McLellan coach of the year last year? Are you kidding. This guy is the most underachieving coach around. This team should have won the Cup last year and the two years previous to that. Every game we would have a period when the team just completely collapsed and went into panic mode in its own end. This has actually been remedied somewhat, but we still let other teams crash our net at will. Dallas' 3rd goal last night wasn't an isolated instance.
Problems the Sharks have now which can be blamed on the coach are not hard to see.
1. They just do not protect their goalie from other teams crashing.
2. This system that doesn't work. No forecheck. Give up the opposing blue line and allow the other team to break out of their zone with no opposition. When in the other team's zone, just cycle it and cycle it to death. No one sets up in front and we end up with lots of long shots which the opposing goalie sees with no problem. Then no one crashes.
3. Frequent mental lapses including repeated bad passes by Thornton & Burns, icings because players don't bother to cross the center line before dumping the puck in, on the fly line changes when the other team has the puck in the neutral zone, etc.
4. Stupid decisions regarding player selection for shootouts.
5. No intensity.
1. 6 bruisers on the blueline doesn't do a lot. Toronto tried it, results not so good. Every team has other teams crash against it.
2. They run a 2-1-2 forecheck frequently. That is aggressive. They have implemented a lot more 1-2-2 this year. Also intermittently aggressive on holding the blueline, but stifled when then forecheck ends up 3 low. 3 low on the forecheck happens frequently and the dmen have to back off.
3. No issue with turnover problems. Probably the most efficient line changes in the league.
4. Not addressing this one.
5. Coaches cannot forever be the motivators. It wears thin quickly. Plus, every team has slumps in intensity. With the reads on intensity that I see posted on this board, I really wonder what some are watching.
Learning curve. He got slapped by a master of line matching in his first year on the job. Most of his issues since have not been matchups and he is creative in that regard.
Learning curve. He got slapped by a master of line matching in his first year on the job. Most of his issues since have not been matchups and he is creative in that regard.
Its fair to give him a pass because it was his first season as a head coach. But now we're seeing the same crap 3 seasons later. He's never going to deviate from his "system" and thats the biggest problem.
Yes actually they were. People always just look at the standings and say anaheim had a crappy team that year.
But always seem to skip over the minor details of that anaheim team missing there best defensemen (hall of fame bound), and there best forward (hall of fame bound) for half of the season.
The team that faced san jose in round 1 wasn't the same team that struggled through half the season due to missing there 2 best players, who just happened to come back during anaheims magicall run to make the playoffs.
And also at the same time the san jose team that dominated the league early in the season wasn't the same sharks team that went into the playoffs due to injuries. Marleau was still hurt, clowe was still hurt, blake was still hurt.
Its fair to give him a pass because it was his first season as a head coach. But now we're seeing the same crap 3 seasons later. He's never going to deviate from his "system" and thats the biggest problem.
He's modified his system to accommodate the skills on his roster. I don't like some of the modifications and I don't like the lack of vision in skills assessment when transaction minuses and drafting/development are not taken into account. He was used to Detroit where they could get closer to the type of players needed and had a system in place to keep the prospect pool deeper. SJ doesn't have that.
He probably should have lightened up on certain player reviews considering the consequences (net loss of talent). In part, DW's fault. How do you make the team work with a lesser player pool to pick from? The answer is that you optimize what you have and give a little more credit to the talent that is already in SJ. A coach and GM has to approach every trade as ultimately a net loss. Minimize the trades and minimize the losses in the trades that do need to be executed.
It's not a simple thing in finding fault and I have seen a lot of guys named in this thread that couldn't hold a candle to TM. There are better guys out there, but there aren't many of them. I won't say the same for his AC's. I also think the issues are a lot more intertwined with current players on the team and their wishes, DW's decisions and the status of lower level coaching (including goalie coaching) and development.
The 09 team was the most injured Sharks team to ever enter the PO's. Extrapolating anything system wise and blaming the loss of that series on it is just plain wrong.
He was going for the win with Wingels. He should have gone Wingels. Winnik, Winchester for the win. I don't want to light a fire under Tmac or he might devise a gameplan.
The 09 team was the most injured Sharks team to ever enter the PO's. Extrapolating anything system wise and blaming the loss of that series on it is just plain wrong.
You might not extrapolate, but I can by watching what he has done since.
The series was 2-2 after he got his matchups squared away. Pretty obvious that he did learn something. There will be injuries every year and adjusting for them is part of the puzzle. We are watching the curve this year. I applaud the fact that he isn't trying to stick with the same partnerships on lines throughout the season. That is what he needed to do previously and it might have helped in the last two playoffs with a more flexible lineup.
You might not extrapolate, but I can by watching what he has done since.
The series was 2-2 after he got his matchups squared away. Pretty obvious that he did learn something. There will be injuries every year and adjusting for them is part of the puzzle. We are watching the curve this year. I applaud the fact that he isn't trying to stick with the same partnerships on lines throughout the season. That is what he needed to do previously and it might have helped in the last two playoffs with a more flexible lineup.
The series was never 2-2.
There could be all kinds of reasons for changing match-ups. You happened to like them. I don't think anyone here knows why he makes the adjustments he makes during a series. We don't have enough information but to make educated guesses. As injured as that teams was made it even harder to know why he made the changes he did because we weren't aware of those injuries.
There could be all kinds of reasons for changing match-ups. You happened to like them. I don't think anyone here knows why he makes the adjustments he makes during a series. We don't have enough information but to make educated guesses. As injured as that teams was made it even harder to know why he made the changes he did because we weren't aware of those injuries.
April 16: Ducks 2 - Sharks 0
April 19: Ducks 3 - Sharks 2
April 21: Sharks 4 - Ducks 3
April 23: Ducks 4 - Sharks 0
April 25: Sharks 3 - Ducks 2 (OT)
April 27: Ducks 4 - Sharks 1 Ducks Win Series 4-2
Throw out the first 2 games and it was 2-2, after his adjustments.
By the reported injuries, there is no reason to believe that the reported injuries caused the adjustments. Blake/Vlasic to Murray/Ehrhoff on the Getzlaf line. PP blueline assignments, etc. I think he could have gone farther by adjusting the second line matchup as well. JT had Getzlaf.
Throw out the first 2 games and it was 2-2, after his adjustments.
By the reported injuries, there is no reason to believe that the reported injuries caused the adjustments. Blake/Vlasic to Murray/Ehrhoff on the Getzlaf line. PP blueline assignments, etc. I think he could have gone farther by adjusting the second line matchup as well. JT had Getzlaf.
I have a hard time accepting 4-0 and 4-1 blowouts as proving your point, but whatever. The thing that bugs me most in these discussion, and it's not just you, is when people discuss a topic like this without any context. People do the same with the Nucks series last year. It's a pet peeve. Rant over.
Throw out the first 2 games and it was 2-2, after his adjustments.
By the reported injuries, there is no reason to believe that the reported injuries caused the adjustments. Blake/Vlasic to Murray/Ehrhoff on the Getzlaf line. PP blueline assignments, etc. I think he could have gone farther by adjusting the second line matchup as well. JT had Getzlaf.
Throw out the first two games, and its a 9 game series.
Weird, but I don't think anybody should be fired here. Total overreaction thread.
All anyone on this board knows how to do is overreact.
Anyway about the matchups in the Ducks series, here's the five-man unit McLellan most frequently used against the RPG line (because no one cares about the rest of that Anaheim lineup - they were literally icing an AHL team for their bottom nine forwards) game-by-game. The numbers are the even strength minutes each line or defense pairing played against RPG out of the total even strength minutes RPG played in that game.
G1: Marleau/Thornton/Setoguchi - 10 of 15, Vlasic/Blake - 10 of 15
G2: Moen/Marleau/Setoguchi - 11 of 19, Vlasic/Blake - 11 of 19
G3: Marleau/Thornton/Setoguchi - 7 of 19, Ehrhoff/Murray - 9 of 19
G4: Marleau/Thornton/Setoguchi, 9 of 16, Vlasic/Blake, 9 of 16
G5: Marleau/Thornton/Setoguchi, 15 of 22, Ehrhoff/Murray, 18 of 22
G6: Marleau/Thornton/Setoguchi, 10 of 16, Ehrhoff/Murray, 11 of 16
And Getzlaf's Corsi by game (and therefore the Corsi of that entire line):
G1: +3
G2: -3
G3: +7
G4: +5
G5: -8
G6: +8
If you can draw any conclusions from that, you're much smarter than I am (granted, not a difficult feat). The one game where McLellan really went all out to match a defense pairing against RPG was their worst game so maybe that validates the decision to switch to Ehrhoff/Murray as the series went along. Of course that game also went to OT. Obviously he didn't have much of a choice WRT matchups in the three games in Ponda.
I don't want to light a fire under Tmac or he might devise a gameplan.
