Horachek's impact on the team
- Thread starter ZBBM
- Start date
Kin
New member
cw said:
It doesn't matter. We're three months in at this point. Kessel got 23 minutes on Saturday night.
cw said:
Kadri isn't a 4th line AHLer, Holland isn't a 4th line AHLer. He has options other than trotting out the same first line night after night. It doesn't matter what his explanation is at this point, he can be judged on the actual wisdom of the decisions he's making. Right now I wouldn't hire Horacheck to run a clown college.
GhostofPotvin29
New member
I think what would really tie this up is if we compared salaries from the 1960s and 1970s with those in the 1930s.
Nik the Trik said:
Whether it was the media attention (I suspect it was) or not, Phil showed a little life we hadn't seen in a while in that game.
Horachek is trying to win the game
+ Phil showing a little life
=================
= maybe give Phil a little ice time to see if he can score - we're down 2 goals
Are we supposed to condemn that?
Now if I were coach, I probably would have handled it differently. I would have started to send Phil to the press box and if he didn't respond, that's where he'd finish the season. Whether my GM would go along with that, I don't know.
Maybe that's a part of their strategy - give him ice time to try to minimize damage to his trade value. Again, I don't know for sure.
Nik the Trik said:
Kadri went up from 16 mins in Oct-Nov to 18-19 mins in Jan-Feb
Holland was between 9-16 mins in Oct-Nov to 17-12 mins in Jan-Feb. He's kind of bounced around with both coaches.
JVR 19-19-19 mins (Oct-Dec) 20-17-18 (Jan-Mar)
Bozak 18-18-18 (Oct-Dec) 20-17-19 (Jan-Mar)
Kessel 18-18-18 (Oct-Dec) 20-17-19 (Jan-Mar)
It looks like when they slumped, Horachek tried giving them more ice time to try to play their way out of it. When that didn't work, he cut them back some.
Rather than bench them more than 5-7 mins in a game, it appears he's resorted to calling them out in the media.
Again, I could debate some aspects of that and ask for more info before drawing conclusions.
Do the results call into question his coaching ability? Sure. But the best player quitting on his team is something I'm inclined to be open minded about when passing judgement on his coaching - because in my mind, no player should ever quit on his team - that's a far worse offence than some coaching call.
So for me, one might debate the coach's actions but there's no debating a player quitting on his team.
Kin
New member
cw said:
We are when it's combined with continuing to show no creativity with regards to the line combinations despite pretty good evidence at this point that the first line as it's constituted is not effective.
cw said:
This might stun you but I can come to an independent conclusion on what Horacheck's done without filtering it through the lens of Phil Kessel being the worst human being who's ever lived.
Nik the Trik said:
I think his options at creativity have been limited to some extent.
It appears that Horachek's first move was to try giving Kessel-Bozak-JVR more ice time than Carlyle - in an effort to get their support. I can understand that. Made some sense to try. Didn't work.
Between Jan 7 and Feb 6, after Horachek took over, Kadri was 4pts, -11 in 13 games, never a plus player. Meanwhile, he's got some off ice issues he refuses to address which leads to a team 3 game suspension. Then a league 4 game suspension for a bad hit. Is Kadri supposed to be rewarded to play with Kessel extensively to satisfy your "creativity" demands under those circumstances? I don't think so.
A few others got tried and then ultimately, Kessel was demoted to a 4th line. Had his ice time cut. He was also tried with Panik, Winnick & Lupul as alternatives. About 4-5% of Holland's even strength ice time was with Kessel this season.
Of late, Holland was playing well with Booth before he got hurt so that may not be something Horachek wanted to change for that reason. Booth may well have been their best forward of late.
Did Horachek try all the right things? We all have subjective opinions on that.
What we cannot escape is that any coach trying to do anything with a top player when that top player has quit on his team ... that ain't gonna work no matter what because the top player isn't going to make the effort.
As Mark Hunter said in his interview on TSN today on the draft and recent UFA signings "we're looking for players with character who make the effort". Right now, it's obvious to a bunch of folks Kessel leaves a lot to be desired as a player "with character who make the effort" and it doesn't matter who the coach is when a guy goes south like that.
Nik the Trik said:
You're welcome to your own opinion but I don't think most would conclude Horachek's coaching performance is a mutually exclusive event, free of any effect or repercussions of Kessel packing it in on his team.
Kin
New member
cw said:
It's not about rewarding anyone. It's about not simply trotting out the same first line night after night after night despite them being ridiculously ineffective to a man for months(JVR and Bozak, clearly being noble warriors whose heroic efforts are being curtailed by history's greatest monster). It's about making the change to a combination, Kadri-Kessel, that has been more effective than Bozak-Kessel over the last two years.
In the time span you're talking about, nobody was scoring. The whole team looked terrible. What did Bozak do that was worthy of "rewarding" by keeping him on a line with cartoonish super villain Phil Kessel? How can you make the case you're making constantly in every single post in every single thread on the board about how Phil Kessel is poisoning the youth of today with his terrible values and then reconcile that with him being "rewarded" with 19 minutes a night in March?
cw said:
Kessel-Holland-Booth. That took me roughly about half a second.
cw said:
No, that's where we get into the admittedly subjective issue of what extent a coach is responsible for the motivation of his players in a difficult time. Again, I would point you to any book ever written by a coach ever if you want arguments for how a coach can play a role in motivating a player. True, no coach in the history of the world has dealt with such a horrible example of the worst humanity has to offer as Phil Kessel but the underlying point remains.
cw said:
Yes, that sounds drastically different than the nonsense that every player-personnel guy in the league will say before a draft. More evidence of Kessel's borderline-criminal disrespect for the game and contribution to the way kids wear saggy pants today.
OldTimeHockey
Active member
cw said:
That's a rather large jump to pencil Kessel in as the player that leaves a lot to be desired. I mean, sure, we'd all like to get more of the guy but there's 19 other players in that dressingroom. I'd say a good 15 of them have shown no real 'give a damn' since Horachek took over. If we're going to jump to conclusions like you seem to have been for a good 5 or 6 pages, perhaps we can jump to the conclusion that these guys think Horachek is a maroon.
Nik the Trik said:
Really?
Quinn: Motivation isn't coach's job
http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/NHL/Toronto/2005/11/25/1322996-sun.html
"That motivational box is locked from the inside and you create an environment for people to try to succeed in," the Leafs coach said.
"Attitude is personal. It is the one thing (each individual) can control. If you are looking for other people to provide attitude, you are not going to succeed. Motivation is part of the whole environment, it's not just lighting a fire. That fire should be lit in someone anyway. That's where the competitiveness part comes from."
The fire in Phil Kessel was been extinguished by Phil Kessel. Phil, not the coach, needs to find a box of matches, some kindling and re-light it. Phil, not the coach, needs to man up to make an effort to compete.
And no, contrary to another straw man you're attempting, Phil is not the only guy with that problem on this team. I'd say the rest of his line is suspect as is Lupul (who i've posted about before).
OldTimeHockey said:
No, I'd say someone else has been attempting to create a straw man that I think the problem is exclusively Kessel. I do not. I think he's guilty of not providing a professional effort and i've called him out for that. But I think others also leave plenty to be desired in the effort they've provided - one I posted about recently was Lupul.
That dog of nonsense won't hunt.
Kin
New member
cw said:
Taking a jeweler's loupe to my comment might reveal I said "book" and not "comments to the media from a coach whose job was in jeopardy" but, heck, that seems as on target as most of your responses.
cw said:
Most people here would say it's even more widespread than that. Aside from a few exceptions, Polak, Booth, Kadri(who still should not be rewarded) most people have attributed that attitude to the team as a whole which is why a lot of people are going to ascribe that to something environmental as opposed to individual deficiencies.
Nik the Trik said:
He's only been head coach 33 games.. He gave that line some time to try to straighten themselves out (as I think he should). Then after a few passes at that, he:
- tried Winnick
- tried Panik
- tried Lupul
- tried Kessel on 4th line
- tried calling out Kessel and his line in the media
etc
But if the guys he's trying with others with have quit, as some have, it doesn't matter who he tries because they cannot succeed without effort.
corsi fenwick said:
The problem they'll have with that is:
- why keep running him out there? Why not give him some games off?
- Or, like Polak/Robidas, why not get him the surgery he needs so he's ready for next season?
And how do they explain his coach calling a hurt guy out in the media for a lack of effort and then try to spin it as "oh no, he was hurt and the coach didn't know it." In this day and age of medical care in the NHL, how is that possible? I do not buy the "I was hiding an injury" when the team is down and out of the playoffs - what's the point of that?
Kin
New member
cw said:
Winnick with Kessel was, albeit in a small sample size, pretty impressive. At 5 on 5 their GF% was 87.5. They scored 4.18 goals per 60 and allowed 0.60. Clearly that's not sustainable but it's evidence of something that was working. Evidence that putting a responsible defensive presence on Kessel's line helped what that line did. Winnick got dealt, sure, but to go back to the line that has proven itself ineffective for three straight months now is indefensible. In that list there's not a single alternate centre listed. That's where Horacheck needed to make the change and that's been screamingly obvious for some time now.
cw said:
I'd say Horachek was calling out the team in general. Kessel is given a wink and a nod during such press conferences. Surgery for Kessel can wait until the off-season, or maybe "the injury" is not quite bad enough to necessitate surgery.
What are you trying to do here CW? Throw a wrench into the whole works? I'm trying to get the guy traded. As the Jerry Lundegaard character said in Fargo, "I'm cooperating here". I'd appreciate it if you'd do the same. This is all hush-hush.
The way this has played out leads me to wonder if management (i.e. Shanahan) has told Horachek not to rock the boat too much, i.e. don't try too much to get things going. It makes some sense as, if management is really committed to a rebuild, the goal for this season should be the best possible draft position. Keeping the status quo in terms of roster and line combinations seems the best way to achieve that.
At the same time, the safest way to give the appearance of "doing something" is to call out players for lack of effort. If they've already quit that alone is not likely to inspire them at this point.
At the same time, the safest way to give the appearance of "doing something" is to call out players for lack of effort. If they've already quit that alone is not likely to inspire them at this point.
OldTimeHockey
Active member
Nik the Trik said:
Exactly this. Something is not right in that dressingroom. It includes Kessel. But it also includes Phaneuf(the 'leader'), Bozak, Lupul, JvR, etc;
One thing I do often picture is Carlyle waking up, sitting down with his breakfast, taking his first bite of his Cheerio's and spewing them in laughter across the table when he looks at the Leafs in the standings.
Rebel_1812
New member
Andy007 said:
This isn't a newspaper. This is the internet discussion forum where we can debate rumors. If you don't make judgements based on behaviour what do you use ? The infamous friend of a friend told me ?
Rebel_1812
New member
cw said:
That is what I heard as well and it fits the sour mood he had this year.