I don't think Carlyle's a bad coach, I just don't think he's good for this team any longer. He's either not making changes to fix what's not working or the players just don't listen to what's he's trying to preach. In either case, it seems a change would be needed.
I know it's not his fault the team plays great for a portion of the game and then naps for the remainder of that game, but isn't the coach suppose to be able to get the team motivated enough to put forth that effort? There's a breakdown somewhere, because we all know what they're capable of doing. It's not like it's a team without talent. Sure, they have holes, but they also have enough talent on the team to makeup for a lot of that.
I see that problem as being more of a motivational issue than a lack of talent issue and the coach should be able to change that. There's no reason that team should give up the amount of goals they do on a nightly basis...most of which is due to boneheaded plays. When they play with heart, they're a difficult team to beat...someone needs to get them to play consistently though, and it doesn't seem to be Carlyle.
The problem was people haven't been buying tickets the last few years when they were a cap team and making the playoffs. And if you aren't then you forfeit the right to ***** when the team doesn't get new players.
The Ducks are a low budget team. They could financially compete at $44M, and even then they were over budget but Samueli let the GM spend more. They can't compete at $64M. People need to speak with their wallets and buy tickets or accept that the team's days of dominance are likely over unless they draft really well.
People probably aren't buying tickets because of the poor starts. By the time the team is playing well and the public notices, its playoff time and seats are either sold out or nosebleed only.
Carlyle is old school coach and still mostly with old school game book and his style only succeeds when every player on the team gives 100% on the ice. You can't play 82 games always giving 100%. The players aren't robots. They get tired. Especially if you can't balance TOI.
The game have turned more of a chess game these days. You can win games with "tired team" if your system/game book works.
Just think about our frontline talent mixed with for example Babcock's brain...
IMO it seems like Murray and Carlyle don't see eye to eye with one another, and it's affecting the teams play. Carlyle likes the grinding style with physical play. Murray seems to want to ice a team that uses speed and smaller players. Personally, I've wanted Murray fired for a long time now. I despise the way he handled this offseason. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You can't wait for a 40 year old player to decide if he's gonna play again with out addressing the team. Murray said himself that he had a "backup plan" in the event that Teemu didn't return. IMO, he should have been agressive rebuilding the second line this past offseason. If Teemu decided to come back, you give him what you can. Teemu isn't going to go somewhere else because you only have 2 million in space left due to adding another player. Although adding Cogs really hurt the oppurtunity to bring in another scorer. Once again, Murray's fault.
IMO, he's terrible at obtaining value for his players, and he makes too many bad transactions.
Examples:
Giving Nokelainen an extension when he hadn't done anything. Luckily for us, the Yotes were dumb enough to trade for him and eventually buy him out.
Trading for Oystrick. The guy was on a one way contract and we end up buying him out almost immediately after obtaining him. I know the contract wasn't huge, but any time you have to buy a player out, it's a bad move, especially for a budget team.
The Cogliano fiasco. Yes, there's still time, but reguardless, everything about Murray's involvement with this player has been bad. First, he gave up too much IMO. Cogs hadn't done ANYTHING to be worth a 2nd round pick. It wasn't huge overpayment by any means, but once again, another bad, although small, trade for Murray. The worst thing though was the contract. My God 2 million +...!? For what? Just a pathetic signing on Murray's part. That money could have been put to so much better use. Cogs will be the new Blake after this season.
Not re-signing Beauchemin. How useful would Lupul be right now, not to mention Gardner? No way he should have passed on re-signing him in the first place.
I could go on and on, but I'll try to refrain... cough Eminger. Ok I'm done.
Carlyle deserves some blame too, but I definitely wouldn't fire him. I personally don't understand why he always dumps the puck in for a line change. I know our defense is no where near Detroit's, but they use the defenseman when they want a line change. They don't always just dump the puck in, and then spend half the shift trying to regain posession.
If it were up to me, I'd fire Murray and give Carlyle more time. Carlyle deserves more time IMO, and Ive been fed up with Murray for a while.
Honestly though, the players deserve a lot of blame. Hiller has not played like his contract dictates he should. His positioning is terrible, and often times he relies on the glove way too much. If a puck is shot from far away with no screen, there should be no wave of the hand. Just get infront of the damn puck. He's been brilliant occasionally, but he's been below average most of the season IMO.
Other plays definitely deserve some blame as well.
This thread is really pointless though. Both just received extensions and aren't going anywhere.
If/when Murray goes, any new GM will want to bring in his own coach, and will probably have that written into their contract. As much as it would help to have "fresh" blood at the top, I can't see it happening mid-season. From Murray's comments last season, in regards to players being shipped out before the coach, I can see him ****ing up the roster through bad trades, just to cover his ass, before being shown the door.
Nicely done duckstud,,,,,I agree with your assessment regarding Murray. I used to be on the fire Caryle bandwagon but now it seems Murray has balled this team up with his terrible moves more so than RC. I, like you, still don't completely agree or understand some of the coaching moves RC makes but in my opinion Barstool has done more to screw this team up than RC.
Barstool failed in his last GM job and has failed miserably here. Time to go.
Me being the contrarian I am, I think the purging should start with the pro scouts.
As I'm sure people are aware, I'm no fan of Murray's. There's a handful of moves I've liked, such as Pronger, Visnovsky, Wisniewski, Koivu, and Lydman. But I've despised the majority of his moves. He goes for reclamation or projection projects of guys who have the kinds flaws I don't believe get sorted out.
But GMs don't make moves solely on their impressions of guys. There's pro scouts who watch games and provide input. I think this is where we're lacking. It just seems like more are made based on potential that was never really backed up by actual play. I don't watch that much NHL hockey, but I could have told you that Whitney was soff, that Christensen would never work with our coach and play style, that McBackup was a ticking time bomb, that Cogliano has minimal offensive upside and should consign himself to being Marchant 2.0, that Sutton was too slow, that Foster is teh suck, that JDD is a borderline AHL talent, much less NHL one, etc. These are based off of observations of the actual players, some stat-work, and even things like opinions of that team's hfboard fanbse. How come our pro scouts either didn't see the same thing or they didn't voice that to Murray when he's planning a trade?
Do we even have pro scouting staff? It's a little hard to tell, but the only positions listed in the Ducks website are related to amateur scouting, or just plain "scouts." So it's hard to tell. But doing a quick check, the Leafs, Kings, Sharks, and Coyotes all have either "Pro scouts" or "Director of Pro scouting." The Stars do not, but they also don't list any scouts and don't even have a director of amateur scouting listed, it's just "Director of Scouting and Player Development."
Me being the contrarian I am, I think the purging should start with the pro scouts.
That's a good point regarding the pro scouts, if we indeed do have them. I remember when we got Sbisa Murray was quoted as saying "our guys see him as a guy who will make an impact in the NHL right away" and they tried to force him into a top pairing role with Niedermayer despite him being nowhere near ready.
I'm not a fan of Murray either btw. I have cut him some slack as he does have a budget to work with but I absolutely can't stand the style of players he's bringing in. Our team has lost almost all it's physicality and has no ability whatsoever to wear down opposing defenses. Our bottom 6 is one of the smallest and softest in the league and is nowhere near talented enough to make up their shortcomings. I know it doesn't explain why RPG is sucking but I have to think they would have an easier time against opposing defenses if our third and fourth lines could do a better job of wearing down opposing defensemen while they're out there.
I have almost always been defending Murray, and for the most part, I still think that's the right thing to do. People love to look at big pictures, oversimplify things, not consider circumstances or actual options, and use a lot of hindsight.
I didn't like every deal Murray made. One I actually completely hated when it was first made was the trade for Beauchemin, and Lupul had nothing to do with it. That trade, even with Lupul looking good as a compliment to Kessel in Toronto, so far hasn't looked bad. Beauch is the anticipated and needed steady partner for Cam, and they are our best pairing.
The other deal that could be questioned was the Wisniewski situation. That seemed like a very low return at the time, and it certainly still did some time later when he was forwarded to Montreal, and it did even more when Columbus decided he was worth $5.5m as a free agent. That one you could most easily pin on him. But even with that, it's a bit hard to say "he could have gotten at least..." when all evidence points towards the opposite. What did limit his return on that one was the timing, and the unwillingness to keep him around through a good part of the season and deal him lateron. That however, is most likely tied to budget issues. Would he have been allowed to pay the $1.25m (?) more to keep him over signing Sutton? If he was, that ended up a terrible decision. Who knows if he was, though.
Other than that? The return for Pronger was fine. The drafting has looked very fine. They seemed to have good ideas of who they liked and were comfortable in moving down when they did like someone and multiplied their assets. A lot of the praise on that goes to the amateur scouting staff, obviously. The deal for Visnovsky was good. Those and the one for Beauch were the biggest, and I thought the direction those gave us were decent.
We know - or at least really should know - how difficult it is to sign good players to good deals on July 1st, especially when you are not a typical contender in a great market. For that reason, the Lydman signing deserved a lot of credit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Duckstudd269
IMO, he's terrible at obtaining value for his players, and he makes too many bad transactions.
Examples:
Nokelainen (...) Oystrick (...) Eminger
Come on. When that's the type of move that ends up on your GM's "five worst moves" list, that's usually a sign that your GM hasn't done a lot wrong. They had basically no impact, at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Duckstudd269
The Cogliano fiasco. Yes, there's still time, but reguardless, (...). First, he gave up too much IMO. Cogs hadn't done ANYTHING to be worth a 2nd round pick. It wasn't huge overpayment by any means, but once again, another bad, although small, trade for Murray. The worst thing though was the contract. My God 2 million +...!? For what? Just a pathetic signing on Murray's part.
You pretty much mention the key points yourself. You do mention that there's still time. The timing to rant about that signing also seems weird, after Cogliano looked quite decent in a top-6 role in the last few games, and you don't usually get those for $2m. Not saying he'll stick there, but who knows. It's just way too early to base so much on this deal that could still go either way. A 2nd rounder in a draft two years away, as you said, doesn't seem to be too much of an overpayment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Duckstudd269
That money could have been put to so much better use. Cogs will be the new Blake after this season.
That mere assumption is what I dislike most. We went into free agency with limited money and limited appeal, had to watch all kinds of teams overpay for marginal players left and right, and Murray couldn't do much but watch that circus. When that dust had settled and we saw that there was little left that could actually help, he went out and brought Cogliano in. I don't really know what he should have used that money for instead that was actually a viable option at that point. I can't recall a ton of potentially good fits being moved shortly afterwards.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Duckstudd269
Not re-signing Beauchemin. (...) No way he should have passed on re-signing him in the first place.
Again, context matters, a lot. When Beauchemin hit free agency, Wisniewski had been playing with Niedermayer for a while, while Beauch was injured basically that entire season. Pronger had his partner, so Beauch was basically our #5. We were in no position to re-sign a #5 defenseman for the money Beauch was obvious to receive in free agency. Some use it against Murray that Beauch confirmed that he didn't even receive an offer, but seriously, a GM knows the league. When a guy like Beauch at the time is becoming a UFA, and you can only give him a #5 salary, you might as well save yourself the call and not make the guy an offer you know he's too good for, just because he doesn't fill a big enough role on your team.
Does it look it bad in hindsight? Hell yes! But that's no way to evaluate moves. We were in no position to re-sign him back then. The Wisniewski situation a year later ended up retro-actively making it bite us in the back, no doubt. But those things happen and can't really be prevented by any GM.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Duckstudd269
How useful would Lupul be right now, not to mention Gardner?
To be honest - I have no idea how useful they would be. Where would Lupul even be playing? He never fit with Koivu/Teemu. Would he have ended up fitting with Getz/Perry finally? Would that and Ryan with Teemu/Saku been giving us better results? I really can't say. There's a good chance that he would still be a an overpriced third liner if he was on the team today, and a contract that would hurt our ability to address needs. Hell, that would be the case even if he wasn't on the third line. You can be sure that re-signing Beauchemin back then and thus keeping Lupul later would have made some other moves of us impossible, financially. So it's really not that easy.
Gardiner has always been the tougher pill to swallow in the deal. He was the asset in that trade. But we were dealing from an area of strength with quite a few great skating defense prospects, and addressed an area of need.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Duckstudd269
Honestly though, the players deserve a lot of blame.
That I entirely agree with, and I think the fact that we end up with a thread like this for the 2nd year in a row just shows that they don't get a big enough share. Do we believe that the team over-achieved so badly last season? If we don't, and with the rather safe assumption that we didn't actually get worse since last year, it's up to the players.
That's why I don't dislike the approach the ownership has had with the extensions for Murray and Carlyle. On my hometown team in the German league, up until this offseason, we've had a stretch of 2-3 years with around four head coaches, and 2-3 managers. The players received a ton of the blame, still, whenever there was another 7 game losing streak and the fans got loud and the media started pushing things, the next guy's head was rolling. The result: players get excuses, cold streaks become a club crisis, and you end up wasting a ton of money on getting rid of burned coaches and managers, that stop the players from working through things, and the people in charge to focus on what's really needed.
As a goalie, I gladly admit that I don't know a ton about the game the way skaters play it, so I really don't feel comfortable judging coaches, unless it's very general things. There are times when I question Carlyle, but I respect him. And I certainly prefer our players to know that they better go to work, because he's going to stick around. He also seems to be respected around the league a lot more than among our fans, for some reason.
A lot of well thought out posts on both sides. Its always tough to know exactly how well a GM is doing when we aren't privy to his options. It's almost all speculation until a major blunder or coup is made.
I think we can agree that Murray isn't happy with the team right now, since he is making waiver claims left and right, and he may be in hiding because he doesnt want to publicly critique his team under these conditions. These are high stress times, and he seems like an emotional guy (most chair throwers are), so I can somewhat understand wanting to wait until more stable times, or a better indication of what this team really is, before coming into public view again.
I have few problems with the things Murray has been doing, it's what he hasn't been doing that is the issue here. Hagman should hopefully be a good pick up though. I think Cogliano is getting too much flaming here. I think he has looked pretty good on the 2nd line. He hasn't had the same kind of linemates on the Ducks 3rd line as he had in Edmonton, so his lack of offensive production isn't that strange... Meanwhile I think he's been one of the better defensive forwards on the team this season and at least he tries to put an effort in. I don't have a problem with giving up the 2nd round pick. Honestly, how many 2nd round picks ends up being as good as Cogliano? I'm not a fan of his paycheck, but $2.4 mil isn't a big overpayment for someone who has put up 35-45 points in 3 of his last 4 seasons by todays cap standards. Not to mention that he's still only 24.
It stands to reason, to question how Carlyle prepares this team in camp, every year, except 2006, they have started slow under him.
Also what's been the constant memo in post game interviews since he's been coach "WE NEED TO PLAY 60 MINUTES"
They have never done it consistently, not even in 06-07 with him. the 07 team was just so much better than everyone they didn't need to do it.
Also I put 90 percent of the blame on RPG, They have been crap, the depth players IMO have done a good job, they actually forecheck and hit, RPG floats and do not work hard enough
Murray can't bring in big dollar free agents due to financial constraints, so he has to gamble on players such as Cogliano, he did a good job in the Pronger trade and the Ducks have drafted significantly better since Brian Burke basically had 1 foot out the door(2008)
The 09/10 drafts look unbelievable so far, he dumpster dives alot but Samuelli needs to let him spend more money.
Directed at Vipers, just didnt wanna quote the entire post . To start, I agree with a lot of what you said in that post (Beauch trade, Pronger return, Wiz trade), but there was one point I didnt agree on, just wanted to throw in my 2 cents, and that was not re-signing Beauch.
At the time of not bringing back Beauch, Pronger was long gone, and we had Neids, Whitney and Wiz back as Top 4 guys. Whitney and Wiz were both unproven as the #2 and #3 we expected them to be and we could have used another Top 4 guy. In addition we had Sbisa who was a veteran of what 40 games? We attempted to fill that last Top 4 spot with Boynton and Eminger, who cost us a comined 2.7 approximately. For 1 million more we could have brought back Beauchemin, and we would have had a complete Top 4. I think it was a huge mistake to not shell out the extra million for Beauch and cut it out somewhere else. Sending down Sbisa right away solves that problem, as he was expected to play in the Top 4, or whoever else honestly, and it becomes a matter of <500K. Was terrible asset management IMO, and was the reason that I did not like the trade for him last year, although it seems to be working out now for both teams.
Overall though, I think I agree on all of your other points, except maybe Cogliano but the jury is still out on him.
At the time of not bringing back Beauch, Pronger was long gone, and we had Neids, Whitney and Wiz back as Top 4 guys. Whitney and Wiz were both unproven as the #2 and #3 we expected them to be and we could have used another Top 4 guy. (...)
Ugh, sorry for that, I mixed that up pretty bad, then. I would throw in there that Beauch was kind of unproven without Niedermayer himself, as well, and with Wis having taken over that spot would have been used in a very different matter. That said, you did show that I have some memory-issues regarding that time, so I'll refrain from going into details... Seems like a fair point of yours, to say the least.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Selanne138
Overall though, I think I agree on all of your other points, except maybe Cogliano but the jury is still out on him.
I think that's the way he should be looked at, as well, at this point. Good to hear.
Here's something that might add to the discussion:
Quote:
Getzlaf refused to pin any blame on Coach Randy Carlyle or the coaching staff and said it's on the players.
"That's not our coach's job," he said. "His job is to prepare us for the game and make sure that we have the tools in front of us, and he's doing that. They're doing a great job in there. That's not the problem.
"The problem's within here. We all need to look at what we're doing and get that excitement back in the locker room."
After the Wild game I was hoping to wake up and see "Carlyle Fired"!
But after thinking about this for the last couple of days I don't blame him. I'm really starting to point the finger at the RGP line. Those 3 have been a huge disappointment so far this year. So many people in the Hockey world were so big on these guys to start the season. I was too, I thought that this was going to be the year these guys were going to finish at the top of the league. Boy I wrong!
After the Wild game I was hoping to wake up and see "Carlyle Fired"!
But after thinking about this for the last couple of days I don't blame him. I'm really starting to point the finger at the RGP line. Those 3 have been a huge disappointment so far this year. So many people in the Hockey world were so big on these guys to start the season. I was too, I thought that this was going to be the year these guys were going to finish at the top of the league. Boy I wrong!
They always start slow. This is par for the course.
I would throw in there that Beauch was kind of unproven without Niedermayer himself, as well, and with Wis having taken over that spot would have been used in a very different matter. That said, you did show that I have some memory-issues regarding that time, so I'll refrain from going into details... 
Seems like a fair point of yours, to say the least.
