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 Adam
Messages: 6919
Registered: August 2005
Location: Edmonton, AB
6 Cups
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| Oscargasm wrote on Mon, 06 November 2023 11:35 |
Woodcroft isn’t THE problem…
#MUSTWin
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I was talking with mightyreasoner about this on the weekend. While I don't think Woodcroft is the biggest problem, I don't think he's showing that well right now, and I probably won't shed a lot of tears for him if he gets axed.
He came in and made some bold moves originally. He seemed to trust the bottom six more than his predecessors, and they rewarded him by actually producing. The regular season coaching he did, from the point where it looked like they were dead in the water in early February, until the start of the playoffs was the most inspired we've seen from him.
Then, it was like all McLellan's teaching kicked in. He failed to adjust in the post-season and struggled to get past the Kings. McDavid & Draisaitl went to another level against the Flames and pretty much crushed them on their own, and then against Colorado, he just seemed to have no answers. We saw virtually no changes to the strategy to try to protect the weak goaltending, or to insulate a Duncan Keith on his last legs. Despite McDavid and Draisaitl finishing #1 and #2 in scoring despite missing the fourth round, the team dropped four straight to the Avs.
Last year, he never seemed to rekindle what he'd had previously. He started to show a real fear about playing young players in important situations. He still got a lot more out of the depth than we'd had in prior years, but at even strength, there were clearly some serious issues with the team that were covered up only because our special teams were really good. We knew all year though that we had sub-par goaltending and 5v5 wasn't that strong, and so when those issues sunk us in the playoffs (where again we saw no adaptation from Woodcroft to the strategies other teams were employing), it wasn't a huge shock.
Ultimately, Woody has a decent winning percentage, and he's been overall better than Tippett or McLellan. I appreciate that he's much MUCH less likely to throw his players under the bus game in, game out than the previous two.
I think he made a mistake of talking up his defensive scheme coming in to the year - and that's blown up in his face. He currently has the defence playing bottom third of the league hockey, the depth as non-factors on the positive side for the entire year, and despite McDavid and Draisaitl, one of the lowest scoring teams. He's also failed to build any positivity behind either goalie. While that isn't entirely on him by any extent, when things are this bad, coaches get fired.
The biggest argument to me for not firing Woodcroft is really just that the guy in the seat above him doesn't deserve to get another shot at picking the right coach.
"Thinking that a bad team's best players are the reason the team is bad is the "Tambellini re-signing Lennart Petrell" of sports opinions." @Woodguy55
#FireLowe #FireBobbyNicks #FireKenHolland #FireKeithGretzky
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