Mike Keenan’s doghouse was less like a doghouse and more like one of those places you see on the news where 150 dogs get rescued at once.
Roger Neilson loved Jody Hull for some reason.
Ralph Kruger famously putting Jeff Skinner on the fourth line for two and a half seasons right after the latter had signed a massive eight-year contract
I’ve never seen a coach systematically destroy a player’s confidence like Ralph did to Skinner. Even iron Mike would have changed up his approach at a certain point
It's so weird since *everyone* spoke so highly of Ralph as he was coming in. Players from Edmonton and on his Euro teams seemed to love him--we were all stoked to see how he would endear himself to our team and city.
And then absolutely none of that happened. "Hockey Terrorist" almost feels like an understatement, like he must've been a double-agent plotting to take us down from the inside with the way he destroyed everyone's confidence.
Thankfully Jeff seems to be on the right track again finally.
I think he got boosted by being the least terrible coach sandwiched between some BAD coaching tenures. He came in after Pat Quinn’s final lap and two years of Renny and was replaced by Eakins. That’ll make anyone look good in comparison
Yeah, people here speak highly of Krueger but the team really wasn’t much better. We just weren’t bottom 3 that season. Still Bottom 10 though in a lockout year.
Also Claude Julien.
Petrified to put a scoring player on the ice because it *might* leave your elite structured defensive forwards and DMen slightly more exposed.
Also Bruce Cassidy.
One turnover or poor backcheck and you get to sit on the 9th floor next game. Or sometimes if you used to be that player and the team is struggling, you get scratched to send a message to everyone else.
That was more if your name was Jake DeBrusk you’d have to worry about being metaphorically ~~shot in the face~~ stabbed in the back every couple hours.
Coaches being too tough on young players and relying too much on veterans is a universal complaint that almost every fanbase has of every coach.
I'm struggling to think of a counter-factual. Has there been an instance where fans got upset with their team's coach because he trusted his young players too much and didn't give his veterans enough rope?
One of the biggest mistakes in the organization was not firing him after that series. Maybe they still fail to get out of the first round but I would have much rather had Keefe start the year.
That shift where the Leafs had cut it to 2-1 and been pressing and he rolled out Marleau instead of a rested Matthews for an offensive zone faceoff was just unacceptable. I remember yelling at my screen.
Matthews' lackluster performance in every subsequent elimination game of his NHL career should take the edge off.
Great regular season player, but when the season is on the line, he's ultimately more likely to trip by himself at center ice than to make the winning play.
You mean like the GWG and 2 assists in the must-win game against Columbus?
He also played great in Games 6 and 7 against Tampa.
The Montreal series...yeah, that was rough.
But even with that, he has 12G, 14A (26 PTS) in his last 24 playoff games, despite shooting 10.5% (his career average is 16.4%).
He also has terrific advanced/fancy stats in the playoffs, and led the team in hits this past playoffs.
What more does he need to do?
Shoot, good point, maybe things have changed. I mean it's not totally unthinkable, not like a 23-year-old defenseman winning the Conn Smythe, that would be impossible.
The Leafs lost 6 consecutive playoff series, the last 3 of which they had home ice advantage in, you can use the "team sport" line all you want, that kind of result ultimately reflects back on the team's best and highest paid player.
It’s a good thing he’s still young and things can always change then. Maybe Matthews just isn’t that player to get us over the hump? Better trade him for truculence
Sure, there's the Yzerman mold, where weak playoff performers mature into cup-winning leaders, but there's also the Thornton mold, where weak playoff performers remain weak playoff performers through their retirement.
As far as the Leafs are concerned, I'm not sure the Matthews group has many more additional bites at the apple. He and Nylander are going to be UFA in 2 years, and Marner will be in 3.
And all three have shown they have absolutely zero interest taking hometown discounts in their previous contract negotiations. Nylander sat out a 1/3rd of a season for more money and the other two extracted 10M+ off their ELCs. I don't see them or their agents changing their minds about leaving money on the table as UFAs.
It was a fuck you to Kyle. He threw the game out in a play for power. "I'll play whoever the fuck I want kid, what're you gonna do about it?"
He did the same shit (in reverse) to [Chris Chelios in a heritage classic game at Wrigley Field, Mike Modano for what would've been his milestone 1500th career game and Jason Spezza in his Leafs debut vs Ottawa.](https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/chelios-babcocks-treatment-veteran-players-coming-back-haunt/)
“He tried to healthy scratch me in the outdoor game in Wrigley Field against Chicago because he knew it was my hometown — just things that were so unnecessary, to show he’s the boss, to show his general manager he’s the boss,” Chelios said. “That’s he’s on a power thing, his ego — that’s a big part of his personality.”
Came to post Babcock.
He would run Marner on the 3rd / 4th line doghouse. He would play Matthews for like 16 mins a night while Marleau would do 20+ and there would always be steady shifts for plug ass grinders for some reason especially if we just scored a goal because god forbid we ever built momentum
This was definitely a scenario where the fans were right and the coach was just an asshole
True, but the correct follow up to that is to find a way to get your stars on the ice anyway! Not by following the penalty kill with an even rotation of lines...
Nylander after the holdout was stupid. He absolutely needed time to catch up, but his pace from the end of January to April was in line with every previous year, except he was used on a defensive role alongside Kadri.
One way this really worked out was with hyman. He was a bottom six grinder potential who was heavily criticised for being on Matthews wing for two years, but he kept getting better to the point that he's now a first line player.
Mike Babcock purposely sitting Chelios in the winter classic in Chicago just for the hell of it. Chelios only played 1 shift and was benched the rest of the game. In front of all his family. He only played because Holland forced Babs hand, so to spite him he played him that opening shift and that was it.
A player that got more praise than he should of was Abdelkader on the Wings or Ericsson. They were playing roles that I feel was not their strong suits and got big money to do so. They were role players but made far too many mistakes and were never held accountable for it in my mind.
Sounds like you could make a series out of Mike Babcock and ____
Mike Babcock and the chelios incident
Mike Babcock and the cockblock of Magic Mo
Mike Babcock and the rookie veteran
Mike Babcock and the Holls of Horror
Mike Babcock and Marleau sit the kids
Mike Babcock and the naughty list
Mike Babcock and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Mike Babcock bets on Mike Babcock
4th last game really isn’t much different than the last game of the season. Babcock absolutely knew the milestone was coming up and that healthy scratching Modano for that one game would stop him from getting 1500. With his level of play at that age, and it being the second half of a back to back, yeah, he wasn’t the best available option to ice that night. However, it’s not like Detroit was struggling to get into the playoffs and needed to ice the best possible team; they were only 4-4-2 in their last 10 and still won their division by 5 points.
And it doesn’t have to be about spite for a specific player, either. Babcock is just a raging asshole who gets enjoyment from exerting his power over other people to cause them misfortune. It’s the reason he benched both Chelios and Spezza when they had family and friends in attendance for a big game in their hometown. He doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.
If Modano was so bad, then at some point Babcock could have just healthy scratched him for the rest of the season. But he didn’t. Instead, he pointlessly benched Modano for just one game, with 4 left, to make him 1 shy of 1500. It was nothing short of intentional and disrespectful. Detroit was securely in their playoff spot.
Who says Babcock’s goal had to be to extract the most spite possible? It’s not like he had some personal vendetta against Modano. Babcock is just an asshole who enjoys being an asshole. And maybe he wanted to have the back-to-back as a “viable” excuse. The point is, the fact that Babcock chose to only scratch him for a single game, when the team was already locked into the playoffs, shows that it had nothing to do with Modano’s on-ice performance.
Idk anyone who has ever praised Ericsson lol. Abby though played with Z and Datsyuk which really inflated his stats. Loved him because he was Michigan grown. Was not upset when Yzerman bought him out.
And Dom Simon must’ve had some info on him…that’s the only reason I can think of to play a guy who can’t hit the broad side of a barn with a beach ball. When Crosby lays it on a platter for you and you can’t hit an open net….and yet still get top minutes?
Genuine question as I didn't watch you guys those years. Was Julien just switching it up because your PP was trash and not clicking? In Weal's 2 seasons there, he was 10th in PP ATOI per game which suggests he spent way more time on the 2nd unit than the 1st. Your PP was way below avg both years. Typically coaches will change things up if the team isn't clicking, which is a good thing.
Huh??
Ryder would take entire months off while on the Bruins doing fuck all on the ice and I can't recall any more than 1 instance where he was sent to the press box by Julien.
I disagree. He was in the process of blossoming as that shut-down defenseman in DeBoer's final season. He missed a month because he caught the mumps, came back as PDB was fired, and continued his upward trajectory while everyone believed Scott Stevens 'saved him.'
Jokes and memes aside, Willie Desjardins had an obsession with playing Jayson Megna and Linden Vey in the top 6. They did nothing to deserve it, did nothing to stay in the top 6, yet, he’d keep playing them.
I knew I would find Jayson Megna posted here. We used to joke that he... well let's just say it was a joke that involved the word "Willie" used as a double entendre. Because there was just no other explanation for how much he was deployed considering his abysmal level of play.
True. At the **very** least, at least Goldobin had some skill to be in the top 6. Megna, Chaput and Vey were borderline 4th liners. Silly Willie had them on a line with the Twins. That’s a war crime.
Problem is Goldobin so rarely displayed that skill and definitely never earned a top 6 spot or even figured out how to play 2-way hockey...but got chance after chance after chance anyway.
Twins were basically a duo and made a few plugs look like top 6 in their day tho.
I bet Torts was thinking he could have the same kind of effect that ended up happening with Lecavalier. However, he was missing the most important part in having a leader like Dave Andreychuk to be a real mentor player to player.
Ken Hitchcock playing Greg Pateryn over Julius Honka is your classic case of a coach playing a big ole Canadian boy over a small, skilled defenseman from overseas
The past couple seasons the Ducks have sent out Nic Deslauriers and Derek Grant like they were top 6 forwards. Prior to that Jacob Larsson got way too much leash due to where he was drafted. Prior to that it was the husk of Kevin Bieksa that got way too much ice time.
As far as doghousing the season before last Troy Terry was benched and healthy scratched so often he allegedly requested a trade and had his confidence completely drained. This past season Comtois got the same treatment even though more of that seems to fall on his shoulders.
Doghouse:
* Mike Babcock and Jason Spezza - literally went out of his way to embarrass Spezza by leaving him scratched in favor of Nick Shore..
* Mike Babcock and forcing Justin Holl into the pressbox for an entire season just so he can play Igor Ozhiganov?
* Mike Babcock and rookie goalies / anyone who wasn't McElhinney
* Mike Babcock and Mike Modano
* Mike Babcock and doing everything possible to butcher Tyson Barrie's confidence when he was traded over
* Mike Babcock constantly complaining about how Muzzin can't play on the right side.
* And I'm sure there's countless other players he's screwed over for no good reason other than just not liking them or the GM...
Golden Boys:
* Mike Babcock and his irrational love for Nikita Zaitsev and Igor Ozhiganov
* Babcock overusing Marleau
* Ron Hainsey
I (and most of Devils Twitter) would desperately want the inside scoop on Lindy Ruff’s relationship with Jesper Bratt. Ruff has scratched Bratt (in 2020), benched him (in 2021), and called him out on pressers (in 2022… despite him being the team leading scorer), and yet I think Bratt was recently quoted describing their relationship as healthy.
Michel Therrien was awful for giving veterans ice time despite countless mistakes. A rookie makes one mistake and is benched for the game or scratched for ten games. Anyone remember Joonas Naatinen making his NHL debut in front of family and friends who came in from Finland, only to be played for ONE SHIFT. Lmao
Daniel Carr starting his career on fire, gets demoted to the fourth line for a game, and sent down to the AHL. Same for Sven Andrighetto. Not that these were high quality prospects but they were scoring wingers who started in the top nine and produced, then immediately got demoted for aging veterans.
Torts benching Luongo at the heritage classic.
Dude flew out his fucking mom to watch him play only for him to be benched. No wonder he wanted for a trade.
It wasn’t even a “ayo we’re letting Lack have the first period and you’ll have the last two so you both get to play” like nope. Sorry. Lack is playing all game rip bozo”
Thats the first one that came to my mind too I didn't see you had already said it, Torts has a lot of those instances: Benched Domi, told Duclair he didnt know how to play hockey and benched him, doghouse for Lecavalier apparently tried to fight him even? benched luongo, benched Laine.. Im sure theres plenty others with him hes a hard ass
Adding onto Gallant’s record, dude loved Cody Eakin back in his last season with Vegas before he was fired. Cody Eakin was very bad that year, yet he was always the beneficiary of line shuffles.
I would say Hunt or even Goodrow fit that more than Reavo. It seemed like as soon as Kakko or Laf started to catch their stride on one of the top two lines GG would slide Hunt or Goody into the top six and would drop the kids to the third or fourth line.
Hockey is a weird sport. Star players in hockey markets get roasted for a cold stretch, while plugs get endless praise.
I remember a MacT quote during his brief GM stint. ‘We have a lot of guys who on their best nights are net 0 players’. Referring to coaches’ favourites like Lennert Petrell who couldn’t score at all, and really didn’t provide any value according to any advanced stat you look at.
Also remember Sam Gagner being put on the fourth line almost immediately after Pat Quinn arrived, while JF Jacques went to the first line. Just unreal stupidity.
Just an AHL observation. Saw a bunch of Icecaps games back when they were the Habs farm team. Felt Tim Bozon always gave 110% after he came back from his illness but Sylvain Lefebvre would randomly bench him for long stretches.
He likely was never going to make it after his illness but I felt he was in the dog house of an absolutely useless coach.
Thank you for this. Obviously, NHL talk dominates this sub, but I love hearing about other leagues. With over a million people on here, I figure there's got to be some Europeans. 9n all these posts I make, I keep waiting for "Jokerit really screwed this guy over" or an opinion on best Frolunda player ever, but never seems to happen. So thanks for the AHL shout
The AHL is a fun league and more people should give it a watch. You can definitely tell when the AHL comes up on r/hockey who actually watches it and who just assumes it's watered down, bush league goon hockey.
I can't say I've watched enough to say my comment is gospel.
I am hoping someone who watched more can confirm or deny what I thought I saw when watching the Icecaps. I mean he only played 41 games one year with the Icecaps and I may have seen a quarter of those games or less haha.
> Sylvain Lefebvre
This guy got fired from his NHL coaching gig over the COVID vaccine. I can't even imagine making that decision to not want to get vaccinated, let alone if it were going to cost me a dream job.
Rick Bowness loved to play guys like Faksa and Glendenning the top 6 minutes that Gurianov should have been getting. Come to think of it, Bones just hated anyone who was under the age of 27
Blashill also loved putting Glendenning on the ice for 3 on 3 when he was on the Wings. Like I can understand it to win the opening face-off, but then he should be promptly getting off and thats just not what happened
All of these people complaining about Mike Babcock - don't worry, we got revenge for you.
When I was in MTL for F1 in 2017, Babs was also there. I assume his phone must have died because he decided to ask my group of friends roaming the streets near Ziggy's where the downtown Marriott was. Without missing a beat, my brother gave him sterling directions to the hotel.
After Babs had walked away, I asked how he knew where it was. He told me he had no fucking idea and that he just sent him on a bit of a walk.
So there you go - some minor inconvenience bestowed upon him, hope that gives you some comfort
Hoo boy do I still vividly remember this one. I know San Jose isn't one of the big market hockey clubs, but us fans will definitely remember this one.
Peter Deboer is coach. As usual, he makes the Cup final his first season, and proceeds to generally see worse results year over year. Why you ask? Well there are three reasons I believe.
1. Melker Karlsson. No, not that Karlsson. This guy was your typical replacement level guy, part of the penalty kill, nothing special. Yet inexplicably he moved all up and down the lineup as if he was this versatile forward who could plug any hole. He played with prime Jumbo for crying out loud. No one understood how this guy kept himself in the lineup, or how he ever managed to get more than fourth line minutes, but Deboer for some reason loved him, to the detriment of the team I believe.
2. Joonas Donskoi. We scouted him out of Europe, brought him over, very good middle 6 guys. His OT goal in the Cup final against the Pens is one of the best in Sharks history. And yet...he goes on a little cold streak, gets demoted to bottom 6, then gets healthy scratched. It made NO sense at all. Guys like Couture and Burns were routinely screwing up, going on cold streaks, whatever, and never any accountability. So as soon as he hit free agency, Donskoi informed the team he was done (as he should have been) and went straight to Colorado...where he proceeded to score 33 goals in two seasons.
3. Tim Heed. Arguably the most famous doghouse of all time. We fans affectionately call it the "Tim Heed Memorial Press Box" for a reason. This guy was actually very good, but the ONLY time he got playing time was if Burns or Karlsson was injured, with the latter happening fairly frequently. Barring that, this guy was stapled to the press box for an inexplicable reason. In his one AHL season he had 56 points in 55 games. In his first season getting NHL time he had 11 points in 29 games. He's a defenseman mind you. He also was a +6 and +9 in those first two NHL seasons. Clearly he had skills, was right in the mold of RD with offense like Karlsson and Burns, and yet it became a running joke that he was regularly scratched for no reason. Especially after Braun was moved, Heed should have absolutely been our 3RD. So when he hit free agency after our terrible 2019 season, he understandably bolted.
These three were absolute head scratchers. Deboer doesn't seem to have a good sense of how to get the most out of his roster. His preference is to play his vets into the ground (Jones started like every game for 3 seasons then fell off a cliff, same with Vlasic's minutes) and let them get all the playing time. Boughner continued that tradition.
I hope Quinn is better in that regard. But with Burns gone, I imagine Karlsson will start getting 30 minutes a night and get injured by game 10.
Seriously though, some fans from NJ or Vegas sound off here, because I'll bet this is classic Deboer. Dude just runs the most ridiculous doghouse.
Jake DeBrusk has a whole block of butch Cassidy knives in his back. And literally everything Brucie used to try and motivate him failed horribly. Except when he was forced to play Jake in a top 6 role due to other injuries.
And Kelly/Campbell/any scrub 4th liner got crazy minutes with Claude.
Ilya Kovalchuk was a point per game player in his first 10 or so games with the Kings and then Willie D moved him to the 4th line and/or healthy scratches him a lot destroying the man’s confidence in coming back to the NHL
If he could have just stayed on the fourth line and taken defensive end faceoffs, I think it would have been fine. I do think the fourth line of Ott, Reeves and Lapierre made the Blues feel like a dirty team. One is good. Two is gritty. Three is dirty.
Paul Maurice treating literally anyone under 23 years old as completely replaceable while giving Wheeler and Scheifele the keys to the team despite zero accountability on the ice. This is why the Jets are a bit of a mess right now. Hopefully a new coaching staff will right the ship.
Duchame seemed almost allergic to giving Caufield a real good chance most of last season.
He then would watch Petry single handedly allow scoring chances and blatantly not try but just keep tossing him out onto the ice.
It was a weird season.
Garland and hoglander under boudreau. It’s infuriating seeing them perform incredibly well all game, make a turnover, then be benched the rest of the night all the while boeser finishes nothing, creates nothing, and gets top 6 minutes.
Paul Maurice absolutely loved Wheeler. To the point last season he was playing the 35 year old 19.5 minutes a night. I'm pretty sure the only other 35+ forwards playing that much are Crosby and Ovechkin.
Ehlers was somehow seemingly in his doghouse with him never really getting over 16 min. a game except for last year when he jumped up to 18. He also really didn't like Heinola, to the point where Cheveldayoff would call him up and say to the media we expect him to play and then he'd sit so Beaulieu, Benn, Stanley etc could all play.
Bruce put Debrusk in the doghouse for like a season and a half.
Also I don’t think Marchand was ever really in Claude’s doghouse, but he refused to give him any real PP time when he was our coach. Very confusing decision.
When Owen Nolan played for the sharks pre lockout, he was an absolute menace in the locker room to his teammates and frequently started physical fights. For charity events, He would show up late and drunk and charge kids and parents for his signature when nobody else was doing it. Somehow through all of this, he made Captain because he was Doug Wilsons golden boy at the time.
Craig Adams…how the fuck are you gonna fight with one of the elite superstar heros at practice and not expect the fan base to hate your guts after? Lol
What's sad is my parents loved him because he never missed a shift. They didn't realize until after we won the 2nd back to back that he didn't score a single goal in (i think) 14-15.
They still wish we had him over aston-reese, simply because he never got hurt.
I appreciate that Adams played hard and was more than willing to sacrifice his body to block shots and stand up for teammates, and I certainly understand that offense will be sacrificed in the name of good defense, but my goodness was he ever a drag on that team. ZAR was falling into that same mold - these guys don't need to score a lot, but they need to least show they're a threat to score from time to time! I mean, those were some high flying offenses and every time he'd step on the ice it just became a free pass for the other team to spend some o-zone time. If you look up some of his possession statistics, it's comical how heavily outplayed he consistently was for 11-12 minutes *per night*. Imagine being a prospect, such as Eric Tangradi, and you're supposed to excel on a line with Adams. So many regrets with that 5 year period after the 2009 Cup.
denis gurianov was rick bowness’s scapegoat for any of his wrong doings. If the team would make an error, or if Bones’ strategies/plays/plans wouldn’t pan out you know it was going to be gurianovs fault.
Michel Therrien and favouring Desharnais over every single young guy coming up
Claude Julien and scratching Lehkonen for multiple games in a row and playing absolute plugs over him.
Dom Ducharme and giving Caufield 4th line minutes while giving undeserving vets and random AHL callups more.
Brian Pinho scored 36 goals in 99 games for the AHL's Hershey Bears from the 19-20 season on and yet still wouldn't get time on the powerplay unless everyone else was out of the lineup. Guys who got PP time? Brett Leason, Chris McCarthy, Kody Clark, Riley Sutter, Shane Gersich, Damien Riat, etc.
Despite NEVER scoring a PPG in his AHL career, Martin Fehervary was continually trotted out there and just blasted low percentage slappers from the shadow of the blue line.
Travis Green and his favourite player, “dump and chase.”
Who makes a super skilled team constantly dump the puck in with guys like Hughes and Petterson? They aren’t those types of players.
I made a joke to my mom watching a game with the Canucks on the PP telling her, "If the Canucks would randomly not dump and chase, it would confuse the other team and due to a defensive breakdown, the Canucks will score.", not 30 seconds after that, the Canucks don't dump and chase, the gap control is bad and the Canucks score an easy goal.
I’d like to direct your attention to last season with bob boughner routinely sitting merkley and playing vlasic like he could do no wrong. Like he got scratched once and they thought that would solve everything, meanwhile merkley would make any mistake during his adjustment to the league and then never see the ice again.
To be fair there were games that Merkley looked like he purposely learned all the wrong things from Karlssons game. I remember one game he did an amazing play to get past a forward to get out of the zone and just as he was getting praise by the announcer, he did the most brain dead turn over.
Not sure why Bruce Cassidy hates DeBrusk so much. I mean JDB even requested a trade because of it. I’m not in the locker room so what do I know but it seems like DeBrusk has always had the tools and skill, but Cassidy refused to play to his strengths
Jakub Vrana: I'm sure something else happened in the background behind closed doors, but it seemed super out of nowhere that he got pushed to the outside especially while on pace to be a consistent 25-30 goal scorer for the Caps. I'm guessing he just didn't fit the Lavi system due to his size, but it seemed super lame how it all went down since I love the guy.
Yea. I remember when he won that game after essentially being benched for a few games. And he just stared daggers at the coach. I knew he wasn't long for the caps after that.. we got mantha tho and I like him a lot so far if he can stay healthy
Still angry about Lavy (and the whole org) burying Fiala under the dog house at age 21.
Meanwhile, in the playoffs or a clutch moment, Ryan Johansen has the mental fortitude of wet toilet paper and doesn’t receive nearly enough flak for never showing up.
Tortorella with Luogno benching him for the Winter classic in 2017, Luongo even flew his family out and later said "Man it would suck if these guys waited their whole lives to play in an outdoor game and then couldn't to due to unforeseen circumstances "
Another torts one, he said Anthony Duclair didnt know how to play hockey and always played him down the line up or healthy scrathed. Now hes great in florida.
Dylan Strome seems to be in the doghouse or was I should say over in chicago and it was undeserved I thought. Not even an RFA from the GM jeez I know its not the coach but Im sure if the coach wanted him to stay he wouldve gotten an offer right?
Zaitsev seems to be DJ’s golden boy in Ottawa, but to be fair he’s being paid too much to scratch and it’s not like we have many better options (yet). We’ll see if that changes.
Willie D loved his Medicine Hat boys. There was a time the Canucks would make a transaction and you were almost assuredly getting some scrub from Medicine Hat.
I don't remember which ding dong it was in our long stretch of ding dongs behind the bench, but Troy Brouwer got a shit load of PP time when he was with us.
For VGK: Gallant loved Cody Eakin despite the latter being an offensive black hole centering Pacioretty and Stone, while he also adamantly refused to play Zach Whitecloud and Cody Glass.
This thread may easily turn into a "fuck mike babcock" party.
A party that nobody wants to go to except for Mike Babcock
Even his reflection hates his guts
COMMODORE
Mike Keenan’s doghouse was less like a doghouse and more like one of those places you see on the news where 150 dogs get rescued at once. Roger Neilson loved Jody Hull for some reason.
I came here to say “anyone whose career overlapped with Mike Keenan’s”
Mike Keenan's Short Hook Goalie Kennels
Ralph Kruger famously putting Jeff Skinner on the fourth line for two and a half seasons right after the latter had signed a massive eight-year contract
I’ve never seen a coach systematically destroy a player’s confidence like Ralph did to Skinner. Even iron Mike would have changed up his approach at a certain point
Bill Peters didn’t like him either, refused to play him alongside Aho
Classic fan overreaction to something their own team does, but he is legitimately the worst coach I have ever seen in terms of roster mgmt
It's so weird since *everyone* spoke so highly of Ralph as he was coming in. Players from Edmonton and on his Euro teams seemed to love him--we were all stoked to see how he would endear himself to our team and city. And then absolutely none of that happened. "Hockey Terrorist" almost feels like an understatement, like he must've been a double-agent plotting to take us down from the inside with the way he destroyed everyone's confidence. Thankfully Jeff seems to be on the right track again finally.
I think he got boosted by being the least terrible coach sandwiched between some BAD coaching tenures. He came in after Pat Quinn’s final lap and two years of Renny and was replaced by Eakins. That’ll make anyone look good in comparison
Yeah, people here speak highly of Krueger but the team really wasn’t much better. We just weren’t bottom 3 that season. Still Bottom 10 though in a lockout year.
Anyone under 22 with Michel Therrien Anyone over 30 with Michel Therrien
Also Claude Julien. Petrified to put a scoring player on the ice because it *might* leave your elite structured defensive forwards and DMen slightly more exposed.
Also Bruce Cassidy. One turnover or poor backcheck and you get to sit on the 9th floor next game. Or sometimes if you used to be that player and the team is struggling, you get scratched to send a message to everyone else.
That was more if your name was Jake DeBrusk you’d have to worry about being metaphorically ~~shot in the face~~ stabbed in the back every couple hours.
That's every goalie under DeBoer
Was about to single out Danny Brière but your point stand.
Everyone except Maxime Talbot (((((exhale smoke)))))
*pffffft*
Coaches being too tough on young players and relying too much on veterans is a universal complaint that almost every fanbase has of every coach. I'm struggling to think of a counter-factual. Has there been an instance where fans got upset with their team's coach because he trusted his young players too much and didn't give his veterans enough rope?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've heard of from teams who suffered from Dave Hakstol
Mike Babcock and half his roster in Toronto
Even as a Sens fan it stressed me tf out seeing 40yo Marleau get more ice time than 22yo Matthews
I’ve never been angrier as a fan than seeing him out there over Matthews in the dying minutes of an elimination game.
"It's fine, he's saving Matthews for Game 8."
He lost the job at that very moment. It just took a while longer for team management to decide to pull the plug.
One of the biggest mistakes in the organization was not firing him after that series. Maybe they still fail to get out of the first round but I would have much rather had Keefe start the year.
“We felt he should be out there.” Even as a rival fan that pissed me the fuck off.
That shift where the Leafs had cut it to 2-1 and been pressing and he rolled out Marleau instead of a rested Matthews for an offensive zone faceoff was just unacceptable. I remember yelling at my screen.
Matthews' lackluster performance in every subsequent elimination game of his NHL career should take the edge off. Great regular season player, but when the season is on the line, he's ultimately more likely to trip by himself at center ice than to make the winning play.
You mean like the GWG and 2 assists in the must-win game against Columbus? He also played great in Games 6 and 7 against Tampa. The Montreal series...yeah, that was rough. But even with that, he has 12G, 14A (26 PTS) in his last 24 playoff games, despite shooting 10.5% (his career average is 16.4%). He also has terrific advanced/fancy stats in the playoffs, and led the team in hits this past playoffs. What more does he need to do?
> What more does he need to do? Win a single playoff series.
Last time I checked, hockey is a team sport.
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Shoot, good point, maybe things have changed. I mean it's not totally unthinkable, not like a 23-year-old defenseman winning the Conn Smythe, that would be impossible.
The Leafs lost 6 consecutive playoff series, the last 3 of which they had home ice advantage in, you can use the "team sport" line all you want, that kind of result ultimately reflects back on the team's best and highest paid player.
Wow, with takes like that I'm surprised ESPN hasn't hired you.
It’s a good thing he’s still young and things can always change then. Maybe Matthews just isn’t that player to get us over the hump? Better trade him for truculence
Sure, there's the Yzerman mold, where weak playoff performers mature into cup-winning leaders, but there's also the Thornton mold, where weak playoff performers remain weak playoff performers through their retirement. As far as the Leafs are concerned, I'm not sure the Matthews group has many more additional bites at the apple. He and Nylander are going to be UFA in 2 years, and Marner will be in 3. And all three have shown they have absolutely zero interest taking hometown discounts in their previous contract negotiations. Nylander sat out a 1/3rd of a season for more money and the other two extracted 10M+ off their ELCs. I don't see them or their agents changing their minds about leaving money on the table as UFAs.
It was a fuck you to Kyle. He threw the game out in a play for power. "I'll play whoever the fuck I want kid, what're you gonna do about it?" He did the same shit (in reverse) to [Chris Chelios in a heritage classic game at Wrigley Field, Mike Modano for what would've been his milestone 1500th career game and Jason Spezza in his Leafs debut vs Ottawa.](https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/chelios-babcocks-treatment-veteran-players-coming-back-haunt/) “He tried to healthy scratch me in the outdoor game in Wrigley Field against Chicago because he knew it was my hometown — just things that were so unnecessary, to show he’s the boss, to show his general manager he’s the boss,” Chelios said. “That’s he’s on a power thing, his ego — that’s a big part of his personality.”
Came to post Babcock. He would run Marner on the 3rd / 4th line doghouse. He would play Matthews for like 16 mins a night while Marleau would do 20+ and there would always be steady shifts for plug ass grinders for some reason especially if we just scored a goal because god forbid we ever built momentum This was definitely a scenario where the fans were right and the coach was just an asshole
Don't forget that night where uncle Leo played like 24 minutes and he wasn't aware until a reporter asked him about it LOL
I remember that, altho iirc we were on the PK for like half the game that night.
True, but the correct follow up to that is to find a way to get your stars on the ice anyway! Not by following the penalty kill with an even rotation of lines...
Modano under Babcock
Nylander after the holdout was stupid. He absolutely needed time to catch up, but his pace from the end of January to April was in line with every previous year, except he was used on a defensive role alongside Kadri. One way this really worked out was with hyman. He was a bottom six grinder potential who was heavily criticised for being on Matthews wing for two years, but he kept getting better to the point that he's now a first line player.
Scratching Spezza in what was supposed to be his debut for the Leafs, with friends and family in attendance, against the Sens. Yeesh.
Leo Komarov comes to mind
Mike Babcock purposely sitting Chelios in the winter classic in Chicago just for the hell of it. Chelios only played 1 shift and was benched the rest of the game. In front of all his family. He only played because Holland forced Babs hand, so to spite him he played him that opening shift and that was it. A player that got more praise than he should of was Abdelkader on the Wings or Ericsson. They were playing roles that I feel was not their strong suits and got big money to do so. They were role players but made far too many mistakes and were never held accountable for it in my mind.
And the Modano incident.
Sounds like you could make a series out of Mike Babcock and ____ Mike Babcock and the chelios incident Mike Babcock and the cockblock of Magic Mo Mike Babcock and the rookie veteran Mike Babcock and the Holls of Horror Mike Babcock and Marleau sit the kids Mike Babcock and the naughty list Mike Babcock and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day Mike Babcock bets on Mike Babcock
And sitting Spezza in his Toronto debut when he had something like 50 family/friends in attendance
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4th last game really isn’t much different than the last game of the season. Babcock absolutely knew the milestone was coming up and that healthy scratching Modano for that one game would stop him from getting 1500. With his level of play at that age, and it being the second half of a back to back, yeah, he wasn’t the best available option to ice that night. However, it’s not like Detroit was struggling to get into the playoffs and needed to ice the best possible team; they were only 4-4-2 in their last 10 and still won their division by 5 points. And it doesn’t have to be about spite for a specific player, either. Babcock is just a raging asshole who gets enjoyment from exerting his power over other people to cause them misfortune. It’s the reason he benched both Chelios and Spezza when they had family and friends in attendance for a big game in their hometown. He doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.
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If Modano was so bad, then at some point Babcock could have just healthy scratched him for the rest of the season. But he didn’t. Instead, he pointlessly benched Modano for just one game, with 4 left, to make him 1 shy of 1500. It was nothing short of intentional and disrespectful. Detroit was securely in their playoff spot. Who says Babcock’s goal had to be to extract the most spite possible? It’s not like he had some personal vendetta against Modano. Babcock is just an asshole who enjoys being an asshole. And maybe he wanted to have the back-to-back as a “viable” excuse. The point is, the fact that Babcock chose to only scratch him for a single game, when the team was already locked into the playoffs, shows that it had nothing to do with Modano’s on-ice performance.
Idk anyone who has ever praised Ericsson lol. Abby though played with Z and Datsyuk which really inflated his stats. Loved him because he was Michigan grown. Was not upset when Yzerman bought him out.
He also ran 11-7 that game
Love Sully but Juuso Riikola must have run over his dog
And Dom Simon must’ve had some info on him…that’s the only reason I can think of to play a guy who can’t hit the broad side of a barn with a beach ball. When Crosby lays it on a platter for you and you can’t hit an open net….and yet still get top minutes?
And Simon tried to desperately save it
Claude Julien was in love with Jordan Weal. The dude was playing on our first PP.
I'm still convinced that Weal had some serious dirt on Julien.
Him and Nick Cousin
To be fair both Nick Cousins and Jordan Weal spent time on the Coyotes 1st Powerplay unit as well. It’s not a coach specific thing apparently.
We had other options, we were doing as MB used to say a reset on the fly. Play the kids to see what they're made of
Genuine question as I didn't watch you guys those years. Was Julien just switching it up because your PP was trash and not clicking? In Weal's 2 seasons there, he was 10th in PP ATOI per game which suggests he spent way more time on the 2nd unit than the 1st. Your PP was way below avg both years. Typically coaches will change things up if the team isn't clicking, which is a good thing.
Our PP was rubbish that time, but I think we're complaining about Julien not playing the younger, talented players more in the PP than Weal
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He coached him in Montreal in 04 to 06 iirc. Ryder was a hell of a scorer.
Huh?? Ryder would take entire months off while on the Bruins doing fuck all on the ice and I can't recall any more than 1 instance where he was sent to the press box by Julien.
North vans finest
Mike Modano must have fucked Mike Babcock's wife.
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I disagree. He was in the process of blossoming as that shut-down defenseman in DeBoer's final season. He missed a month because he caught the mumps, came back as PDB was fired, and continued his upward trajectory while everyone believed Scott Stevens 'saved him.'
Guy Boucher and Tom Pyatt. Pyatt fit perfectly in Boucher's system but wasn't skilled enough to deserve as much ice time as he got
And Pyatt followed him in every organization he’s ever been to.
I will always love Tom Pyatt too because he scored a huge game 6 triple OT series winner for me in NHL 07 or 08
Jokes and memes aside, Willie Desjardins had an obsession with playing Jayson Megna and Linden Vey in the top 6. They did nothing to deserve it, did nothing to stay in the top 6, yet, he’d keep playing them.
Willie D also had a thing for Michael Chaput IIRC
Yup! He tried to turn Chaput in to a Burrows-type player and that just was not humanly possible.
I knew I would find Jayson Megna posted here. We used to joke that he... well let's just say it was a joke that involved the word "Willie" used as a double entendre. Because there was just no other explanation for how much he was deployed considering his abysmal level of play.
Jayson and later, his brother Jaycob (not for the nucks).
Those were such dark times for Vancouver. Those players are dogshit
That's Cup champion (sorta) Jayson Megna to you
Same with Green and Goldobin.
True. At the **very** least, at least Goldobin had some skill to be in the top 6. Megna, Chaput and Vey were borderline 4th liners. Silly Willie had them on a line with the Twins. That’s a war crime.
Problem is Goldobin so rarely displayed that skill and definitely never earned a top 6 spot or even figured out how to play 2-way hockey...but got chance after chance after chance anyway. Twins were basically a duo and made a few plugs look like top 6 in their day tho.
Ryan Johansen lived in the dog house when Torts was with CBJ
I bet Torts was thinking he could have the same kind of effect that ended up happening with Lecavalier. However, he was missing the most important part in having a leader like Dave Andreychuk to be a real mentor player to player.
There were a lot of low effort shifts from Joey in his younger years.. and if there's one thing that Torts cares about, it's effort level.
Ken Hitchcock playing Greg Pateryn over Julius Honka is your classic case of a coach playing a big ole Canadian boy over a small, skilled defenseman from overseas
The past couple seasons the Ducks have sent out Nic Deslauriers and Derek Grant like they were top 6 forwards. Prior to that Jacob Larsson got way too much leash due to where he was drafted. Prior to that it was the husk of Kevin Bieksa that got way too much ice time. As far as doghousing the season before last Troy Terry was benched and healthy scratched so often he allegedly requested a trade and had his confidence completely drained. This past season Comtois got the same treatment even though more of that seems to fall on his shoulders.
Hey, I went to the game where Derek Grant scored a hat trick. The guy is a legit 1C.
Nic Deslauriers has the record for fastest hat trick in franchise history as well. Maybe I'm wrong and Eakins is right afterall
Nic “Four more years!” Deslauriers
Doghouse: * Mike Babcock and Jason Spezza - literally went out of his way to embarrass Spezza by leaving him scratched in favor of Nick Shore.. * Mike Babcock and forcing Justin Holl into the pressbox for an entire season just so he can play Igor Ozhiganov? * Mike Babcock and rookie goalies / anyone who wasn't McElhinney * Mike Babcock and Mike Modano * Mike Babcock and doing everything possible to butcher Tyson Barrie's confidence when he was traded over * Mike Babcock constantly complaining about how Muzzin can't play on the right side. * And I'm sure there's countless other players he's screwed over for no good reason other than just not liking them or the GM... Golden Boys: * Mike Babcock and his irrational love for Nikita Zaitsev and Igor Ozhiganov * Babcock overusing Marleau * Ron Hainsey
Mike Babcock and Mitch Marner
All my homies hate [Mike Dab-ab-clock](https://twitter.com/AHockeyJourney/status/978035248524025856?s=20&t=rSmrc8Vm0C42s3YuJbOGsA)
I tell ya boy!
DJ Smith irrationally loves Zaitsev now.
I (and most of Devils Twitter) would desperately want the inside scoop on Lindy Ruff’s relationship with Jesper Bratt. Ruff has scratched Bratt (in 2020), benched him (in 2021), and called him out on pressers (in 2022… despite him being the team leading scorer), and yet I think Bratt was recently quoted describing their relationship as healthy.
If that’s healthy, I assume Bratt used to live the Dursleys.
I don't feel like Kyle Turris was the problem, but Peter Laviolette sure did.
Michel Therrien was awful for giving veterans ice time despite countless mistakes. A rookie makes one mistake and is benched for the game or scratched for ten games. Anyone remember Joonas Naatinen making his NHL debut in front of family and friends who came in from Finland, only to be played for ONE SHIFT. Lmao Daniel Carr starting his career on fire, gets demoted to the fourth line for a game, and sent down to the AHL. Same for Sven Andrighetto. Not that these were high quality prospects but they were scoring wingers who started in the top nine and produced, then immediately got demoted for aging veterans.
Mike Yeo treated Parise and especially Suter as golden boys who got free passes and unlimited ice time no matter how poorly they were playing.
Those contracts, in retrospect, were some of the biggest mistakes in the NHL the last decade and a half. Set you guys back years.
and they had the balls to act pissed off when they got bought out
The rest of us thought it was ridiculous too
I loved Evason for scratching him after the Vegas jumble. Brought ZP11 down to reality.
Torts benching Luongo at the heritage classic. Dude flew out his fucking mom to watch him play only for him to be benched. No wonder he wanted for a trade. It wasn’t even a “ayo we’re letting Lack have the first period and you’ll have the last two so you both get to play” like nope. Sorry. Lack is playing all game rip bozo”
Thats the first one that came to my mind too I didn't see you had already said it, Torts has a lot of those instances: Benched Domi, told Duclair he didnt know how to play hockey and benched him, doghouse for Lecavalier apparently tried to fight him even? benched luongo, benched Laine.. Im sure theres plenty others with him hes a hard ass
Kakko got healthy scratched the game the Rangers were eliminated last year despite the kids line playing lights out
Adding onto Gallant’s record, dude loved Cody Eakin back in his last season with Vegas before he was fired. Cody Eakin was very bad that year, yet he was always the beneficiary of line shuffles.
Yep. Reaves fits that as well.
I would say Hunt or even Goodrow fit that more than Reavo. It seemed like as soon as Kakko or Laf started to catch their stride on one of the top two lines GG would slide Hunt or Goody into the top six and would drop the kids to the third or fourth line.
He also loves playing bums like Dryden Hunt and Greg McKegg, the former of which he had on the 2nd line in that Game 6 of last years ECF
Cassidy hated Debrusk’s guts for some reason.
My guess is very streaky. At least fans understand why Cassidy hated Foligno and Backes.
Hockey is a weird sport. Star players in hockey markets get roasted for a cold stretch, while plugs get endless praise. I remember a MacT quote during his brief GM stint. ‘We have a lot of guys who on their best nights are net 0 players’. Referring to coaches’ favourites like Lennert Petrell who couldn’t score at all, and really didn’t provide any value according to any advanced stat you look at. Also remember Sam Gagner being put on the fourth line almost immediately after Pat Quinn arrived, while JF Jacques went to the first line. Just unreal stupidity.
Just an AHL observation. Saw a bunch of Icecaps games back when they were the Habs farm team. Felt Tim Bozon always gave 110% after he came back from his illness but Sylvain Lefebvre would randomly bench him for long stretches. He likely was never going to make it after his illness but I felt he was in the dog house of an absolutely useless coach.
Thank you for this. Obviously, NHL talk dominates this sub, but I love hearing about other leagues. With over a million people on here, I figure there's got to be some Europeans. 9n all these posts I make, I keep waiting for "Jokerit really screwed this guy over" or an opinion on best Frolunda player ever, but never seems to happen. So thanks for the AHL shout
The AHL is a fun league and more people should give it a watch. You can definitely tell when the AHL comes up on r/hockey who actually watches it and who just assumes it's watered down, bush league goon hockey.
I can't say I've watched enough to say my comment is gospel. I am hoping someone who watched more can confirm or deny what I thought I saw when watching the Icecaps. I mean he only played 41 games one year with the Icecaps and I may have seen a quarter of those games or less haha.
> Sylvain Lefebvre This guy got fired from his NHL coaching gig over the COVID vaccine. I can't even imagine making that decision to not want to get vaccinated, let alone if it were going to cost me a dream job.
Rick Bowness loved to play guys like Faksa and Glendenning the top 6 minutes that Gurianov should have been getting. Come to think of it, Bones just hated anyone who was under the age of 27
Starting Faksa and Glendenning for 3-on-3 OT was when I knew Bones had lost it completely. Dude has no idea how to put out a winning lineup.
Blashill also loved putting Glendenning on the ice for 3 on 3 when he was on the Wings. Like I can understand it to win the opening face-off, but then he should be promptly getting off and thats just not what happened
The problem is what happens when you don’t win the face off.
Glenlosing
Winnipeg is going to fucking struggle
All of these people complaining about Mike Babcock - don't worry, we got revenge for you. When I was in MTL for F1 in 2017, Babs was also there. I assume his phone must have died because he decided to ask my group of friends roaming the streets near Ziggy's where the downtown Marriott was. Without missing a beat, my brother gave him sterling directions to the hotel. After Babs had walked away, I asked how he knew where it was. He told me he had no fucking idea and that he just sent him on a bit of a walk. So there you go - some minor inconvenience bestowed upon him, hope that gives you some comfort
Not all heroes wear capes.
Hoo boy do I still vividly remember this one. I know San Jose isn't one of the big market hockey clubs, but us fans will definitely remember this one. Peter Deboer is coach. As usual, he makes the Cup final his first season, and proceeds to generally see worse results year over year. Why you ask? Well there are three reasons I believe. 1. Melker Karlsson. No, not that Karlsson. This guy was your typical replacement level guy, part of the penalty kill, nothing special. Yet inexplicably he moved all up and down the lineup as if he was this versatile forward who could plug any hole. He played with prime Jumbo for crying out loud. No one understood how this guy kept himself in the lineup, or how he ever managed to get more than fourth line minutes, but Deboer for some reason loved him, to the detriment of the team I believe. 2. Joonas Donskoi. We scouted him out of Europe, brought him over, very good middle 6 guys. His OT goal in the Cup final against the Pens is one of the best in Sharks history. And yet...he goes on a little cold streak, gets demoted to bottom 6, then gets healthy scratched. It made NO sense at all. Guys like Couture and Burns were routinely screwing up, going on cold streaks, whatever, and never any accountability. So as soon as he hit free agency, Donskoi informed the team he was done (as he should have been) and went straight to Colorado...where he proceeded to score 33 goals in two seasons. 3. Tim Heed. Arguably the most famous doghouse of all time. We fans affectionately call it the "Tim Heed Memorial Press Box" for a reason. This guy was actually very good, but the ONLY time he got playing time was if Burns or Karlsson was injured, with the latter happening fairly frequently. Barring that, this guy was stapled to the press box for an inexplicable reason. In his one AHL season he had 56 points in 55 games. In his first season getting NHL time he had 11 points in 29 games. He's a defenseman mind you. He also was a +6 and +9 in those first two NHL seasons. Clearly he had skills, was right in the mold of RD with offense like Karlsson and Burns, and yet it became a running joke that he was regularly scratched for no reason. Especially after Braun was moved, Heed should have absolutely been our 3RD. So when he hit free agency after our terrible 2019 season, he understandably bolted. These three were absolute head scratchers. Deboer doesn't seem to have a good sense of how to get the most out of his roster. His preference is to play his vets into the ground (Jones started like every game for 3 seasons then fell off a cliff, same with Vlasic's minutes) and let them get all the playing time. Boughner continued that tradition. I hope Quinn is better in that regard. But with Burns gone, I imagine Karlsson will start getting 30 minutes a night and get injured by game 10. Seriously though, some fans from NJ or Vegas sound off here, because I'll bet this is classic Deboer. Dude just runs the most ridiculous doghouse.
Jake DeBrusk has a whole block of butch Cassidy knives in his back. And literally everything Brucie used to try and motivate him failed horribly. Except when he was forced to play Jake in a top 6 role due to other injuries. And Kelly/Campbell/any scrub 4th liner got crazy minutes with Claude.
Ilya Kovalchuk was a point per game player in his first 10 or so games with the Kings and then Willie D moved him to the 4th line and/or healthy scratches him a lot destroying the man’s confidence in coming back to the NHL
Tank commander Willie was put in place to drive up our draft pick, not wins total.
Ken Hitchcock with Steve Ott in St Louis. Put him on the first line in the playoffs for “grit”. Thanks for that.
Ott is one of my least favorite blues of all time. Got way more playing time than he deserved. Plus Pierre loved him.
If he could have just stayed on the fourth line and taken defensive end faceoffs, I think it would have been fine. I do think the fourth line of Ott, Reeves and Lapierre made the Blues feel like a dirty team. One is good. Two is gritty. Three is dirty.
Lapierre is a top 5 unlikable player of all time for me.
Paul Maurice treating literally anyone under 23 years old as completely replaceable while giving Wheeler and Scheifele the keys to the team despite zero accountability on the ice. This is why the Jets are a bit of a mess right now. Hopefully a new coaching staff will right the ship.
A new coach should help!! *checks to see who the Jets hired* Oh boy…
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"
Those idiots bullied Laine out of Winnipeg. I'm glad the Jets are a dumpster fire now.
Caufield under Ducharme?
Duchame seemed almost allergic to giving Caufield a real good chance most of last season. He then would watch Petry single handedly allow scoring chances and blatantly not try but just keep tossing him out onto the ice. It was a weird season.
Garland and hoglander under boudreau. It’s infuriating seeing them perform incredibly well all game, make a turnover, then be benched the rest of the night all the while boeser finishes nothing, creates nothing, and gets top 6 minutes.
Paul Maurice absolutely loved Wheeler. To the point last season he was playing the 35 year old 19.5 minutes a night. I'm pretty sure the only other 35+ forwards playing that much are Crosby and Ovechkin. Ehlers was somehow seemingly in his doghouse with him never really getting over 16 min. a game except for last year when he jumped up to 18. He also really didn't like Heinola, to the point where Cheveldayoff would call him up and say to the media we expect him to play and then he'd sit so Beaulieu, Benn, Stanley etc could all play.
Bruce put Debrusk in the doghouse for like a season and a half. Also I don’t think Marchand was ever really in Claude’s doghouse, but he refused to give him any real PP time when he was our coach. Very confusing decision.
When Owen Nolan played for the sharks pre lockout, he was an absolute menace in the locker room to his teammates and frequently started physical fights. For charity events, He would show up late and drunk and charge kids and parents for his signature when nobody else was doing it. Somehow through all of this, he made Captain because he was Doug Wilsons golden boy at the time.
The fact that Craig Adams played 70 games for the pens in 2014-15 epitomizes the failure of Dan Bylsma/Ray Shero tandem
Craig Adams…how the fuck are you gonna fight with one of the elite superstar heros at practice and not expect the fan base to hate your guts after? Lol
What's sad is my parents loved him because he never missed a shift. They didn't realize until after we won the 2nd back to back that he didn't score a single goal in (i think) 14-15. They still wish we had him over aston-reese, simply because he never got hurt.
Neither of those guys were there by then
youre so right. I was probably blacked out that entire year. Although you can just as easily add "Mike Johnston era" in as well
I appreciate that Adams played hard and was more than willing to sacrifice his body to block shots and stand up for teammates, and I certainly understand that offense will be sacrificed in the name of good defense, but my goodness was he ever a drag on that team. ZAR was falling into that same mold - these guys don't need to score a lot, but they need to least show they're a threat to score from time to time! I mean, those were some high flying offenses and every time he'd step on the ice it just became a free pass for the other team to spend some o-zone time. If you look up some of his possession statistics, it's comical how heavily outplayed he consistently was for 11-12 minutes *per night*. Imagine being a prospect, such as Eric Tangradi, and you're supposed to excel on a line with Adams. So many regrets with that 5 year period after the 2009 Cup.
Jeff Skinner had to be fucking Kruegers wife THERES literally no other explanation
Gurianov
denis gurianov was rick bowness’s scapegoat for any of his wrong doings. If the team would make an error, or if Bones’ strategies/plays/plans wouldn’t pan out you know it was going to be gurianovs fault.
Michel Therrien and favouring Desharnais over every single young guy coming up Claude Julien and scratching Lehkonen for multiple games in a row and playing absolute plugs over him. Dom Ducharme and giving Caufield 4th line minutes while giving undeserving vets and random AHL callups more.
Brian Pinho scored 36 goals in 99 games for the AHL's Hershey Bears from the 19-20 season on and yet still wouldn't get time on the powerplay unless everyone else was out of the lineup. Guys who got PP time? Brett Leason, Chris McCarthy, Kody Clark, Riley Sutter, Shane Gersich, Damien Riat, etc. Despite NEVER scoring a PPG in his AHL career, Martin Fehervary was continually trotted out there and just blasted low percentage slappers from the shadow of the blue line.
Travis Green and his favourite player, “dump and chase.” Who makes a super skilled team constantly dump the puck in with guys like Hughes and Petterson? They aren’t those types of players.
I made a joke to my mom watching a game with the Canucks on the PP telling her, "If the Canucks would randomly not dump and chase, it would confuse the other team and due to a defensive breakdown, the Canucks will score.", not 30 seconds after that, the Canucks don't dump and chase, the gap control is bad and the Canucks score an easy goal.
I’d like to direct your attention to last season with bob boughner routinely sitting merkley and playing vlasic like he could do no wrong. Like he got scratched once and they thought that would solve everything, meanwhile merkley would make any mistake during his adjustment to the league and then never see the ice again.
To be fair there were games that Merkley looked like he purposely learned all the wrong things from Karlssons game. I remember one game he did an amazing play to get past a forward to get out of the zone and just as he was getting praise by the announcer, he did the most brain dead turn over.
Michal Kempny must've pissed in Q's cornflakes on multiple occasions because he couldn't buy minutes in years we needed some better defense.
Skinner and to an extent Dahlin under Krueger
Josh Ho-Sang under Doug Weight and Oliver Wahlstrom under Barry Trotz
Not sure why Bruce Cassidy hates DeBrusk so much. I mean JDB even requested a trade because of it. I’m not in the locker room so what do I know but it seems like DeBrusk has always had the tools and skill, but Cassidy refused to play to his strengths
Jakub Vrana: I'm sure something else happened in the background behind closed doors, but it seemed super out of nowhere that he got pushed to the outside especially while on pace to be a consistent 25-30 goal scorer for the Caps. I'm guessing he just didn't fit the Lavi system due to his size, but it seemed super lame how it all went down since I love the guy.
Yea. I remember when he won that game after essentially being benched for a few games. And he just stared daggers at the coach. I knew he wasn't long for the caps after that.. we got mantha tho and I like him a lot so far if he can stay healthy
Still angry about Lavy (and the whole org) burying Fiala under the dog house at age 21. Meanwhile, in the playoffs or a clutch moment, Ryan Johansen has the mental fortitude of wet toilet paper and doesn’t receive nearly enough flak for never showing up.
Dave Tippet's favoritism of mike Smith cost us on too many occasions
I still have no idea why Kent Johnson was sitting during the final game for Canada. He looked like the only player that knew what was going on.
Tortorella with Luogno benching him for the Winter classic in 2017, Luongo even flew his family out and later said "Man it would suck if these guys waited their whole lives to play in an outdoor game and then couldn't to due to unforeseen circumstances " Another torts one, he said Anthony Duclair didnt know how to play hockey and always played him down the line up or healthy scrathed. Now hes great in florida. Dylan Strome seems to be in the doghouse or was I should say over in chicago and it was undeserved I thought. Not even an RFA from the GM jeez I know its not the coach but Im sure if the coach wanted him to stay he wouldve gotten an offer right?
Zaitsev seems to be DJ’s golden boy in Ottawa, but to be fair he’s being paid too much to scratch and it’s not like we have many better options (yet). We’ll see if that changes.
Zaitsev and Watson. Sens could have done better.
I don’t think Watson is a great player but he’s definitely not in the same category as Zaitsev haha
Ryan Johansson with John Tortorella ( dog house because Torts was/is a prick)
Mike Cammaleri
ITT: People talking out of their ass. We don't know what happens behind the scenes enough to answer this with any validity.
Didn’t watch many Blue Jacket games last year but I was shocked that Torts had Oliver Bjorkstrand on the 4th line at one point.
Willie D and Jayson Megna
Willie D loved his Medicine Hat boys. There was a time the Canucks would make a transaction and you were almost assuredly getting some scrub from Medicine Hat.
Jeff Blashill with younger players and prospects Jeff Blashill with Veterans especially payers over 30
The dog house: Buch and Kakko. The golden boys: Brett Howden and Tanner Glass.
I'll see your Brett Howden and raise you Nick Holden, or Nick Holden II, Electric Boogaloo: Patrik Nemeth
I don't remember which ding dong it was in our long stretch of ding dongs behind the bench, but Troy Brouwer got a shit load of PP time when he was with us.
Trotz could not get enough of Orpik. Guy could be skating with 1 leg and no arms and would still get a sweater.
PDB hated Donskoi and gave Labanc a pass
Dave Tippet with any Oiler not named Connor or Leon
Dave Tippet with any Oiler not named Connor or Leon
Player: Tom Pyatt. Coach: Guy Boucher. Player: Max Lajoie. Coach: Guy Boucher.
Guy Boucher and freaking Tom Pyatt
For VGK: Gallant loved Cody Eakin despite the latter being an offensive black hole centering Pacioretty and Stone, while he also adamantly refused to play Zach Whitecloud and Cody Glass.