Columbus deserved the win tonight. Nice to see them playing with heart even after being mathematically eliminated. St Louis is grateful for the 2 points, and Halak played amazing to make it possible, but the Blue Jackets played a tough game with a lot of tenacity and deserved a better outcome.
Columbus deserved the win tonight. Nice to see them playing with heart even after being mathematically eliminated. St Louis is grateful for the 2 points, and Halak played amazing to make it possible, but the Blue Jackets played a tough game with a lot of tenacity and deserved a better outcome.
I hope the off-season is kind to you guys.
Thanks. Can't say I totally agree with you- as has been pointed out earlier in the thread, not being able to break through that PK of the Blues with so many tries makes it hard to think the game was stolen. And we got a Halaking.
BUT- was very happy with the effort and competitiveness! Tonight was a good game.
Columbus deserved the win tonight. Nice to see them playing with heart even after being mathematically eliminated. St Louis is grateful for the 2 points, and Halak played amazing to make it possible, but the Blue Jackets played a tough game with a lot of tenacity and deserved a better outcome.
I hope the off-season is kind to you guys.
This.
I think Halak makes 2 incredible game saving stops to steal this win. Great effort by a depleted CBJ roster. Sanford was good too, but Halak was unbelievable.
Is it just me or do others blood pressure go up when we see how Hitch has the Blues playing so well?! We had this guy in our employ but gave him AHL players to work with with an incompetent goalie and then fired him for not getting us to the playoffs! All because of a completely incompetent GM who couldn't provide the right players for the coach to work with!! what have we had 8-9 coaches in our history??...all backed by 2 of the most incompetent GM's in NHL history!!! I was one in the past who wanted coaching change,,,,I was wrong!! It ain't the coaching folks!!
FIRE HOWSON!! FIRE PRIEST!!
I'll be pulling for the Blues and Hitch in the playoffs!!
How many freaking times can Umberger screw up cross crease passes? Just amazing!
All you Nash lovers out there will probably jump to his defense, but I thought he was the worst player on the ice tonight. In my estimation, he floated all night, and didn't do a damn thing.
Well, since the best cross crease pass butchered by RJ came from Nash, can we at least say he did one damn thing?
Is it just me or do others blood pressure go up when we see how Hitch has the Blues playing so well?! We had this guy in our employ but gave him AHL players to work with with an incompetent goalie and then fired him for not getting us to the playoffs! All because of a completely incompetent GM who couldn't provide the right players for the coach to work with!! what have we had 8-9 coaches in our history??...all backed by 2 of the most incompetent GM's in NHL history!!! I was one in the past who wanted coaching change,,,,I was wrong!! It ain't the coaching folks!!
FIRE HOWSON!! FIRE PRIEST!!
I'll be pulling for the Blues and Hitch in the playoffs!!
I am with you! Preach it!
Listen to this. Hitch is 39-11-7 since taking over St. Louis.
We have had 9 coaches in 11 years. 4 coaches under Priest/Howson.
And after seeing Hitch, looking at stats, they still are trying to deflect blame and not take accountability for their actions? Ridiculous. Its not the coaching people! We have had good coaching here, and many different coaches. Common denominator, Priest and Howson.
I remember an NFL head coach who was given 5 years and had a 36-44 record, with a team that was no better than when he arrived. He was fired after the team tuned him out entirely, so he dropped back down and became a coordinator elsewhere. It was a foregone conclusion that he was a coordinator for life and wouldn't be able to be a head coach anywhere else.
However, someone gave him another chance, and true to form, they went 5-11 his first year. That gave him a lifetime record of 41-55 in six seasons as a head coach. And frankly, I really wish that New England had fired Bill Belichick at that point instead of giving him more time.
Coaches are no different than players; their success is very rarely in a vacuum, but largely reliant on time and place and circumstance. Scotty Bowman was very good in St. Louis, a legend in Montreal, and average in Buffalo. Why? Pat Quinn was terrific in Philadelphia, okay in Los Angeles, and excellent in Vancouver. Mike Keenan was excellent in Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York, but poor in every other stop since then with the exception of two years in Calgary. Ron Wilson was good in Anaheim, terrific in Washington and San Jose, and average at best in Toronto.
These aren't just a bunch of scrubs here; these are all excellent coaches in the grand scheme of things and encompass many different personalities. Is it that they forgot how to coach for a period of time, or that there was something else that prevented them from being as successful in one place as another? That could be a matter of personnel, it could be having negative influences in the locker room, it could be interference from people who have no business interfering, it could be a lot of things. Trust me, I've been through my own situation in coaching that wasn't exactly favorable, and it negatively impacted both my own performance and that of the team...it was a severe negative influence in the locker room (in that case, our quarterback) and a head coach who hovered over positional practice and offered nothing as far as help and a lot as far as detrimental time-wasting garbage. I didn't forget how to coach suddenly.
What I have in common with Hitchcock (besides being brilliant) is that, after leaving, there's a period of self-doubt, followed by a period of re-assessing how exactly we both did the job. If I had a fresh job tomorrow, I wouldn't be doing things the same I did previously; I've learned and grown from that. Hitchcock himself has said that he doesn't do things the same way in St. Louis as he did in Columbus. The mark of a good coach is someone who learns and adapts even at late stages in his career, as opposed to keeping everything the same and trying to jam square pegs into round holes. For an example of why that doesn't work, look at the career of former Reds and Cardinals manager Vern Rapp.
