Coyotes 5, Islanders 1: Hand Shane Doan His Hat Trick

I’m not saying Capuano is the answer but….c’mon.
The Isles have 1 D-man that is playing like a Top 4 DMan right now. 1 D-Man

You really think this is about effort? There are a lot of guys that are giving their heart and Soul out there every night. Lots of guys. And I see many of the young players developing nicely in some aspects of the game.

What you are watching is learning, growing pains, typical rebuild stuff.

Its not easy…but I get so frustrated with fans that post silly comments like….‘Drop this guy’ or ‘fire this coach’. You have to look at the product as a whole and look at how the parts of the whole relate to one another. There are good things happening from a development standpoint. There are LEARNING and learning takes time and almost always includes LOSING…and LOSING SUCKS.

But to point to a one issues or one person and say that is the problem that will solve everything…..its silly.

They need help everywhere and at some point a new coach may or may not be part of a solution but be fair and look at what Capuano is working with in many respects.

I think the Isles can send Nino to Portland at any time; his ELC won’t slide this year, is all.

Why else was Reese called up when there were enough guys to play? Garth hasnt protected him from waivers so far just to bring him up and have him exposed- especially since waivers burned him earlier this season with Cozo. I think some players are gonna be gone, since the Isles can afford to waive a few of them now that the seasons moved on and still be cap compliant.

As you may know, I’ve tried to make a similar point as you here a few times over the last year. I always felt Gordon was blamed for stuff he couldn’t control or wasn’t wrong about and on the other hand Capuano credited with things that didn’t happen or at least weren’t induced by his work. So, I do think it’s not all coaching and I know very well what you’re talking about here. But yeah, in this case my perspective is a bit different.

While the start of the last season of course needs to be taken into account when talking about Gordon’s tenure here, I think season 09-10 is telling us much more about stuff like how well his systems worked, etc. There’s no doubt his crisis management and some other decisions were bad there in November 2010 and he was at least partly responsible for that awful month indeed, but I don’t think that stretch should be taken into account too much when grading the fundamentals, his systems and stuff, or the potential of the current group. Injuries and other things were just too much of a factor there. So, I feel too often 09-10 gets forgotten when we’re talking about Gordon’s coaching – instead it should be the focal point.

I still think 79 points was a huge success that year and they have some work to do if they want to achieve the same number this season. For now, they’ve been a slightly worse team at EV this season if you go by Fenwick. And the big difference is that they’re close to 48% this year thanks to JT, while they were a bit over 48% in spite of JT. The progress of JT’s been enormous for them, he’s gone from 43.4% in Fenwick with the score tied in 09-10 to 52% Fenwick with the score tied this season. And he’s even playing tougher minutes now. Also, back in 09-10 he had a stretch of 30 games with Fenwick score tied at 38.4%. Picture the current team with JT in that state…
Anyway, back then they seemed to find a way to be effective without relying on a #1 center heavily. Clearly, this also had to with a more balanced roster and guys like Bergenheim, the whole 4th line (Thompson-Park-Jackman) or also Meyer and Hillen playing some effective hockey for them. But I doubt overall that roster was better than the current one if you adjust for the progress of JT, the additional experience of Okposo, Moulson, Bailey or the acquisitions of PA, Grabner, Hamonic. So, although you can always put a lot of it on Garth and I certainly do blame him for quite a lot of this indeed, I do believe the coaching must have made a difference. Otherwise that team doesn’t outplay the current one.

And the difference for me is that too often Capuano just isn’t finding ways for them to be at their best. He isn’t finding them for individuals (Schremp, Comeau, maybe Bailey, mabye Okposo until very recently) and other than riding the best players as heavily as possible I haven’t seen much leading to a series of five, six good games in a row.

I don’t think we can really observe much of the crucial things – the systems, the teaching, the coaching on the fly. But the little things we see (lineup decisions, progress of the individuals) and “Pretty Good Idiot” mentions above are not very encouraging at all for me to believe Capuano is getting the key stuff right.
Again, I know it’s the easy way to blame the coach and we can’t even observe a whole lot of the key processes. And I apparently couldn’t do it while Gordon was here, either, but I just felt he was finding ways while Capuano isn’t. That’s the impression I have based on their underlyings, the results, how they achieve them and what’s going on on the ice. While they’re clearly not getting the results they’d deserve (very low PDO at EV) I still think you just need to be better with this roster. And I think there are coaches out there who’d find ways to be better.

Every once and a while you see a flash of the Gremlin’s speed, then hibernation. Still hurt? I would hate to think it’s lack of effort.

And Streit continues to have all sorts of problems handling the puck. He’s never been a Norris Trophy candidate, but stickhandling and passing’s certainly never been a problem for him. I can’t believe that the shoulder is fine. Or maybe he’s got some other nagging injury, like when Peca played his whole first year with the Isles injured.

Did the Isles have to stay on the ice for the centr ice faceoff with .1 left? That would seem cruel after waiting for the hats to get cleared away.

As much as I like the guy, absolutely no way do I see them parting with Larsson for Streit… the Isles would have to throw in something BIG- and do they do that? I dont think so.

trading the Captain. He doesn’t go from being one of the central parts of this team (which he HAD to be in order to be named Captain in the first place) to trade bait in three months, no matter how disappointing this season has been.

I’d instantly get his jersey

Actually, re-reading my post, I pose a question…do we have a long way to go? Looking at this, we actually have a roster of young, relatively talented forwards that, coached right, could grow into Stanley Cup caliber second and third lines. That leaves four holes…

o Two forwards to play alongside JT
o Two top-pair of D

Strome looks like he could be on his way to filling one of those holes. It seems like I’m one of the few pro-Nino guys around here sometimes, but I haven’t been nearly as disenchanted with his play, and am still hopeful that he could be the third piece of that line.

That leaves the top-pair D hole, which can be filled by a top 3 or 5 draft pick this year, or some offseason moves or trades. Right? So maybe in fact another draft or Garth finally making a big move can be the catalyst for a sudden turnaround in this franchise?

I’m sure somebody did it in OT….or in the playoffs in double OT or something. You can tweet to Eric Hornick…the guy knows (or can find out) just about anything.

“last season they finished a fairly cohesive unit. They lost plenty of games, but they played well enough to look like a real team—albeit an undermanned one.”

They chased off all their heart and grit for Pandalfo, Wallace, Rolston and Reasoner.

It wouldn’t matter who we got rid of though, when those guys are what you get in return. What have any of them done? Really? Have any of them made a memorable play all year long?

And they still have fucking jobs. You think the guys on the team who actually earned their spot aren’t turned off by these coasters? If this was your job and Brian Rolston showed up and took your perks and got paid more than you for doing nothing and not earning his spot, how would you feel? I’d be pissed, and it might affect my performance. It’s human nature.

Goalies are being run, tonight Nabby was getting hit with a stick while Eaton and Wallace watched, last year in the 2nd half, our kids skated around and had space and teams quit bullying us. So how do we repay them? We sign pandalfo. let the bullying commence. . Yuck.

let’s look at it then. The team did begin to play much better last season (and there are a ton of interconnected variables so whatever) when Eaton and Mottau were gone. They were replaced by younger faster players in Hillen and Reese and Gervais right?

I’d like to look up the Isles record with either or both or those two in and those two out, because I suspect it’s vastly different. And apparently, the Jurcina anomaly only works (he’s effective when) he’s paired with a speedy defender (Reese/Hillen), so that may play a part in it. Even this season, he doesn’t look bad with Streit or Reese, but with Mottau and Eaton he looks terrible (and worse with Eaton in my opinion).

And this will be blasphemy of course, but on the eye test, I think Eaton actually looks worse than Mottau out there…or more to the point, Eaton’s partners always seem to look worse than Mottau’s partners out there.

I was looking at some of the shift charts, and it looks like over the past couple of games there’s been times where Cappy has experimented with the D pairs (and guys that don’t usually play together), I’m almost wondering if there’s been some confusion as to ‘which side’ they think they’re supposed to be covering because I’ve seen a few times where both D men are in the same spot on the same side of the ice.