CanuckinOz wrote:
Well I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on Tocchet, different coaches work better for different individual players and I certainly think he has helped some of the Canucks and it was a huge relief to have a coach come in after Boudereau who had a system, instead of just thinking he needed to motivate them. He's also surrounded himself with quality people imo. That said I'm not a staunch supporter or anything but I do like the results so far. It will be very interesting to see what happens in the playoffs from a coaching perspective. I think he feels he has the lotto line up his sleeve but I'm not sure that's going to do it, especially when they haven't played Lindholm as center very much.
Apologies in advance for the long post.
PREFACE: Please take what I'm saying here with a grain or two of salt. I have not seen nearly as much of the Canucks as y'all have. That's just based on what I've read and my limited observations.
I maintain that Toc is an excellent assistant coach, one of the best there's ever been in that role. He's phenomenal at communicating with players, and working with them on an individual basis to get them working at their best both on and off the ice. The work he did with a then-rookie Steven Stamkos and of course, Phil Kessel is the stuff of legend now. And it sure looks like he's getting more out of noted headcase J.T. Miller than anyone thought possible.
It's the tactical side of things where IMHO ol' Rick tends to fall short. I know he cleaned some things up on defense, but there are still some problems, right? He employs a very conservative defensive scheme that appears to emphasize stacking bodies up the middle to limit shots and take away seam passes. It looks like the exact same system that he employed in Arizona, and made middling starters like Darcy Kuemper look like Vezina material. That's all well and good, and not necessarily a bad idea for a team that isn't terribly deep on the back end. Where I think there might be a problem is that there is SO much emphasis on this and not enough on getting the puck out of the zone once there's a turnover. I also don't think he does much to emphasize possession and shot generation in the attacking zone. The Canucks, for all the astounding offensive totals they have this year, are only something like, 20th--I think?--in shots on goal. That's just crazy because it means almost literally everything they throw at the net is going in. I won't say the U-word that's been bandied about all year for the Canucks but you get the drift.
There's also the neutral zone, and analytics teaches us that if you want to control the game, you have to control the middle of the ice in order to control what happens everywhere else. This team could absolutely destroy everyone with a whip-smart transition game. Again, I don't know if they have a good transition game but I most certainly did not see that in the Avs/Nucks contest. They were leaning way too far back in order to do that. And if anyone looks to me like a guy who will destroy you in transition, it's Petey. Not fast or big, but very smart and able to cause turnovers.
So...this system really appears to suit Miller and Hughes quite well (though I think the latter would fit in on any system no matter what) but I don't think it's ideal for guys like Lindholm and Pettersson. If I had those guys I'd try and employ a much more mobile scheme that's man-to-man, something that worked more to prevent shots instead of blocking them, left the forwards much more able to jump up-ice and create chances at the other end.
So, in the end, it's possible Toc has the best-possible scheme in place to utilize what he has on his roster, which is talented and deep up front, and a very flawed and slow blueline beyond the top two guys, one of whom most assuredly is getting the Norris. BUT...it's also possible he's utilizing the only scheme he really knows, and while some players are thriving with it, others are not.
Part of me wonders what would've happened had management moved quicker on the whole Horvat/Miller rift, that really tore apart that team and left things in a bad place for Boudreau. Then again, Rutherford just really seemed to dislike Bruce from the get-go so it's a moot point.
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