GDT: Feb 24 - Canucks @ Detroit Rock City 2:00PM SNET-P

[Aaronp18]

Man, reading this stuff is like watching a game with my mother-in-law.

AV is fine, there isn't a better replacement out there and this team buys into his system. And when the Canucks play their system, and their game they are one of the toughest teams to beat in the league.

Look at the past 20 years, there has been one repeat Stanley Cup champion coach - Scotty Bowman. He isn't going to be coaching the Canucks anytime soon. So essentially, a change in coaching right now would be a complete crap shoot.

In order to win the Stanley Cup almost everything has to go your way these days. The league is geared to keep as many teams as possible challenging for the title each year. All it takes is a couple injuries, a bad stretch of play, a few badd bounces and your season can be over before you know it.

Blaming AV for the Canucks failings the past few years is ludicrous. I can name any number of other reasons before the blame passes to him.

[Jovocop]

Good f'ing keerist!! One game that the zebras blew wide open and its a Chinese fire drill on here. Ya it was not the Canucks best effort, shit happens. I don't often agree with what Doug Mclean has to say but he pretty much nailed it. Two piss poor calls on Kass & Weise and then the bench minor. Some lucky bounces for the Wings and none for the Canucks. Just one of those days.

Agreed, the refs sucked big time. Luongo did not have his best game. The whole team deflated after those 3 ppgs. It was just one of those games.

[Jovocop]

Man, reading this stuff is like watching a game with my mother-in-law.

AV is fine, there isn't a better replacement out there and this team buys into his system. And when the Canucks play their system, and their game they are one of the toughest teams to beat in the league.

Look at the past 20 years, there has been one repeat Stanley Cup champion coach - Scotty Bowman. He isn't going to be coaching the Canucks anytime soon. So essentially, a change in coaching right now would be a complete crap shoot.

In order to win the Stanley Cup almost everything has to go your way these days. The league is geared to keep as many teams as possible challenging for the title each year. All it takes is a couple injuries, a bad stretch of play, a few badd bounces and your season can be over before you know it.

Blaming AV for the Canucks failings the past few years is ludicrous. I can name any number of other reasons before the blame passes to him.

Just to be clear, I did not blame AV for the loss. The team played like shit after those stupid penalties.

Ruff is a good coach. I just want to point out that AV is in the same boat as Ruff who has not won a cup.

[Aaronp18]

Just to be clear, I did not blame AV for the loss. The team played like shit after those stupid penalties.

Ruff is a good coach. I just want to point out that AV is in the same boat as Ruff who has not won a cup.

My comments weren't necessarily directed at you, there's just a lot of bitching about AV and I don't think it's warranted.

I mean come on, Dutter won the Cup last year for Crissakes!

[vic]

AV is good coach, Ruff is a good coach.

See Pittsburgh & Chicago - two good teams that made coaching changes to put them over the top. LA was a crap team that made a coaching change to put them over the top.

AV's had his chances, in the 5 years the team has made the playoffs, they have lost 4 of them to the eventual Stanley Cup Winner. It's happened 3 years in a row now. The one time it didn't happen was in 08-09 when Chicago lost to Detroit in the Western Final - but Chicago was able to come back the next year and re-embarrass AV's team and win the cup.

Man, reading this stuff is like watching a game with my mother-in-law.

AV is fine, there isn't a better replacement out there and this team buys into his system. And when the Canucks play their system, and their game they are one of the toughest teams to beat in the league.
...
Blaming AV for the Canucks failings the past few years is ludicrous. I can name any number of other reasons before the blame passes to him.

Isn't that the issue? If the system is that good and it means wins, why can't AV enforce the system day in day out? Why don't the players see this?

The Canucks have two recent Art Ross winners, a Hart and Lindsay award winner, a Selke award winner and two grade-A goalies. 1 to 6, they have one of the strongest d-men core in the league. No other team had more players representing their countries that the Canucks at the 2010 Olympics, they will again be one of the top teams in 2014.

The team is good enough to take it all, they need a coach to help them get there, AV ain't it.

AV has been great at creating a system and sticking to it, what he has failed to do is recognize other teams weaknesses and attacking - something other teams have managed to do against him.

[Tiger]

yeah .. Fire the Coach thats got the best record alltime of any Canuck Coach.. Hey we could hire one with a Stanley cup ring.. Keenan isn't that busy ..

OK we got beaten by physically tougher teams .. and we got Hart trophy winners .. in 1997 we had a Stanley cup winning coach.. An all star Hart trophy winning captain.. not one but 2 top of league 50 goal plus wingers and couldn't make the playoffs ..

No matter who is the coach, for the last few years we have been dependent on the Sedin's to win games and they don't play well against tough physical teams. No coach can change that.. This year I am hoping that the rest of the team can play well enough we don't have to rely on the twins to make it past the "tough" teams.. Kesler and Burrows proved they are able to star against teams like the Preds or Chicago.. Sedins may get us to the playoffs but no amount of coaching will make them "tough" to play against..

[Jovocop]

yeah .. Fire the Coach thats got the best record alltime of any Canuck Coach.. Hey we could hire one with a Stanley cup ring.. Keenan isn't that busy ..

OK we got beaten by physically tougher teams .. and we got Hart trophy winners .. in 1997 we had a Stanley cup winning coach.. An all star Hart trophy winning captain.. not one but 2 top of league 50 goal plus wingers and couldn't make the playoffs ..

No matter who is the coach, for the last few years we have been dependent on the Sedin's to win games and they don't play well against tough physical teams. No coach can change that.. This year I am hoping that the rest of the team can play well enough we don't have to rely on the twins to make it past the "tough" teams.. Kesler and Burrows proved they are able to star against teams like the Preds or Chicago.. Sedins may get us to the playoffs but no amount of coaching will make them "tough" to play against..

Are we blaming the Sedins now?? I am positively sure that most of the NHL defensmen will say that the Sedins are "tough" to play against. The Sedins might never fight or nail someone to the boards but they can take tons of physical abuse. I guess nobody will appreciate the Sedins unless they fight back. As you may notice in the recent games, Henrik starts hitting more and more...

[Benjo]

Ruff is a good coach but he loses the room after only 15 seasons.

[vic]

yeah .. Fire the Coach thats got the best record alltime of any Canuck Coach.. Hey we could hire one with a Stanley cup ring.. Keenan isn't that busy ..

The team is openly trying to trade the guy who has numerous alltime records of any other Canuck goalie. What's your point?

Nowhere did I mention Keenan. Nowhere did I mention hiring a rookie coach (like someone else mentioned in regards to teams like the Oilers).

Someone else mentioned Crawford and how this team failed with him behind the bench - Crawford didn't have a legit #1 goalie (let alone 1 true #1 and one who is VERY close to becoming a #1) nor did he have any secondary scoring - zero, zilch - the Sedins were still coming into their own.

Name one coach who has has taken a team to a cup after 6 years of failing to do so.

[Aaronp18]

Isn't that the issue? If the system is that good and it means wins, why can't AV enforce the system day in day out? Why don't the players see this?

It's impossible to play an ideal system day in and day out. There are far too many variables. The players are human and they are never going to do things right 100% of the time, no matter who the coach is.

All a coach can do is reiterate the system as much as possible and hope the players execute. And for the most part, since AV has taken over, the Canucks do this more often than not.

If you focus on any other team as much as you do on the Canucks you'll see that every elite team has the same inconsistencies.

The Canucks have two recent Art Ross winners, a Hart and Lindsay award winner, a Selke award winner and two grade-A goalies. 1 to 6, they have one of the strongest d-men core in the league. No other team had more players representing their countries that the Canucks at the 2010 Olympics, they will again be one of the top teams in 2014.

The team is good enough to take it all, they need a coach to help them get there, AV ain't it.

This is great, when everyone is healthy. If you take 2 of a teams top 6 forwards out of the lineup (or if guys are hampered with injuries) and/or a couple starting defenseman there isn't a team in the league that will win a seven game series against decent opposition.

Not to mention mix in a couple horrible games from your goalie.

AV has been great at creating a system and sticking to it, what he has failed to do is recognize other teams weaknesses and attacking - something other teams have managed to do against him.

The series we have lost the past few years (when we were legitimate contenders) we have lost to the more talented team or have been completely hampered by injuries.

How is it possible that, since the lockout, we have won more playoff series than we have lost (outside of the seasons where we missed the playoffs) yet AV is incapable of recognizing other teams weaknesses?

If the Canucks are that easy to figure out why have we had such success in the regular season and playoffs the past few years? You'd think the book was out and everyone should be able to beat us!

You are giving AV to much blame for our faults and not accounting for outside factors that are contributing to the losses. And at the same time not giving him any credit for our success, of which there has been more than enough to be proud of the past few years.

If there was someone better out there then I might say go for it, but there isn't and tossing AV aside right now would cause more harm than good IMO. Sure a couple times over the past few years a coaching change has worked going into the post season but they took under-performing teams and gave them a system to work from.

Oh and each of these teams stayed very healthy during the playoffs.

I simply don't agree that a coaching change is necessary.

[rats19]

good post aaronp18....I have one question though and i am not a proponant of changing coaches at this time.

But it just seems to me that it tkes up to 2 years for defensemen or newly added players to get our system. now thats like 20% of a players career.. to figure out a system. seems crazy to me, why is it that hard or complicated? are we dealing with

rat

[Aaronp18]

But it just seems to me that it tkes up to 2 years for defensemen or newly added players to get our system. now thats like 20% of a players career.. to figure out a system. seems crazy to me, why is it that hard or complicated? are we dealing with

Not necessarily. Hamhuis fit in quite well coming from Nashville, which uses a defensively strong system. And Ehrhoff seemed to fit in nicely.

Yes Ballard and now Garrison is struggling a bit but they both came from Florida. The Canucks system requires more responsibility from the defense and so seemingly it will take longer for those guys coming from inept franchises to learn.

Not to mention Ballard is finally healthy. Garrison is coming off a groin issue in the off season that didn't have him medically cleared until December sometime IIRC, so that may be a factor in his learning curve.

Hell for those complaining about Edler we often forget that he was rehabbing a bulging disk during the lockout as well.

[rats19]

so, if thats the case.. and good post again ap18..if thats the case then as a fan base are we dealing with

[vic]

Aaronp18's post

I totally get what you're saying. I also have said AV is a good coach, but how long can the team listen to the same thing over and over again? 6 years with the same core group of players is a long time. The only reason they have won more playoff series than lost is because of 1 SCF appearance. The team is another first round exit away from being .500 in playoff series with AV behind the bench.

Even in 2011, the team failed to show up in games 4 and 5 against CHI. By the time the message was reinforced, they had a rookie goalie in net who "gift-wrapped two goals" for the Hawks. Now we have a game 7 that could have gone either way. If it weren't for Kesler in round 2, Nashville probably beats the Canucks. Barry Trotz was the better coach that series.

The only series (IMHO) that year that AV was the better coach was against SJ, he got beat by Julien in the final. As someone else posted, the Kings played the exact same way against the Canucks last year and AV had nothing except the adrenaline rush his players received after Daniel returned to the lineup for game 4. Sutter saw what happened, and shut them down in Game 5 - series over.

Like I said earlier, coaching change should have been made after the 2nd series loss to CHI in 2010.

After seeing how TB exposed the Bruin's defense and goal tending to the tune of ~22 goals in the previous round, AV's system managed to expose it for 8 goals in the final - great, the team made it to the final got outworked and outplayed by a healthier team, this team has what it takes...then 2011 happens and (here comes the broken record), he admits to not being prepared to face the Kings.

I'll say this again too - AV has done great things for this organization, he's developed players, he (along with Gillis) have created a winning culture. He is great with the media, fans like listening to him and watching his antics on TV. The players love him because for the most part he lets them play the game they want to play.

I just think it's finally time for a change at the coaching level (or a change in the core group) to put this team over the top.

[Aaronp18]

if thats the case then as a fan base are we dealing with

.....a bunch of mother-in-laws!