Blashill had a very poor year

[yave1964]

There is nobody around who has been rooting harder for Jeff Blashill to succeed. As not only a Wings but a Griffins fan as well, I have been impressed with him for several years, and predicted a year before it happened that Babs would leave for Toronto and Blash would get the job. To be honest I really thought it would be seemless as far as transitions go and the Wings would take flight.

 No.

 Blashill did a wretched job with the team, never really got the lines sorted out, lost the locker room according to multiple sources.

 The Wings top scorers have been Tatar, Nyquist, Zetterberg, Datsyuk and Abdelkader with Kronwall on the point. Every single one saw a drop in production, a combined 42 less goals.

  Mike Green was brought in for his offense and slipped.

 Teemu Pulkinnen and Anthony Mantha are the future snipers, neither really got a chance.

 Ericsson slipped. So did Jurco. Miller before his injury was off his game. Helm never found his niche. Richards was good on the power play, hopeless otherwise. Howard was awful.

Dekeyser took a small step forward but not as much as hoped. Sheahan kind of just slid in. Marchenko hit the defensive rotation but was non descript.

  In short of all the Wings players the only ones whom you could make a case had a good year were Larkin who had a great first half but was average at best in the second half, Glendening and Smith. Mrazek was amazing for long stretches but by the second half his confidence began to erode badly.

 

   In short almost every single Wings player had an off year. It is a miracle that they made the postseason. Thank God for a lousy division is all that I can say.

 Nobody understood their role, nobody seemed to know what was expected of them. I refuse to believe that 20 players all suddenly slipped in the same year. It was poor coaching, pure and simple.

 Tatar is unhappy with how he was used. Helm said he never knew his role and is almost certainly gone. Datsyuk is gone. The rumor of a rift between Kronner and Z against the coach. Ugly.

 Can anyone alive come up with a single reason why Z, Pavel, Nyk, Tats, Abby and Kronner would slip by 40 goals scored in a single season other than mismanagement? I seriously cannot. Yes, three are on the wrong side of 30 (hell on the wrong side of 35) but they have aged gracefully until this year. Nyquist and Tatar alone went from a combined 57 goals the year before to 38 this season and neither ever looked comfortable.

  The Wings made the postseason this year, you dont fire a rookie coach for accomplishing that but his leash has to be short going forward. Babcock makes a damn good living with defined roles for the entire team and riding the right players, last year the team that Blash put on the ice night after night was out of step with the coach. Blash took over a solid team that added Larkin, Richards and Green without subtracting any piece of note. I blame him for the debacle that was the 2015-16 lost season. I expected better.

[WingNut722]

@yave1964

 

Wow...

 

That's a pretty scathing critique.  The facts and the stats obviously speak for themselves, but allow me to take the position of defense for Coach Blashill, as everyone is entitled to such ("If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you...").  With great respect, and purely for the sake of good conversation, I submit the following...

 

Blash had some pretty big shoes to fill, which I'm sure you'll admit.  While it may have been time for Mike Babcock to move on, he's still an incredible coach.  All the hype surrounding this coach move in the offseason centered around how similar Blashill was to Babcock.  Hell, they even SOUND the same.  But Blashill is NOT Babcock, and while they may have a number of the same values and core principles, Blash needs to coach to his strengths.  I certainly expect that the players and the front office are aware of this.

 

Second, we on this forum (myself included) have inadvertently lumped this disappointing season in with the last 5 to express our displeasure with the outlook of the Detroit Red Wings franchise.  Jeff Blashill has been head coach in the National Hockey League for a total of one season and has a 100% success rate of making the playoffs during that span.

 

Blash was expected to seamlessly transition having coached so many of the current Wings roster in Grand Rapids.  Jeff Blashill has NEVER coached Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Kronawall, Ericsson, or Abdelkader...a list of players who have played under Babcock for as many as a decade.  Certainly a period of adjustment is warranted.

 

Regardless of who is on the bench, Jeff Blashill, Mike Babcock, Randy Carlysle, Bruce Springsteen, Grandma Moses or Daffy Duck, the responsibility for scoring goals falls completely on the player.  Gustav Nyquist and Tomas Tatar have no one to blame but themselves for refusing to shoot the puck all season.  These are two players who have have been blessed with a scoring talent, but still always want to wait for that perfect opening, which in today's NHL, rarely happens.  

 

As an aside, the caliber of play concerning Mike Green and Brad Richards shouldn't be considered as they did not play for Mike Babcock last season, and an apples-to-apples comparison cannot be made.  

 

[yave1964]

1 hour ago, WingNut722 said:

@yave1964

 

Wow...

 

That's a pretty scathing critique.  The facts and the stats obviously speak for themselves, but allow me to take the position of defense for Coach Blashill, as everyone is entitled to such ("If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you...").  With great respect, and purely for the sake of good conversation, I submit the following...

 

Blash had some pretty big shoes to fill, which I'm sure you'll admit.  While it may have been time for Mike Babcock to move on, he's still an incredible coach.  All the hype surrounding this coach move in the offseason centered around how similar Blashill was to Babcock.  Hell, they even SOUND the same.  But Blashill is NOT Babcock, and while they may have a number of the same values and core principles, Blash needs to coach to his strengths.  I certainly expect that the players and the front office are aware of this.

 

Second, we on this forum (myself included) have inadvertently lumped this disappointing season in with the last 5 to express our displeasure with the outlook of the Detroit Red Wings franchise.  Jeff Blashill has been head coach in the National Hockey League for a total of one season and has a 100% success rate of making the playoffs during that span.

 

Blash was expected to seamlessly transition having coached so many of the current Wings roster in Grand Rapids.  Jeff Blashill has NEVER coached Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Kronawall, Ericsson, or Abdelkader...a list of players who have played under Babcock for as many as a decade.  Certainly a period of adjustment is warranted.

 

Regardless of who is on the bench, Jeff Blashill, Mike Babcock, Randy Carlysle, Bruce Springsteen, Grandma Moses or Daffy Duck, the responsibility for scoring goals falls completely on the player.  Gustav Nyquist and Tomas Tatar have no one to blame but themselves for refusing to shoot the puck all season.  These are two players who have have been blessed with a scoring talent, but still always want to wait for that perfect opening, which in today's NHL, rarely happens.  

 

As an aside, the caliber of play concerning Mike Green and Brad Richards shouldn't be considered as they did not play for Mike Babcock last season, and an apples-to-apples comparison cannot be made.  

 

Great defense. I get it, like I said I have been a fan of Blash since his GR days of winning a Calder Cup and keeping the team in contention every year. I think he is a fine coach with the potential to get better.

 HOWEVER:

It is the coaches job to get the most out of the players. Our top six scorers from the year before under Babcock all took a step back. Every single one. Some like Zetterberg, tatar, Kronner and Gus a massive step back.

  Pulkinnen and Jurco were his boys in GR and expected to thrive. Both bombed.

  It is true that Green and Richards were not with Babcock but both slipped from their previous numbers.

 ______

Like I said I think he has an enormous potential as a coach but you cannot convince me that other than Larkin having a solid first half, same with Mrazek, and Glendening and Smith having good years that the rest of the team simply forgot how to play.

  Is Babcock simply that good? Was he able to get out of guys like Tatar and Nyquist more than anyone else ever will? Maybe. Babs is the best coach in the world right now. I just feel that the Wings almost to a man were flat all year and did not respond to the coach and he deserves his fair share of blame, actually a large portion of it although there is plenty to go around. Like you said our shooters didnt shoot, but why didnt the coach make the corrections needed to make certain they did? Babs pushed and prodded and threatened and cajoled and got the most of the boys. None seemed to respond to what Blash was asking.

  They made the playoffs, he deserves another shot, but like I said, he did not put his signature on the team this season.

[WingNut722]

Certainly, a well-executed argument, and there is nothing wrong with expecting an overall improvement from players who have just notched another year of experience in the NHL.  However, if I may be so bold, the Achilles' heel to your argument is right here...

 

31 minutes ago, yave1964 said:

Is Babcock simply that good? Was he able to get out of guys like Tatar and Nyquist more than anyone else ever will? Maybe. Babs is the best coach in the world right now.

 

Anyone who argues that point needs to have his head examined.  However,  if  "It is the coach's job to get the most out of the players", and we all agree that any replacement coach would be inferior to Babs, then one cannot still reasonably expect that the numbers to rise.  Perhaps a different way of looking at it would be to say that the lack of improvement on the part of the team, despite the additional year to their credentials is a testament to Babcock's talents, not Blash's shortcomings.

 

While I do not watch Griffins games, I can tell you that Pulkinnen has a beauty of a point shot, but that's about it.  He has very little to no defensive capability, something that has been critical to the Red Wings philosophy for some time now.  Jurco, on the other hand, may excel at the AHL level, but just doesn't cut it in the NHL.  He had several opportunities under Babcock with similar results...a mediocre placeholder - not bad, but not good.  The same goes for guys like Jakub Kindl or Joaquim Andersson.  It can't solely be pinned to the coach.  Not much was expected out of him to begin with.  He's on the back half of a two-year contract Holland paid for buy digging in the couch cushions.  

 

Zetterberg, Datsyuk, and Kronwall are all older and banged up too.  Kronwall admits to having a bad knee.  Datsyuk's ankles are held together with chicken wire and wishful thinking, and (while not made public) Zetterberg may be having issues with his back again - either from his previous injury or the weight of the burden of command.  Even Tatar is reported to have been playing with a bum shoulder.    

 

I suppose the question is, if Jeff Blashill was only contracted for this season, would you re-sign him?

[yave1964]

Pulkinnen has always scared me, he has a wicked blast from the dot, but I pointed out even when he was in the AHL that I worried that his shot would not translate to the NHL where defensemen know how to poke check and block shots a bit better than at the AHL. He has not made the needed adjustments.

  Jurco, I have always kind of viewed him as a youtube kind of guy, not much of a real player. to keep him we alllowed guys like Ferraro to go to Boston, Nestrasil to Carolina, Jarnkrok to Nashville and Janmark-Nylen to Dallas. None will ever be superstars but all will be regular NHLers for quite awhile. Any and all would have fit in nicely on our bottom six.

  I expected a drop off from some players with Babs not there to hold them to the fire, but I thought others would thrive under Blashill. do not forget he was the head coach of over half these guys in GR. I thought they would respond. Guys like Tatar, Nyquist, Sheahan, but none really did.

The other thing I forgot to mention was the absolute abysmal treatment of Andreas Athanasiou. Here is a kid who busts his rear on every shift and he got less than six minutes a night. No reason for it. Somehow in spite of having his skates nailed to the bench he scored 9 goals and 14 points in 37 games. If he had played all 82 games he would have scored 20 goals at that pace, in spite of playing less than six minutes a night. The man EARNED the right to play 14-15 minutes a night on a middle six line. Completely misused.

  But the question, would i resign Blash for next year? Yeah, he made the playoffs in spite of the team having a hangover from Babs leaving. But I am telling you, in spite of being a big supporter of his, he would have a seriously short leash.

[WingNut722]

@yave1964

 

Absolutely.  I don't understand what happened to AA.  I suppose maybe he was seeing guys in terms of their impressions/expectations instead of their real numbers.  Nyquist and Tatar are "capable" of scoring 25-30 goals a year where as Anthanasiou is typically not expected to score more than a couple.  So he was banished to the 4th line.  

 

I agree, to give Blash another shot at it.  And yes, Ken Holland should show up to the locker room a couple more times a season.  Particularly if this Swedish Mafia rumor is to be believed.  KH should absolutely grab a helmet and dive in to sort this all out.  

[SpikeDDS]

@yave1964 @WingNut722

 

Jeff Blashill, welcome officially to the Detroit hockey critic's microscope, eh? ;-)

 

After reading all of the above, I am somewhere in the middle, and I think both of you are there too. I think we all acknowledge that their may be and probably IS some legitimacy to these criticisms, but at the same time we all acknowledge the circumstances that surround this season that won't let us really analyze Blash in a vacuum. To wit, it's not ALL Blash's fault, but he may have been part of the problem. We won't REALLY know how legitimate they ALL are until we see what happens for the first part of next season.

 

The strongest arguments against him are the power play and the sparse use of AA. Hard to absolve him of those responsibilities.

 

But let's take a little look at the differences between what Babs could do and what Blash could do. Let's look at the Playoffs for example. If Babs had decided that based upon what he had seen than starting Mrazek in Game 2 was better than putting Howard back in there, the press MIGHT have questioned the decision, and they might have ASKED if he thought he was panicking, but they wouldn't have said that he panicked. But even before Blash made his decision, the media had already declared that if he were to replace Howard with Mrazek that it would mean he is panicking!

 

Babs may or may not have brought in a different assistant coach to head the PP, but firing the current coach would have been easier for Babs than it would have been for Blash, and that would significantly affect the PP numbers.

 

That doesn't mean Blashill gets a pass. He shouldn't and won't. His job will be on the line next season for sure.

 

If Blash has to some degree lost the room, it will be KH's responsibility to help Blash regain it my moving pieces that will allow him to re-establish himself and let dissenters know that it's going to be Blash's way or the highway. If they don't do that, it's not a coaching problem. It's much worse.