Will Todd Richards get fired before the end of the season?

[We Want Ten]

The injuries we had were beyond grievous; I was willing to give him a bit of a break. We have most of the team back and we're wildly inconsistent. His team should have done better than it did in Jan.

There is something missing right now and the team just isn't playing well 5 on 5. You can't be in the bottom 10 in GPG, GA, and PK (pk is at 19, but close enough to bottom 10) and expect to do anything. Even with injuries the PK and GA should have been a lot better.

What's funny is Curtis has now had a better season (well about equal actually) than Bob and that really isn't all that great. The team defense and 5 on 5 play has been atrocious. Bob goes from outstanding to pathetic. Not great for a 7.4 million goaltender. This team has some fundamental flaws and Richards is toward the top.

Stingers Stinger likes this.

 

[BluejacketNut]

We have no earth shattering injuries right now, and theyre not a very good team. All I hear from this FO is about the prospects we have, well, prospects cant be counted on until theyre actually developed players. The team TR has right now is just not that good, and he hasnt been able to find a system that fits this team. Early on when we did have all the injuries, he said they werent going to change their style....thats a pretty bad idea. Good coaches find systems that work with what they have, not just 1 blueprint that they'll fit whatever they can into.

 

[EDM]

Back to the subject of TR. I think BJN has a valid point. A really good coach adapts his system to the players he has. TR has not even attempted to do that. He has his one way to play and he is going to force it on whatever players he has. Not impressed at all. That being said, I doubt he is moved after this year. Seems the FO is ready to just call for a "do over" and forget about wht happened this year.

 

[MAHJ71]

Back to the subject of TR. I think BJN has a valid point. A really good coach adapts his system to the players he has. TR has not even attempted to do that. He has his one way to play and he is going to force it on whatever players he has. Not impressed at all. That being said, I doubt he is moved after this year. Seems the FO is ready to just call for a "do over" and forget about wht happened this year.

I've said this since the first sign of any injury plague 20 games in...

Got blasted for it too, from a mod no less.. - but still believe he's done a terrible job adapting.

 

[Viqsi]

We have no earth shattering injuries right now

...other than our starting #2LW, our starting #1RW (probably done for good), our #1D, and our Vezina-winning starting goaltender. But yeah, other than those, nothing serious.

I think one of HCTR's probable excuses is that the kids need to be prepared to play that sort of system once everybody gets back. Whether or not that's a wise approach is obviously up for debate, tho.

 

[Nordique]

...other than our starting #2LW, our starting #1RW (probably done for good), our #1D, and our Vezina-winning starting goaltender. But yeah, other than those, nothing serious.

Bob alone is notable, add Murray and Jenner, and yeah I'd say we still qualify as banged up. Horton I don't even consider anymore.

 

[BluejacketNut]

As Nordique said, Horton is not even a consideration anymore, its the fault of the FO to not of replaced him this year, neither is Murray. If you have a good team, losing your goalie isnt crippling, didnt hurt Chicago, Tampa, Anaheim has always been a revolving door for goalies. You will always have injuries, the lack of depth on this team is what hurts us most. You take any starter out of the lineup, and there's pretty much junk to replace it.

 

[Viqsi]

Bob alone is notable, add Murray and Jenner, and yeah I'd say we still qualify as banged up. Horton I don't even consider anymore.

Fair enough; I concede that including Horton is perhaps not relevant to this particular situation insofar as that was an adaptation that would have to have been made regardless.

 

[Viqsi]

As Nordique said, Horton is not even a consideration anymore, its the fault of the FO to not of replaced him this year, neither is Murray. If you have a good team, losing your goalie isnt crippling, didnt hurt Chicago, Tampa, Anaheim has always been a revolving door for goalies. You will always have injuries, the lack of depth on this team is what hurts us most. You take any starter out of the lineup, and there's pretty much junk to replace it.

Any team that has six players on the IR at any given time is going to be severely shaken - Anaheim sure as hell was when they were in competition with us for Most Man-Games Lost this year. We knew we were at best an upper-tier bubble team, not necessarily a top-tier contender. Improving on our depth is not a new idea - the idea was that our established guys would take care of competitiveness while the kids matured and got better, and that way we'd get our depth in a cost-controlled manner. Instead, everybody gets injured, several kids get thrown to the wolves partly to patch the situation and partly to try to get SOMEthing useful development-wise going, and subsequently we've witnessed (in a discovery which should come as a shock to absolutely nobody) that, like we expected, most of them aren't ready for full-time NHL duty at that level yet. Which is as expected, because that's not where they were going to play originally. Leaping to Bonus Conclusions as a result of that is asinine.

Frankly, it's not "we lost this guy", or "we lost that guy." It's "we lost TONS of these guys ALL AT ONCE, at a time when we were trying to develop our depth rather than lean on it."

This is still an Exceptional Situation. Stop jumping to conclusions based on it.

 

[DarkandStormy]

As Nordique said, Horton is not even a consideration anymore, its the fault of the FO to not of replaced him this year, neither is Murray. If you have a good team, losing your goalie isnt crippling, didnt hurt Chicago, Tampa, Anaheim has always been a revolving door for goalies. You will always have injuries, the lack of depth on this team is what hurts us most. You take any starter out of the lineup, and there's pretty much junk to replace it.

LOL so they found out right around training camp about his back, so it's their fault for immediately not finding a #1RW? Good Lord, gtfo.

 

[Nordique]

As Nordique said, Horton is not even a consideration anymore, its the fault of the FO to not of replaced him this year, neither is Murray. If you have a good team, losing your goalie isnt crippling, didnt hurt Chicago, Tampa, Anaheim has always been a revolving door for goalies. You will always have injuries, the lack of depth on this team is what hurts us most. You take any starter out of the lineup, and there's pretty much junk to replace it.

Those teams have solid backup goalies.

Its hard to ignore that 3.92 GAA the backups posted in November, and the 2-10-1 record.

Bob was back in goal December 1st, 1.83 GAA, 10-2 record that month.

That's 2 goals a game difference between Bob and the backup tandem.

Curtis has been good of late, but November sealed the deal for this team.

Decent goaltending could have won 5 of those losses for us in November, puts us right there with Boston. Even with all of our injuries, we'd be 8/9th in the East right now.

 

[BluejacketNut]

LOL so they found out right around training camp about his back, so it's their fault for immediately not finding a #1RW? Good Lord, gtfo.

And they did nothing to address it, good lord is right

 

[Nanabijou]

Those teams have solid backup goalies.

Its hard to ignore that 3.92 GAA the backups posted in November, and the 2-10-1 record.

Bob was back in goal December 1st, 1.83 GAA, 10-2 record that month.

That's 2 goals a game difference between Bob and the backup tandem.

Curtis has been good of late, but November sealed the deal for this team.

Decent goaltending could have won 5 of those losses for us in November, puts us right there with Boston. Even with all of our injuries, we'd be 8/9th in the East right now.

I've said before that Curtis is under appreciated on here for what he brings at his salary. I think the issue back then was that he got that concussion in the fall and that took him awhile to get his game back. He kind of got thrust into action due to Bob's first injury before he was completely back, IMO.

I haven't had an issue with his play during Bob's second injury. It's not Vezina-quality, but when you're paying one goalie 6 million, you aren't going to have a Vezina-caliber backup.

Whether or not we should have had more experienced third-string goalie instead of having to rely on Forsberg or Dansk to shoulder the load if Mac and Bob got hurt is a valid debate.

 

[BluejacketNut]

Those teams have solid backup goalies.

Its hard to ignore that 3.92 GAA the backups posted in November, and the 2-10-1 record.

Bob was back in goal December 1st, 1.83 GAA, 10-2 record that month.

That's 2 goals a game difference between Bob and the backup tandem.

Curtis has been good of late, but November sealed the deal for this team.

Decent goaltending could have won 5 of those losses for us in November, puts us right there with Boston. Even with all of our injuries, we'd be 8/9th in the East right now.

And thats part of having a good team, and not just a few good players. This team from a depth standpoint is poorly assembled

 

[DarkandStormy]

And they did nothing to address it, good lord is right

If you think a team can just snap its fingers and find a TOP LINER MIDSEASON you are delusional.

 

[Viqsi]

And thats part of having a good team, and not just a few good players. This team from a depth standpoint is poorly assembled

Tell you what. You show me a team - ANY team - in the NHL that is still going to be competitive with six to eight starters (more than half of which are the top-tier guys) out, their starting goaltender out, and their backup goaltender playing injured, and I'll consider whether or not you have a point to be made.

I'll give you a hint - you won't be able to find one. There is NO TEAM IN THE NHL that is capable of withstanding that sort of pressure. Even at their worst moments, Detroit last year and Anaheim and Pittsburgh this year have still had SOME goaltending and SOME offense and SOME defense, even if one of the three was badly crippled. We had all three sucker-punched in November, with the goaltending basically taken all the way out. Miracle recoveries from that sort of thing are still possible, sometimes - we've done it before - but not when you're continuously missing five or six starters from then 'till the end of February.

A team with "only a few good players", under these circumstances, would be well into rock bottom of the League. Need an example? See 2011-2012.

Sometimes **** happens, and there's nobody you can fairly point fingers at. This is one of those circumstances - and recognition of that is why the media narrative of this season of ours has been one of "can't catch a break" rather than some sort of "that team still exists?" dismissal.

 

[BluejacketNut]

Im talking about our team right now. We are not missing 6-8 starters, we're missing essentially 3. If you consider Gibbons or Morin as starters, well there's the start of the problem

 

[WannabeFinn]

As Nordique said, Horton is not even a consideration anymore, its the fault of the FO to not of replaced him this year, neither is Murray. If you have a good team, losing your goalie isnt crippling, didnt hurt Chicago, Tampa, Anaheim has always been a revolving door for goalies. You will always have injuries, the lack of depth on this team is what hurts us most. You take any starter out of the lineup, and there's pretty much junk to replace it.

Crawford isn't an amazing goalie in the first place and the team in front of him is amazing, so yeah. He wasn't a huge loss. Tampa Bay got swept in the 1st round of the playoffs last year because they didn't have Bishop, is that not a crippling injury? Nabokov, Lindback, etc. have been terrible backups for Tampa. Anaheim has great young goalies (yes, multiple) in Gibson and Anderson, so they could afford to move on from Fasth and Hiller.

 

[WannabeFinn]

Im talking about our team right now. We are not missing 6-8 starters, we're missing essentially 3. If you consider Gibbons or Morin as starters, well there's the start of the problem

Morin should draw into a healthy CBJ lineup, even if it's on the 4th line. He's NHL caliber.

 

[DarkandStormy]

Im talking about our team right now. We are not missing 6-8 starters, we're missing essentially 3. If you consider Gibbons or Morin as starters, well there's the start of the problem

This team "right now" is above .500 since 12/1/14. 18-12-1.

 

[BluejacketNut]

Crawford isn't an amazing goalie in the first place and the team in front of him is amazing, so yeah. He wasn't a huge loss. Tampa Bay got swept in the 1st round of the playoffs last year because they didn't have Bishop, is that not a crippling injury? Nabokov, Lindback, etc. have been terrible backups for Tampa. Anaheim has great young goalies (yes, multiple) in Gibson and Anderson, so they could afford to move on from Fasth and Hiller.

Im talking about this regular season with Tampa, yes in the playoffs it will hurt because you're playing top teams.

We'll agree to disagree on Morin, he's a injury fill in IMO

 

[Viqsi]

This team "right now" is above .500 since 12/1/14. 18-12-1.

Beat me to it. You get a cookie.

For the record, that's a 97-98 point pace over a full season. Pretty darn good. But not enough to pull out of the November tailspin.

 

[Nordique]

And thats part of having a good team, and not just a few good players. This team from a depth standpoint is poorly assembled

You are right, and every team has its achilles heel, and ours is in goal. We do have reasonable depth at F and D, but not in goal. Curtis is a so so back up goalie, but a big drop off from Bobrovsky. I think JD/JK were counting on Forsberg or Dansk to make a push this season for some NHL playing time, so they opted to not upgrade Curtis.

This team will only go as far as a healthy Bobrovsky can take it given the current personnel situation.

 

[OldGoaltender]

This team has been depleted since the start of the season due to injuries. You can't loose that many top liners and expect to win. That would be unfair for any GM or President of Operations to expect. The Jackets have been competitive for the most part and in many of the games.

What I don't like is our spacing and passing and that is on the coach. Yes you want guys to dig it out of the corner but positioning, even when not on the power play is vital to consistently winning and success. I think the using the last game is a great example.

The spacing the Isles created was very nice as was their positioning on the ice. It gave passing lanes that created shots, that led to goals. Just throwing it back to the point and hoping for either a screen or rebound doesn't work in today's hockey but that is a staple for Richards.

Am I calling for his resignation, no but bring in a better offensive coach to help out would be nice.

 

[Cyclones Rock]

Those teams have solid backup goalies.

Its hard to ignore that 3.92 GAA the backups posted in November, and the 2-10-1 record.

Bob was back in goal December 1st, 1.83 GAA, 10-2 record that month.

That's 2 goals a game difference between Bob and the backup tandem.

Curtis has been good of late, but November sealed the deal for this team.

Decent goaltending could have won 5 of those losses for us in November, puts us right there with Boston. Even with all of our injuries, we'd be 8/9th in the East right now.

This team "right now" is above .500 since 12/1/14. 18-12-1.

Pretty much puts to rest (or should) the "fire Richards" crowd.

The issue is one level higher on the CBJ managerial food chain.