like guys like that. He's a hard working guy who has spent a lifetime in the game working his way up the ladder, and there's a value to that as well. I would have no problem with him getting a two year deal at the end of this year.

At the end of the day, though, this is the NHL, and a coach is only going to gain or cost you a handful of wins either way. The rest is based on your personnel, and that lands directly at the feet of Bryan Murray.

 

[Grizz MacArthur]

I think his ego grew over time and became part of the problem...but he's far from the biggest problem that ails this franchise. Keep looking up...all the way up.

 

[Micklebot]

Our last 593 games have seen 6 coaching changes. That is close to one per season average. 7 coaches over that time, they barely last a season on average.

This will make it extraordinarily hard to get an established coach, because quite frankly why would they want to come to a team that changes coaches as often as Edmonton changes their number 1 goalie?

There has to be some underlying reason why we are going through coaches so fast. That is the issue that needs to be addressed.

This is disingenuous at best...

One of those 7 coaches was the GM acting as coach on an interim basis to finish off the season. You're also skewing the stats with Cameron, as he will certainly last more than the ~20 games.

I aslo question why you think it will be hard to get an established coach. They'll see a team who's only established coach out of that group left to become GM of the same team. We are a team that has not even considered established coaches in the past (Paddock (brought up from within, DeBoer vs Hartsburg, Clouston (brought up through minor system), Cameron vs MacLean, Cameron (promoted from within)). We simply don't entertain the notion of established coaches, possibly because of the pricetag.

The reality is Clouston lasted just shy of 200 games, and MacLean lasted 239 games. Clouston lost his job to horrible goaltending, but I digress. It's too bad we didn't have the vacancy when Trotz was available, because imo, there aren't any other appealing options right now, but when Murray steps down, if the team gets a GM externally, we will likely see a coaching change (eventually).

 

[starling]

At even strength this season:
MacLean: 27gp, -9 goal diff, 0.931 save%, 26.8/34.0 shots F/A(26th/29th in the league), 47.7% corsi(24th in the league)
Cameron: 17gp, +1 goal diff, 0.915 save%, 30.9/29.6 shots F/A(8th/7th in the league), 52.5% corsi(9th in the league)

 

[ChocolateLeclaire]

This is disingenuous at best...

One of those 7 coaches was the GM acting as coach on an interim basis to finish off the season. You're also skewing the stats with Cameron, as he will certainly last more than the ~20 games.

I aslo question why you think it will be hard to get an established coach. They'll see a team who's only established coach out of that group left to become GM of the same team. We are a team that has not even considered established coaches in the past (Paddock (brought up from within, DeBoer vs Hartsburg, Clouston (brought up through minor system), Cameron vs MacLean, Cameron (promoted from within)). We simply don't entertain the notion of established coaches, possibly because of the pricetag.

The reality is Clouston lasted just shy of 200 games, and MacLean lasted 239 games. Clouston lost his job to horrible goaltending, but I digress. It's too bad we didn't have the vacancy when Trotz was available, because imo, there aren't any other appealing options right now, but when Murray steps down, if the team gets a GM externally, we will likely see a coaching change (eventually).

I was just thinking the other day...if Murray was planning on giving Maclean such a short rope, why even bother starting the season with him?

I, for one, would have loved to see either Trotz or Laviollette coach here.

Though part of me believes that Murray is far too meddlesome to have a coach with that pedigree here. He has a pattern of hiring unestablished coaches so he can retain control of the team.