Line Combos: Roster Discussion/Line Combos

[squashmaple]

So… we don’t want our top defensive prospect to play more minutes or on the power play? Is that what I’m reading here? Then wtf are we even doing?

 

[cbjthrowaway]

For someone who's argument is built entirely on conjecture, this is an odd request.

you said that the jackets have "decided to teach Jiricek one thing at a time" – what, specifically, is that one thing? and what proof is there that he's not working on anything else? seems to be an odd claim in the absence of that information, no?

I guess if you have had NHL head coaching experience, you would be able to call him a coward. But if you did, and had more success at it, you wouldn't be here.

if i was making millions of dollars to coach a hockey team, i would think any joe dipshit (me) on the internet would be well within their rights to call me a coward.

frankly, if i were an NHL coach who had won just 26 of 79 games on the season, i'd be more confused to find out that people were caping for me on a message board.

cowardice, by the way, isn't an abnormal affliction for a head coach in a major sport. tons of NFL and college football coaches are content to punt or settle for a field goal when the math says to go for it. i'm not saying that pascal vincent is unique in being a coward – it just looks different in hockey.

he is so pathologically afraid of a young player costing them a win that he regularly refuses to play any of them in the third, opting to double-shift the few veterans who he trusts. as a result, those guys get gassed, then get hemmed in their own zone and are incapable of doing anything but chipping the puck out and praying.

he does it when they need goals, too. last night there was an 11-minute span between the 4th tampa goal and the cbj goalie pull. erik gudbranson played four of those minutes. jiricek and blankenburg each got just above 1 minute in that span.

when you need goals that badly in the moment, what else but cowardice would convince you to put 44 out there over those guys?

it's in his DNA. he's not going to show up next season and suddenly not be loser-brained. he's still going to play boone jenner for 26 minutes a night next year, and they're still going to blow third period leads as a result.

Whether he is a good coach or not, or he had it fall into his lap like it did, the fact is he worked his way into this position, and to do that and end up at this level is anything but being a coward.

credit to him for his persistence, but there's a reason why he:

1. didn't get the job the first time he interviewed here
2. still came here in a lateral move after seeing no upward path in winnipeg
3. didn't get a head coaching job elsewhere after larsen's first year
4. wasn't the jackets choice after they fired larsen
5. had to come back here as an assistant under babcock after interviewing for other head coach openings

i acknowledge that he wasn't put in a good position to start here but he's been passed over for the HC job so many times by so many teams (including this one, twice) that it's hard to look at the results and feel that the job was always going to be too big for him.

He is coaching how he wants to, if he fails, at least he failed doing it the way he wanted to.

sure he's lost 56 of his 79 games but maybe the real wins are the friends he made along the way!!

 

[majormajor]

I guess if you have had NHL head coaching experience, you would be able to call him a coward. But if you did, and had more success at it, you wouldn't be here.
Whether he is a good coach or not, or he had it fall into his lap like it did, the fact is he worked his way into this position, and to do that and end up at this level is anything but being a coward. He is coaching how he wants to, if he fails, at least he failed doing it the way he wanted to. He may learn from it and move on, or we may never hear about him again, either way, he got there, and to say he is driven by cowardice is flat out wrong. He would have never got this far if he was scared to do it.

That's what I see as well. I'm ambivalent about Vincent as a coach but he's definitely doing things his way. If he's going out he's doing it coaching the way he wants to, not out of fear.

He told us his approach with young players before the year even started, he believes in very gradual increases in responsibility. He said the most important thing was not putting too much on them too soon. But of course the fans can't handle that kind of patience with prospects.

Well I keep hearing that the PP sucks because of Werenski and almost only exclusively Werenski. So, why not give him a look?

I would give it a shot. But I also understand why they are focusing on other things right now, he has a lot to learn. And the PP would be just another thing to learn, it's not going to start off easy for him. I think with some improved line walking he would be great as a PP QB, but that's a ways away.

 

[Monstershockey]

if i was making millions of dollars to coach a hockey team, i would think any joe dipshit (me) on the internet would be well within their rights to call me a coward.

It doesn't mean they are right or look foolish.

cowardice, by the way, isn't an abnormal affliction for a head coach in a major sport. tons of NFL and college football coaches are content to punt or settle for a field goal when the math says to go for it. i'm not saying that pascal vincent is unique in being a coward – it just looks different in hockey.

Using the math based on everything but the current game and the players playing it would be stupid. I watched Kevin Stefanski lose plenty of games using math instead of being smart and taking points/field position only to lose by less than the amount of points he passed on. Coaching by analytics is dumb. They have no way of showing you how your current game is going, let alone tell you to pass up points. If you want to use them in practice to maybe get a point across, ok. But to use them to decide a game situation, no.

he is so pathologically afraid of a young player costing them a win that he regularly refuses to play any of them in the third, opting to double-shift the few veterans who he trusts.

You have no way of knowing that unless he himself told you. If he did, then ok.

it's in his DNA. he's not going to show up next season and suddenly not be loser-brained. he's still going to play boone jenner for 26 minutes a night next year, and they're still going to blow third period leads as a result.

Again, no way of knowing this. If they go through the season with no long term injuries, it will be different.

credit to him for his persistence, but there's a reason why he:

1. didn't get the job the first time he interviewed here
2. still came here in a lateral move after seeing no upward path in winnipeg
3. didn't get a head coaching job elsewhere after larsen's first year
4. wasn't the jackets choice after they fired larsen
5. had to come back here as an assistant under babcock after interviewing for other head coach openings

But he still has a head coaching job. Doesn't matter how he got it, he got it. I'm sure he would have wanted it to go better, but you play the hand you're dealt. It really doesn't matter to me what happens, he was just going to be a placeholder, but the real problem has been that there was no plan once they moved on from Torts.

 

[Crede777]

At the very least I am hoping they replace McCarthy and Recchi.

 

[thebus88]

For someone whose argument is built entirely on conjecture, this is an odd request.

You’re no better than Vincent, you coward!!

 

[stevo61]

At this point they'd all be weaknesses. He'd be learning how to play an NHL PP and learning how to defend and breakout all at the same time.

Jiricek has a great shooting and passing arsenal but walking the line and beating the shot blocker are going to take him some time.

dont know about you but I get better at things by doing them

 

[Cowumbus]

dont know about you but I get better at things by doing them

This is true for many things, but not all things.

How much PP time is Jiricek getting during practice? In game is one example of “doing” the skill, but practice time probably outweighs TOI in game.

Does the current version of Jiricek on the PP give the team a better chance of having a successful PP than Severson/Provorov? That is for the coach to decide, I’m not sure the answer.

Back to the bolded, I said it when he was drafted and I continue to say it, one of the biggest “flaws” in Jiricek’s game is his inability to pivot and skate backwards when defending. Pivoting into a defensive position is not something learned in game by simply giving him more minutes, and actually could hurt him if he starts to cheat / lose good cap control to compensate his (current) lack of ability in that skill area, going against the McDavid’s of the world. To me, that is something you work on with a skating coach but what do I know

FTR- I am not the biggest PV fan.
As someone mentioned earlier, I don’t think being an NHL Assistant Coach for 7+ years before getting a Head Coach job is a good sign. I look around the league at résumé’s like Cooper, Cassidy, Bednar, Maurice, Brunette? (who many of us wanted) and think there is a reason they moved up quickly (versus guys like PV, Shaw). Obviously there are exceptions..

 

[majormajor]

dont know about you but I get better at things by doing them

Sure but in this context we're asking how many things are good to learn in one short period of time. When I'm teaching and I'm trying to get the students to make a big breakthrough, once we have that breakthrough, it doesn't matter if there's ten or fifteen minutes left on the clock. I'm not introducing any more hard concepts. Get one thing to sink in each session, do that each session, and you'll make great progress.

There's a Tony Robbins type of saying "people overestimate what they can do in a day, and underestimate what they can do in a year".

Personally I'd like to see how it goes with Jiricek on the PP, I'm just saying that there is a good basis for learning things one at a time.

This is true for many things, but not all things.

How much PP time is Jiricek getting during practice? In game is one example of “doing” the skill, but practice time probably outweighs TOI in game.

Does the current version of Jiricek on the PP give the team a better chance of having a successful PP than Severson/Provorov? That is for the coach to decide, I’m not sure the answer.

There's a lot we don't get to see. They might have PP type drills that they want to see Jiricek make progress in before they hand him the keys.

Back to the bolded, I said it when he was drafted and I continue to say it, one of the biggest “flaws” in Jiricek’s game is his inability to pivot and skate backwards when defending. Pivoting into a defensive position is not something learned in game by simply giving him more minutes, and actually could hurt him if he starts to cheat / lose good cap control to compensate his (current) lack of ability in that skill area, going against the McDavid’s of the world. To me, that is something you work on with a skating coach but what do I know

That is the biggest flaw in his game and I think every scout noted it.

FTR- I am not the biggest PV fan.
As someone mentioned earlier, I don’t think being an NHL Assistant Coach for 7+ years before getting a Head Coach job is a good sign. I look around the league at résumé’s like Cooper, Cassidy, Bednar, Maurice and think there is a reason they moved up quickly (versus guys like PV, Shaw). Obviously there are exceptions..

I loathe these vague "good signs" and "bad signs" convos we have on HF, you'd hope NHL evaluators would have better information to use to evaluate a coach.

 

[Cheddarcheese]

Jiricek is brutal to watch im glad hes not getting more time.

​

 

[Xoggz22]

kind of strange that anyone can look at the way pascal vincent has coached all season long and conclude that the man is driven by anything but cowardice.

Kind of strange to consider a coach a coward when he's made several bold, very bold, moves to bench veterans and young players alike. He may or may not be a good coach, but he's not a coward and does not coach like one in my opinion. I see a guy sheltering players (maybe too much - it is for my liking anyway) so they have a chance to succeed. I don't see any NHL head coach playing a guy like Boone Jenner 22 minutes a night if he has a better option. period. Boone can handle the work, is a professionaly and does not hurt the team. He's playing up a weight class but imagine the griping we'd hear if a rookie is doing that and we're back to 6-1 losses every night. I'm sure this board would be perfectly accepting of those results. Then the coach is ruining the players...

This is a no win board.

 

[stevo61]

Sure but in this context we're asking how many things are good to learn in one short period of time. When I'm teaching and I'm trying to get the students to make a big breakthrough, once we have that breakthrough, it doesn't matter if there's ten or fifteen minutes left on the clock. I'm not introducing any more hard concepts. Get one thing to sink in each session, do that each session, and you'll make great progress.

There's a Tony Robbins type of saying "people overestimate what they can do in a day, and underestimate what they can do in a year".

Personally I'd like to see how it goes with Jiricek on the PP, I'm just saying that there is a good basis for learning things one at a time.



There's a lot we don't get to see. They might have PP type drills that they want to see Jiricek make progress in before they hand him the keys.



That is the biggest flaw in his game and I think every scout noted it.



I loathe these vague "good signs" and "bad signs" convos we have on HF, you'd hope NHL evaluators would have better information to use to evaluate a coach.

At the end of the day its hockey, theyve played it all their lives, you only learn so much in the video room and practice until you feel that pressure for real. Playing a handful of games at the end of the season wont break him just like games off didnt save Carlsson to dominate down the stretch like Verbeek suggested

 

[CBJx614]

This is true for many things, but not all things.

How much PP time is Jiricek getting during practice? In game is one example of “doing” the skill, but practice time probably outweighs TOI in game.

Does the current version of Jiricek on the PP give the team a better chance of having a successful PP than Severson/Provorov? That is for the coach to decide, I’m not sure the answer.

Back to the bolded, I said it when he was drafted and I continue to say it, one of the biggest “flaws” in Jiricek’s game is his inability to pivot and skate backwards when defending. Pivoting into a defensive position is not something learned in game by simply giving him more minutes, and actually could hurt him if he starts to cheat / lose good cap control to compensate his (current) lack of ability in that skill area, going against the McDavid’s of the world. To me, that is something you work on with a skating coach but what do I know

FTR- I am not the biggest PV fan.
As someone mentioned earlier, I don’t think being an NHL Assistant Coach for 7+ years before getting a Head Coach job is a good sign. I look around the league at résumé’s like Cooper, Cassidy, Bednar, Maurice, Brunette? (who many of us wanted) and think there is a reason they moved up quickly (versus guys like PV, Shaw). Obviously there are exceptions..

It's crazy how people don't understand players taking good reps vs bad reps.

When someone is learning a new skill, you want them taking as many "good reps" as possible. As soon as you start to tire and start to cheat your body starts to get muscle memory of the cheating reps instead of the good reps. Not every 18/19 year old can come in and instantly be an all star. It takes A LOT of behind the scenes work.

 

[stevo61]

Kind of strange to consider a coach a coward when he's made several bold, very bold, moves to bench veterans and young players alike. He may or may not be a good coach, but he's not a coward and does not coach like one in my opinion. I see a guy sheltering players (maybe too much - it is for my liking anyway) so they have a chance to succeed. I don't see any NHL head coach playing a guy like Boone Jenner 22 minutes a night if he has a better option. period. Boone can handle the work, is a professionaly and does not hurt the team. He's playing up a weight class but imagine the griping we'd hear if a rookie is doing that and we're back to 6-1 losses every night. I'm sure this board would be perfectly accepting of those results. Then the coach is ruining the players...

This is a no win board.

And what about the stretch Chinakhov-Voronkov-Marchenko was the only fun thing about this team but Voronkov couldnt buy minutes and Vincent had to go out of his way to put that line down? There are plenty of examples from the other side aswell as a collections of different personalities and opinions here so yes, its a no win board. Exactly like every other one

 

[squashmaple]

At the end of the day its hockey, theyve played it all their lives, you only learn so much in the video room and practice until you feel that pressure for real. Playing a handful of games at the end of the season wont break him just like games off didnt save Carlsson to dominate down the stretch like Verbeek suggested

This board right now: We want him to play more hockey! No, not like that!

Absurd. The best way to learn what works in the NHL (and what doesn't) is to play in the NHL. And what better time to do that when the results literally do not matter in the least? Throw his ass on the PP every single time. Pair him with Werenski. Otherwise, he's headed to either the Calder Cup playoffs (assuming Cleveland can even make it at this point) or Worlds for Czechia, and neither of those present the opportunity to learn that NHL games do.

 

[stevo61]

This board right now: We want him to play more hockey! No, not like that!

Absurd. The best way to learn what works in the NHL (and what doesn't) is to play in the NHL. And what better time to do that when the results literally do not matter in the least? Throw his ass on the PP every single time. Pair him with Werenski. Otherwise, he's headed to either the Calder Cup playoffs (assuming Cleveland can even make it at this point) or Worlds for Czechia, and neither of those present the opportunity to learn that NHL games do.

If Vincent came out and said we are trying Jiricek on PP1 to get a feel for how aggressive and fast NHL PKers are and have another pffseason goal a lot of those people would pat Vincent on the back.

Vincent is just a bad coach trying to make young players be scared to make a mistake

 

[majormajor]

It's crazy how people don't understand players taking good reps vs bad reps.

When someone is learning a new skill, you want them taking as many "good reps" as possible. As soon as you start to tire and start to cheat your body starts to get muscle memory of the cheating reps instead of the good reps. Not every 18/19 year old can come in and instantly be an all star. It takes A LOT of behind the scenes work.

Well said.

Cole Sillinger is a lifetime of cheating reps, Jiricek has a lot of it in him too.

I think folks don't get how difficult it is to do the neural re-wiring once the wrong wiring is in place.

And what about the stretch Chinakhov-Voronkov-Marchenko was the only fun thing about this team but Voronkov couldnt buy minutes and Vincent had to go out of his way to put that line down? There are plenty of examples from the other side aswell as a collections of different personalities and opinions here so yes, its a no win board. Exactly like every other one

The adjective for that coaching is bad. It's bad coaching.

But it's closer to boldness than cowardice. I think a cowardly coach would say "hey this is working they might save my job". Vincent stuck to his guns on that one and killed a line that was actually good.

The best way to learn what works in the NHL (and what doesn't) is to play in the NHL.

I reject your premise.

Eventually what you say is true but for athletes that have more fundamental things to work on, it's better to put more energy into training and reps vs slightly easier competition.

 

[squashmaple]

I reject your premise.

Eventually what you say is true but for athletes that have more fundamental things to work on, it's better to put more energy into training and reps vs slightly easier competition.

That’s fine. But I’m not wrong. The best way to see your own gaps is to test them, and the best way to do that is agains the best competition.

Your argument is meaningless at this point in the season. There are three games left. Three. And they’re all against contenders. He should be playing as much as possible against those three contenders. If it was three months, sure, hide him on the bench for 50 minutes a game to watch. But three games? Let the kid play. Let him try against the likes of Ryan O’Reilly and Barkov and Aho. He won’t get a better chance to see what he personally needs to work on than against the best players. When they show him in real time that he can’t skate to keep up or close gaps, then he is watching with his own eyeballs what didn’t work, which means he can directly compare the tape he watches later with what he saw and felt at the time.

 

[majormajor]

That’s fine. But I’m not wrong. The best way to see your own gaps is to test them, and the best way to do that is agains the best competition.

Your argument is meaningless at this point in the season. There are three games left. Three. And they’re all against contenders. He should be playing as much as possible against those three contenders. If it was three months, sure, hide him on the bench for 50 minutes a game to watch. But three games? Let the kid play. Let him try against the likes of Ryan O’Reilly and Barkov and Aho. He won’t get a better chance to see what he personally needs to work on than against the best players. When they show him in real time that he can’t skate to keep up or close gaps, then he is watching with his own eyeballs what didn’t work, which means he can directly compare the tape he watches later with what he saw and felt at the time.

He's played 40 NHL games now and there is quite a long highlight reel of failure they could sit him through. I don't think it needs to get worse. AHL would be best.

 

[cbjthrowaway]

The adjective for that coaching is bad. It's bad coaching.

But it's closer to boldness than cowardice. I think a cowardly coach would say "hey this is working they might save my job". Vincent stuck to his guns on that one and killed a line that was actually good.

here's what vincent said, verbatim, about that line:



being cautious to a fault is the literal opposite of boldness. it's cowardice. and he wasn't even correct in his analysis!



pretty enlightening thread from jack han, who later went on the PDOcast and, in no uncertain terms, said that pascal vincent is wired to coach scared. some excerpts from that conversation:

• jack han on the line
  • "they play with the puck, they play with speed"
  • "they did to carolina what carolina does to most teams – rush them, get pucks on net, be really solid defensively, snuffing out rush chances, quickly transitioning back to offense… they were doing all these things"
• on voronkov:
  • says he's not a 'globetrotter' type player and that if his name was joone benner (lol) he'd be seen as a solid two-way guy
  • filipovic pointed out that voronkov's 5v5 ice time was sixteenth among cbj forwards at the time of recording and that he'd just gotten less ice time than mathieu olivier in their last game
• on vincent:
  • han said the stress of coaching pro hockey 'puts you in survival mode' and makes it hard to think clearly
  • pv's team-level results have not been good – lots of bubble teams in the AHL
  • "he's been coaching on survival mode for the last decade… every year he's trying to scrape by, it takes a toll on you"
  • says that long state of survival mode has 'warped his perspective of what he should be looking at as a coach' – and that as a result he doesn't know what to do with the russian line despite it clearly working

pascal has lost 71% of the games he's coached here. i can assure you there is absolutely no need to spin his cowardly mismanagement of the lineup as an unheralded act of bravery.

 

[majormajor]

here's what vincent said, verbatim, about that line:



being cautious to a fault is the literal opposite of boldness. it's cowardice. and he wasn't even correct in his analysis!



pretty enlightening thread from jack han, who later went on the PDOcast and, in no uncertain terms, said that pascal vincent is wired to coach scared. some excerpts from that conversation:

• jack han on the line
  • "they play with the puck, they play with speed"
  • "they did to carolina what carolina does to most teams – rush them, get pucks on net, be really solid defensively, snuffing out rush chances, quickly transitioning back to offense… they were doing all these things"
• on voronkov:
  • says he's not a 'globetrotter' type player and that if his name was joone benner (lol) he'd be seen as a solid two-way guy
  • filipovic pointed out that voronkov's 5v5 ice time was sixteenth among cbj forwards at the time of recording and that he'd just gotten less ice time than mathieu olivier in their last game
• on vincent:
  • han said the stress of coaching pro hockey 'puts you in survival mode' and makes it hard to think clearly
  • pv's team-level results have not been good – lots of bubble teams in the AHL
  • "he's been coaching on survival mode for the last decade… every year he's trying to scrape by, it takes a toll on you"
  • says that long state of survival mode has 'warped his perspective of what he should be looking at as a coach' – and that as a result he doesn't know what to do with the russian line despite it clearly working

pascal has lost 71% of the games he's coached here. i can assure you there is absolutely no need to spin his cowardly mismanagement of the lineup as an unheralded act of bravery.

I listened to the episode when it came out. What they're describing regarding that Russian trio all fits under bad coaching to me, but the whole "cowardice" angle is pure conjecture.

Someone saying they are "cautious" about something does not imply cowardice, it more often means they don't like it. Like I'm cautious about weeds in my garden, I'm not afraid of them.

 

[Monstershockey]

Jack Han must speak from his vast head coaching experience. Good for him.

 

[squashmaple]

He's played 40 NHL games now and there is quite a long highlight reel of failure they could sit him through. I don't think it needs to get worse. AHL would be best.

You can keep moving those goal posts, but I'm not following you any farther than this.

 

[cbjthrowaway]

I listened to the episode when it came out. What they're describing regarding that Russian trio all fits under bad coaching to me, but the whole "cowardice" angle is pure conjecture.

it's not pure conjecture.

the whole 'decade-long survival mode' thing warped his perspective, which negatively impacted the way he evaluates his players. that's the 'bad coaching' part.

the actual decisions he's made subsequent to that – where he's only willing to use veteran or low-event players – show that he refuses to make any decision that will take him out of his comfort zone, regardless of the impact on the end result.

prioritizing comfort over results in a job that is measured by wins and losses is cowardice. there's no other way to put it.

Someone saying they are "cautious" about something does not imply cowardice, it more often means they don't like it. Like I'm cautious about weeds in my garden, I'm not afraid of them.

he straight up said he was limiting his best line's ice time because he was afraid that they'd turn into the harlem globetrotters – a team that, famously, wins 100% of its games - is the definition of fear-driven decision making. another word for which is 'cowardice'

Jack Han must speak from his vast head coaching experience. Good for him.

i guess if you did have coaching experience, you'd be able to question jack han's. but if you did, and had more success than him, you wouldn't be here.

sound familiar?

 

[Cheddarcheese]

bottom line Jiricek is a bust and its not because of nhl coaching