Randy Carlyle/Leaf Coach thread

[Kin]

Fair.  But usually those good, versatile teams have good, versatile players.  I think we lack that and a couple we did have (however versatile you want to make them) we jettisoned for a plug on a hefty contract.

I mean, it's a lot easier to get good hockey players to play in multiple different roles than it is to get bad hockey players.

Well, yeah, but I feel like for the most part the good players they jettisoned were guys who just lent themselves to the team's strength and Clarkson, who I assume is the referenced Plug, was described as a guy who moved the team away from that, who brought your gritty/physical edge, even if it hasn't worked out that way.

I can't defend the Clarkson signing now and I didn't like it at the time so I'm with you there but like I said, I feel like I would rather go down the long path that involves personnel changes then doubling down on a strategy that had real questionable viability in a big picture sense.

 

[Kin]

I think that is a reasonable goal, but, speaking purely objectively, can even a 1/3 of this roster honestly be considered capable of playing hockey like the Blues/Bruins/Hawks?    At some point there has to be a limit to how much of your roster isn't capable of playing a certain way before you change the course, even if it isn't the conventional way to win a Cup.  Whether that is by making more trades/UFA signings or just changing your style of play.

Well, I agree in the trade/UFA signing sense but not so much in the changing the style of play sense. I don't think it's a good or productive strategy for a team to say "We can't compete on talent, so we'll have to figure out some trickery" because I don't think it's proven effective in the past and, more to the point, it's unnecessary when a team has the resources the Leafs do. Teams win with Talent in the NHL. Unless the strategy is to acquire that talent I'm kind of over the difference between 9th and 13th place.

The Leafs aren't the Oakland Athletics of 10 years ago. Playing meaningful hockey in March isn't their victory and it shouldn't be the aim or cloud judgment because it's revealed that they're a lousy team in December.

 

[L K]

Fair.  But usually those good, versatile teams have good, versatile players.  I think we lack that and a couple we did have (however versatile you want to make them) we jettisoned for a plug on a hefty contract.

I mean, it's a lot easier to get good hockey players to play in multiple different roles than it is to get bad hockey players.

Well, yeah, but I feel like for the most part the good players they jettisoned were guys who just lent themselves to the team's strength and Clarkson, who I assume is the referenced Plug, was described as a guy who moved the team away from that, who brought your gritty/physical edge, even if it hasn't worked out that way.

I can't defend the Clarkson signing now and I didn't like it at the time so I'm with you there but like I said, I feel like I would rather go down the long path that involves personnel changes then doubling down on a strategy that had real questionable viability in a big picture sense.

I'd feel far more confident in that strategy if they actually had prospects coming up the pipes that fit that mould. 

Gauthier probably fits that strategy but projects to be more of a 2/3rd line center.  After that they really don't have another solid center prospect.  Leivo might fit that kind of strategy on the wing but again is more of a 2nd/3rd line winger.  Guys like Biggs and Ross were stretch draft picks that fit that kind of role but have been unbelievably disappointing thus far. 

On defense guys like Granberg and MacWilliam might fit that kind of big defensive role down the road but the Leafs biggest strength is their offensive youth with Rielly, Finn and Percy.

I'm just not seeing the horses coming up the system that fits that kind of strategy.

 

[L K]

I think that is a reasonable goal, but, speaking purely objectively, can even a 1/3 of this roster honestly be considered capable of playing hockey like the Blues/Bruins/Hawks?    At some point there has to be a limit to how much of your roster isn't capable of playing a certain way before you change the course, even if it isn't the conventional way to win a Cup.  Whether that is by making more trades/UFA signings or just changing your style of play.

Well, I agree in the trade/UFA signing sense but not so much in the changing the style of play sense. I don't think it's a good or productive strategy for a team to say "We can't compete on talent, so we'll have to figure out some trickery" because I don't think it's proven effective in the past and, more to the point, it's unnecessary when a team has the resources the Leafs do. Teams win with Talent in the NHL. Unless the strategy is to acquire that talent I'm kind of over the difference between 9th and 13th place.

The Leafs aren't the Oakland Athletics of 10 years ago. Playing meaningful hockey in March isn't their victory and it shouldn't be the aim or cloud judgment because it's revealed that they're a lousy team in December.

I can appreciate that, but maybe the strategy shouldn't have been to lock up their entire roster to long-term contracts given that fact.  The guys who most likely fit what we are essentially describing as "Western Conference hockey" are the Kulemin's, Bolland's, even Phaneuf's of the roster.  I would even argue that Kadri is probably that kind of player.  He's not awesome defensively but you see the effort and he's one of those guys who plays bigger than his size and stands up for his team for the most part. 

The problem being that these are all the guys who are pending UFAs/RFAs.  Meanwhile the guys who are a little more questionable in the "playoff hockey" approach were locked up to 5-8 year deals.  I don't have a huge problem with Kessel, JVR, Lupul being key parts of the team, but pretty much all of the players that add to a playoff style of hockey aren't locked up and that is an awful lot of roster that needs to be turned over to get them there.

 

[Erndog]

Great LK....  If it wasn't already bad enough in my head, I now started thinking about our prospect pool and how unbelievably shallow it is.  You aren't helping matters.

 

[Kin]

I'm just not seeing the horses coming up the system that fits that kind of strategy.

No, that's fair but at least then we're talking about "How do we acquire the sort of players we need" and not "Maybe we'll get lucky like the Hurricanes and win a cup with a roster that really doesn't deserve to". Then we stop trying to be the Phoenix Coyotes looking for a Dave Tippett style coach who can get us into the 5 seed.

 

[Kin]

I can appreciate that, but maybe the strategy shouldn't have been to lock up their entire roster to long-term contracts given that fact.  The guys who most likely fit what we are essentially describing as "Western Conference hockey" are the Kulemin's, Bolland's, even Phaneuf's of the roster.  I would even argue that Kadri is probably that kind of player.  He's not awesome defensively but you see the effort and he's one of those guys who plays bigger than his size and stands up for his team for the most part. 

The problem being that these are all the guys who are pending UFAs/RFAs.  Meanwhile the guys who are a little more questionable in the "playoff hockey" approach were locked up to 5-8 year deals.  I don't have a huge problem with Kessel, JVR, Lupul being key parts of the team, but pretty much all of the players that add to a playoff style of hockey aren't locked up and that is an awful lot of roster that needs to be turned over to get them there.

But I don't think we're at odds here. The difference being that you seem to want to say that Nonis made a lot of bad decisions in the off-season and my perspective on that has always sort of been that no "good" decisions were available to him in terms of a quick and easy turn-around to have the sort of roster that we ultimately want. Like I said, I agree that the Clarkson contract hasn't worked out the way they wanted to and, even if it had, was not a good way to get there. I might differ in the sense of Bozak a little because I don't think it's an onerous contract but other than that we seem to be saying the same thing(although I think JVR is fast becoming a player I'd move from one group to the other in your assessment).

 

[Jalili]

Great LK....  If it wasn't already bad enough in my head, I now started thinking about our prospect pool and how unbelievably shallow it is.  You aren't helping matters.

Defensively they seem like they're in relatively good shape. I'd say there's a pretty solid mix of offensive and defensive types.

Offensively though, it is very shallow. Pretty concerning actually.

For a team that's leveraged by the cap and hit hard by injuries, young players (in this case: forwards) on their ELC's who can step in and contribute become extremely valuable, and that to me is a really big problem right now.

 

[Redleaf]

Great LK....  If it wasn't already bad enough in my head, I now started thinking about our prospect pool and how unbelievably shallow it is.  You aren't helping matters.

Defensively they seem like they're in relatively good shape. I'd say there's a pretty solid mix of offensive and defensive types.

Offensively though, it is very shallow. Pretty concerning actually.

For a team that's leveraged by the cap and hit hard by injuries, young players (in this case: forwards) on their ELC's who can step in and contribute become extremely valuable, and that to me is a really big problem right now.

Good shape defensively? Unless your talking about the Leafs of 2017-18, I beg to differ. This team is not good defensively as it currently stands. I always believed that from good defense comes good offense, and therein lies the biggest problem with this squad right now.

 

[Jalili]

Great LK....  If it wasn't already bad enough in my head, I now started thinking about our prospect pool and how unbelievably shallow it is.  You aren't helping matters.

Defensively they seem like they're in relatively good shape. I'd say there's a pretty solid mix of offensive and defensive types.

Offensively though, it is very shallow. Pretty concerning actually.

For a team that's leveraged by the cap and hit hard by injuries, young players (in this case: forwards) on their ELC's who can step in and contribute become extremely valuable, and that to me is a really big problem right now.

Good shape defensively? Unless your talking about the Leafs of 2017-18, I beg to differ. This team is not good defensively as it currently stands. I always believed that from good defense comes good offense, and therein lies the biggest problem with this squad right now.

I was referring to the organization's prospect pool. Re-read the post I quoted.

 

[princedpw]

On pace to give up the most shots per game since '87.  Now combine that with the fact that they also take the least shots per game ... and it is mind-blowingly bad.

There is no question this is at least in part, a coaching problem.  Talent-wise, this team isn't historically bad.

See, I feel like this is what is meant when some people say that the problem with the possession based numbers is the emphasis people are putting on them. The only way that your second paragraph follows there is if you believe that the only way that talent is expressed on a hockey team is through possession of the puck and the shots that generates.

Because otherwise some people, people who are less enamored with those numbers, would say that shots for and shots against are an aspect of team play but it's one of many and the fact that, talent-wise, the Maple Leafs aren't historically bad is accurately reflected in the fact that their  record of games won and lost isn't historically bad. In fact it's not bad at all. It's decidedly mediocre.

Teams can be bad at certain things and good enough at others to compensate. It's true in any sport. A baseball team can have a terrible pitching staff and win, a football team can have a lousy defense and win and a basketball team can not shoot the 3 and get wins. That doesn't diminish the importance of any of those things unless you believe that those things should, in and of themselves, determine wins and losses.

The Maple Leafs have great goaltending. They have a lot of speed that lets them score goals off the rush. Those things are elements of their talent and that's what has kept them in games. It hasn't been as effective of late, in part because of the injuries they've suffered, but it still hasn't been historically bad.

There was just a mis-communication it seems.  Clearly the team as a whole isn't historically bad .... Of course, I know what their won-loss record is and of course I agree they have excellent goaltending.  And they have a few players with the speed to generate goals on the rush.  What I intended to say was  "Talent-wise, this team isn't historically bad at puck possession."  I'm surprised you might have thought otherwise.

Of course, I do believe that shot differentials are very important.  I believe that because there are no lots of studies that show they are fairly stable and quite predictive of future performance --- but certainly not completely stable or completely predictive.  The advanced stats guys are fond of saying "38% of the game is luck" --- which I take to mean that we simply can't yet model a good chunk of the game. 

I don't watch much baseball or football but from what little I know, the analogy of shot differentials to pitching or defense seems reasonable.  If a baseball team has historically bad pitching or a football team has historically bad defense, there's really no chance they will be much of threat to top teams.  I think the same is true of a team with historically bad puck possession.

The main point was simply that talent-wise, there's no particular reason the Leafs should be a more-than-insanely-terrible, historically-bad puck-possession team.  I just wanted to point out that it must be due in part to coaching.  That's the conclusion I was intent on drawing, not that shooting differentials are entirely responsible for game outcomes. 

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

There was just a mis-communication it seems.  Clearly the team as a whole isn't historically bad .... Of course, I know what their won-loss record is and of course I agree they have excellent goaltending.  And they have a few players with the speed to generate goals on the rush.  What I intended to say was  "Talent-wise, this team isn't historically bad at puck possession."  I'm surprised you might have thought otherwise.

Of course, I do believe that shot differentials are very important.  I believe that because there are no lots of studies that show they are fairly stable and quite predictive of future performance --- but certainly not completely stable or completely predictive.  The advanced stats guys are fond of saying "38% of the game is luck" --- which I take to mean that we simply can't yet model a good chunk of the game. 

I don't watch much baseball or football but from what little I know, the analogy of shot differentials to pitching or defense seems reasonable.  If a baseball team has historically bad pitching or a football team has historically bad defense, there's really no chance they will be much of threat to top teams.  I think the same is true of a team with historically bad puck possession.

The main point was simply that talent-wise, there's no particular reason the Leafs should be a more-than-insanely-terrible, historically-bad puck-possession team.  I just wanted to point out that it must be due in part to coaching.  That's the conclusion I was intent on drawing, not that shooting differentials are entirely responsible for game outcomes.

Something something dogma.

 

[Kin]

The main point was simply that talent-wise, there's no particular reason the Leafs should be a more-than-insanely-terrible, historically-bad puck-possession team. 

But I feel like you're basically just repeating the same problem here. Like there's an automatic correspondence between talent, something that is a broad and poorly defined term, and puck possession which is, not a broadly defined term but it's not something that there's a good metric for that encompasses the totality of what makes a player good at it and that by looking at the Leafs and the other things that they're good at that we can measure with a degree of accuracy we should be able to draw broad conclusions about their puck possession.

Is Phil Kessel a talented player? Yes. Undoubtably. He's fast, he's got a terrific shot and good creativity with the puck. Is he good at "puck possession"? I don't know. He's easy to knock off the puck, poor defensively and doesn't win battles. There are collections of attributes that make someone good at holding onto the puck that do not correspond in any easily digestible way to their "talent". 

So, the difference, to my mind between "puck possession is not the single and sole determining factor in what wins a hockey game" and "talent is what determines puck possession" doesn't seem to be as wide as you apparently do. Hockey talent manifests itself in a multitude of ways, not all of which feed into that one particular metric.

So when you say that this year's Maple Leafs team shouldn't be where they are in terms of shot differential as dictated by their talent what is that based on? An indepth working knowledge of those particular attributes for every team in the history of the league? Or for as long as this particular measurement was kept? How good were the 94-95 Sharks at cycling the puck? How about the 03-04 Coyotes? Did their size cause problems?

Or, right now, are we seeing a team that has been able to exploit their strengths, which a lot of people said were one-dimensional and fragile going into the season, for some wins but right now can't overcome their weakneesses. Is, talent wise, this a historically bad team? No. Are they historically bad at one particular aspect of the game? They may be. I don't think we have anything close to the amount of information to say that one way or the other and especially not to attribute it to any one factor.

 

[Kin]

Something something dogma.

Easy now. You'll need to save a little of that wit to call people trolls if they disagree with you.

 

[Highlander]

Interesting article by Rosie in the Star this morning, she basically says the team played their own game, not Carlyle's and that we iced the line up that made the most sense. Time for Carlyle to adjust to the team he has instead of pushing a round peg in a square hole. Or we need to find a new coach.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

Interesting article by Rosie in the Star this morning, she basically says the team played their own game, not Carlyle's and that we iced the line up that made the most sense. Time for Carlyle to adjust to the team he has instead of pushing a round peg in a square hole. Or we need to find a new coach.

Umm, does Rosie realize that Carlyle chooses which team to ice?

 

[bustaheims]

Umm, does Rosie realize that Carlyle chooses which team to ice?

There's been a lot of whispers that it was strongly hinted to him by Nonis and Loiselle that he should play Rielly and Liles over Fraser and Ranger, and that Holland should be getting more ice time with more skilled line mates.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

Umm, does Rosie realize that Carlyle chooses which team to ice?

There's been a lot of whispers that it was strongly hinted to him by Nonis and Loiselle that he should play Rielly and Liles over Fraser and Ranger, and that Holland should be getting more ice time with more skilled line mates.

Unless there was a threat behind it, do we think Carlyle would listen to Loiselle and Nonis?

 

[bustaheims]

Unless there was a threat behind it, do we think Carlyle would listen to Loiselle and Nonis?

Well, when you don't listen to your bosses, even when there isn't a threat behind it, you tend to lose your job.

 

[2badknees]

I hate to be negative, but it wasn't much more than the fact that the Leafs worked hard, got some good bounces, and most importantly, the Hawks were gawdawful last night. They wouldn't have beaten Florida with that effort.

If Rosie wants to chalk it up to Carlyle losing control of the players, that's the sort of Toronto Star article that is the norm nowadays.