Quote:
Originally Posted by pastarocket
I think Torts is smarter than Crawford or AV in terms of getting players to play the ways he wants them to play. For example, I remember a game this season where Kassian was benched for an entire third period and had less than 10 minutes of ice time because he was so bloody lazy on the backcheck.
All coaches, including Torts, can control ice time for players, even bench them, to send a stern message in response to a player's laziness or poor performance.
He's not all yelling and screaming as a coach. He knows how to push the right buttons for players with different personalities.
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Coaches at the root of it are just motivators and people managers. It's easy to take Torts' recent success, especially how different he and AV are, and claim him to be a genius. Keep in mind Torts has also taken mid-game timeouts in the past with zero effect. The Canucks were also *this* close to giving up a goal immediately after the timeout. Just like anything else in the game, you have to have a bit of luck on your side.
I wouldn't say Torts is any more intelligent than AV or Crawford. They each have their own way of approaching the game, the players, and drawing out a game plan. AV is a smart man in his own right no doubt, but stubborn as hell from what we've seen, and clearly lost the room (and AV wasn't able to adapt to his team's changing needs, not to mention the other teams' adjustments to counter the Canucks' game). Torts may be able to send guys messages by benching them, calling them out, etc etc. It can just as easily backfire like it did when he was with the Rangers and Richards/Gaborik. I don't envy any NHL coach's job, have to draw up game plans, motivate (baby sit) entitled players. Regardless of how good of a coach you are, your shelf life with any team is finite.
The one thing I know is that Lu has been making *those* saves of late to keep the team in the game at key times, those same saves that people always bitch about him not being able to make when he's in a funk or luck isn't fully on his side. It's almost like Lu is expected to make all those saves, not really getting the credit he deserves when he pulls out a big save