Evanson

[Jimtown guy]

Right here is why I think it’s time to move on from Evanson. Has he ever taken responsibility with the dismal special teams? 
 

 

[Starofthenorth]

2 hours ago, Jimtown guy said:

Right here is why I think it’s time to move on from Evanson. Has he ever taken responsibility with the dismal special teams? 
 

 

Maybe he should sit down with Mike Yeo in the off season and go back and watch the video on that to find the solution. 

[ClusterChuck]

I'm not ready to pull the plug on Evason. I like many of his ways for the team and a few drive me nuts.
He got the players to function as a team for once and had many (if not all) going that extra effort most of the season.
Made the D way more aggressive in the O-Zone, Huge change from previous teams.
Make some coaching changes (PP for sure) and see how it goes.
Isn't that why you have all these specialty coaches? To make those decisions...Sure Evason should've been more assertive towards his staff as I'd have to think he knew the PP was a problem that wasn't going to fix itself by doing the same thing over and over.

Edited May 13, 2022 by ClusterChuck

[Jimtown guy]

20 minutes ago, ClusterChuck said:

I'm not ready to pull the plug on Evason. I like many of his ways for the team and a few drive me nuts.
He got the players to function as a team for once and had many (if not all) going that extra effort most of the season.
Made the D way more aggressive in the O-Zone, Huge change from previous teams.
Make some coaching changes (PP for sure) and see how it goes.
Isn't that why you have all these specialty coaches? To make those decisions...Sure Evason should've been more assertive towards his staff as I'd have to think he knew the PP was a problem that wasn't going to fix itself by doing the same thing over and over.

Like I said if he’s gone tonight won’t blink. The special teams was the teams demise and he did nothing about it. And that’s probably the number one reason they are getting tee times in my book along with the defense 

[Alexandron]

For the last 3 years we always had consistent problems in scoring and winning in our Division against Colorado, St.Louis and Nashville teams. It seems these teams are our barrier which we are not capable to pass including playoffs time too. 

[ClusterChuck]

37 minutes ago, Alexandron said:

For the last 3 years we always had consistent problems in scoring and winning in our Division against Colorado, St.Louis and Nashville teams. It seems these teams are our barrier which we are not capable to pass including playoffs time too. 

I fully understand yours and JTG's viewpoint on all this.
I just can't include the previous 2 years as a measuring stick for reasons stated...(and more)
Having somewhat a 'normal' season we obviously didn't have trouble scoring like previous years. *See records broken  
I think Evason in the fact knows the Iowa boys, He should get the chance to coach them in the bigs. Better than bringing in a retread old vet coach who has no experience with them and says "Play MY way or else".
If guys like Trotz are so good, Then why are they always available every couple years.

While we went to GM 7 vs VGK last year, The common denominator was 1 thing ...Fleury. 
We got to GM 7 because of him and only game 6 for the same reason. We had his # last couple years and he's waaaay past prime and even a year older with us.
I love the guy as a person and as a solid veteran player but he wasn't going to be the magic that we needed for a long run.
Did Evason make this decision to roll with him? I'm not so sure...I think BG said, This is why we got him...Play him !!

Being the sour taste is still in the mouths of all of us, I'm not into knee-jerk reactions right now. There's so much to be decided in these few months and I'll be very curious to see what happens.

[Alexandron]

I think we need to look for more talent capable to score in extremely difficult time , including the 4th line. Our line #4 was not productive even when we had a high scoring chances . 

Interesting, , I would blame our loss in game 5 (home ice) on our 100.3FM radio commentators. By the end of 2nd period we had a score 2:2 and they said that Tarasenko is invisible for these playoffs series because he wanted to be traded to other club. Then as soon as they said that, he placed a hat trick during a 3rd period. And we lost this game 2:5. Our entire team was not able to do anything to change the score. In game 6 I even did not recognize our team. It was completely changed. The loss in game 5 affected them badly?

[Jimtown guy]

14 minutes ago, ClusterChuck said:

I fully understand yours and JTG's viewpoint on all this.
I just can't include the previous 2 years as a measuring stick for reasons stated...(and more)
Having somewhat a 'normal' season we obviously didn't have trouble scoring like previous years. *See records broken  
I think Evason in the fact knows the Iowa boys, He should get the chance to coach them in the bigs. Better than bringing in a retread old vet coach who has no experience with them and says "Play MY way or else".
If guys like Trotz are so good, Then why are they always available every couple years.

While we went to GM 7 vs VGK last year, The common denominator was 1 thing ...Fleury. 
We got to GM 7 because of him and only game 6 for the same reason. We had his # last couple years and he's waaaay past prime and even a year older with us.
I love the guy as a person and as a solid veteran player but he wasn't going to be the magic that we needed for a long run.
Did Evason make this decision to roll with him? I'm not so sure...I think BG said, This is why we got him...Play him !!

Being the sour taste is still in the mouths of all of us, I'm not into knee-jerk reactions right now. There's so much to be decided in these few months and I'll be very curious to see what happens.

For some reason Evanson just kind of rubs me the wrong way. Not sure what the heck it is but I’m just not a big fan. Great post CC by the way. Lot of good points and yes from me it’s probably a knee jerk reaction but I’m sticking with it 

[Alexandron]

42 minutes ago, ClusterChuck said:

I fully understand yours and JTG's viewpoint on all this.
I just can't include the previous 2 years as a measuring stick for reasons stated...(and more)
Having somewhat a 'normal' season we obviously didn't have trouble scoring like previous years. *See records broken  
I think Evason in the fact knows the Iowa boys, He should get the chance to coach them in the bigs. Better than bringing in a retread old vet coach who has no experience with them and says "Play MY way or else".
If guys like Trotz are so good, Then why are they always available every couple years.

While we went to GM 7 vs VGK last year, The common denominator was 1 thing ...Fleury. 
We got to GM 7 because of him and only game 6 for the same reason. We had his # last couple years and he's waaaay past prime and even a year older with us.
I love the guy as a person and as a solid veteran player but he wasn't going to be the magic that we needed for a long run.
Did Evason make this decision to roll with him? I'm not so sure...I think BG said, This is why we got him...Play him !!

Being the sour taste is still in the mouths of all of us, I'm not into knee-jerk reactions right now. There's so much to be decided in these few months and I'll be very curious to see what happens.

I think Fleury could be a good goalie coach for our team when he retire. I was expecting him a lot as a solid goalie for the Chicago team, but his results were not too good there.

I was expecting much more from our entire team this season in comparison to the previous seasons. But sadly, that not happened. At least Kaprizov stepped up this playoffs in comparison to the last year. The rest of the team not much.We need more talent insertion capable to score when it matters most. Fiala's talent was very good during the regular season , but was invisible during playoffs. 

 

 

[CreaseAndAssist]

The brutal 2nd half schedule certainly didn't help, but the lack of practices concerns me.  Its tough to expect the power play or penalty kill to improve if you never practice.  It seemed like they had chances / opportunities to practice but they didn't as they valued rest more.  

 

I think the coach would be the one making that decision whether you're going to have practice or not.  

[IllaZilla]

For whatever reason, the Wild have never had great special teams with the exception of the last few seasons with Lemaire and the first season with Boudreau. The rest of the time they've been mediocre at best.

 

Season	Coach	PP Rank	PP %	PK Rank	PK %
2021-22	Evason	18	20.5	25	76.1
2020-21	Evason	24	17.6	12	80.8
2019-20	Boudreau	11	21.3	25	77.2
2018-19	Boudreau	14	20.3	7	81.7
2017-18	Boudreau	17	20.4	13	81.3
2016-17	Boudreau	9	21	8	83
2015-16	Yeo	15	18.5	27	77.9
2014-15	Yeo	27	15.9	1	86.3
2013-14	Yeo	16	17.9	27	78.8
2012-13	Yeo	16	17.9	18	80.7
2011-12	Yeo	27	15.1	15	82.1
2010-11	Richards	13	18.2	14	82.8
2009-10	Richards	10	19.1	14	82.7
2008-09	Lemaire	9	20.1	2	87.6
2007-08	Lemaire	7	18.9	4	85.2
2006-07	Lemaire	6	19	2	86
2005-06	Lemaire	21	17	1	87.4
2004-05	Lemaire	x	x	x	x
2003-04	Lemaire	28	13.6	15	84.5
2002-03	Lemaire	23	14.2	4	86
2001-02	Lemaire	19	14.8	23	82.9
2000-01	Lemaire	30	9.6	11	84.7

[ClusterChuck]

On 6/6/2022 at 6:33 AM, CreaseAndAssist said:

The brutal 2nd half schedule certainly didn't help, but the lack of practices concerns me.  Its tough to expect the power play or penalty kill to improve if you never practice.  It seemed like they had chances / opportunities to practice but they didn't as they valued rest more.  

 

I think the coach would be the one making that decision whether you're going to have practice or not.  

I guess Evason had to balance out game time along with trying to keep players fresh for the PO's.
PK needed the practise but the PP imo was like beating a dead horse. The system/design is flawed compared to watching the PO's and almost all the teams have solid plays and execution. (Even if some are over passing also) 

[Math]

On 6/8/2022 at 11:47 AM, IllaZilla said:

For whatever reason, the Wild have never had great special teams with the exception of the last few seasons with Lemaire and the first season with Boudreau. The rest of the time they've been mediocre at best.

 

Season	Coach	PP Rank	PP %	PK Rank	PK %
2021-22	Evason	18	20.5	25	76.1
2020-21	Evason	24	17.6	12	80.8
2019-20	Boudreau	11	21.3	25	77.2
2018-19	Boudreau	14	20.3	7	81.7
2017-18	Boudreau	17	20.4	13	81.3
2016-17	Boudreau	9	21	8	83
2015-16	Yeo	15	18.5	27	77.9
2014-15	Yeo	27	15.9	1	86.3
2013-14	Yeo	16	17.9	27	78.8
2012-13	Yeo	16	17.9	18	80.7
2011-12	Yeo	27	15.1	15	82.1
2010-11	Richards	13	18.2	14	82.8
2009-10	Richards	10	19.1	14	82.7
2008-09	Lemaire	9	20.1	2	87.6
2007-08	Lemaire	7	18.9	4	85.2
2006-07	Lemaire	6	19	2	86
2005-06	Lemaire	21	17	1	87.4
2004-05	Lemaire	x	x	x	x
2003-04	Lemaire	28	13.6	15	84.5
2002-03	Lemaire	23	14.2	4	86
2001-02	Lemaire	19	14.8	23	82.9
2000-01	Lemaire	30	9.6	11	84.7

 

With no real surprise the Wild had quite a good PK under Lemaire. It's very interesting to see the shift between the percentages and the rank from one year to another: in 2007-08 the PP was at 18.9 and ranked 7th, in 2020-21 it's just like 1% lower but it dropped to the 24th rank. You can see here the game evolution as well.

 

About training the PP, there's no magical recipe. It's really a matter of quickness of execution, quality passes, taking the right decision in a fraction of seconds and have good chemistry between players on the ice. You can't really teach those skills, it's like drawing or maths: either you have it or you don't. You can still work around them to tweaks things but you can't turn them at 180°. The coach responsability here is to find the right players to put together and adapt to the opponent's PK.

 

There's several visions around special teams. I once interviewed former Whaler and Blues Terry Yake who was head coach in Switzerland back at the time (very nice dude by the way). I asked him how he was training the PP, a crucial aspect in the current playoffs and he basically told me that he doesn't train the PP at all, he just let the players sorting things out once on the ice and find solutions by themselves. I was baffled and asked him again if he really wasn't practising this at all and he answered that he believed more in instant intuition than strict PP schemes. On the other hand, former Habs van Boxmeer was more a Lemaire-type coach, very structured and paying attention to details. He trained the PK/PP all the time but in a strange way: for the PP, he was doing  5 vs. 2 and 3 vs. 0 situations. I didn't quite get it but it was how special situations were trained. At the end, both coached had similar efficiencies in those situations with approximately the same roster.

[IllaZilla]

@Math I agree there is no magical recipe to fixing the PP, but to just not practice it and "let the players figure it out for themselves", then why have a coach at all? If you don't need to coach the PP or the PK, then why coach the rest of the game? Just have a GM sign and draft players and then put them on the ice.

 

I don't know if I've heard a dumber comment from a hockey coach. The PP needs to get better, but we're not going to practice it. Well, gee whiz Evason. Why don't you crap in one hand and wish in the other and see which one fills up first...

[Math]

6 hours ago, IllaZilla said:

@Math I agree there is no magical recipe to fixing the PP, but to just not practice it and "let the players figure it out for themselves", then why have a coach at all? If you don't need to coach the PP or the PK, then why coach the rest of the game? Just have a GM sign and draft players and then put them on the ice.

 

I don't know if I've heard a dumber comment from a hockey coach. The PP needs to get better, but we're not going to practice it. Well, gee whiz Evason. Why don't you crap in one hand and wish in the other and see which one fills up first...

 

Yeah, Yake was kind of a freestlyle guy. He was like the twin brother of Steve of Sex And The City (busted...). Easy rollin' and never stressed. No wonder he didn't last long in head coaching though... In some organizations, there's usually one guy dedicated to the special teams and focusing only on that, which makes somehow makes sense, given hoy these situations are crucial in playoffs. This year's Presidents' winner might know something about it... (I'm wondering if Bruno was responsible of the PP there...)

[CreaseAndAssist]

Brunette was responsible for the power play here for a while...and it was horrible.  But still, not to practice if you know something is bad is irresponsible.  It'd be one thing if you've been practicing it and practicing it and it still is just bad...but like @IllaZilla said they were just hoping it would improve on its own.  

 

There is a difference between letting the players play and just avoiding coaching altogether.  IMO, Evason's approach was closer to the latter and not the former and that is troubling.