The Coaches Room is a regular feature throughout the 2022-23 season by former NHL coaches and assistants who will turn their critical gaze to the game and explain it through the lens of a teacher. Marc Crawford, Mark Recchi and Phil Housley will take turns providing insight.
In this edition, Crawford, coach of the Quebec Nordiques from 1994-95, Colorado Avalanche from 1995-98, Vancouver Canucks from 1998-2006, Los Angeles Kings from 2006-08, Dallas Stars from 2009-11, associate coach of the Ottawa Senators from 2016-19 and assistant coach of the Chicago Blackhawks from 2019-22, looks at why teams have struggled to sustain success to start the 2022-23 season.
It’s been a year, so far, where there have been few teams that have taken off. The Boston Bruins (14-2-0) and Vegas Golden Knights (13-3-0) have been the exception, and the Los Angeles Kings (10-7-1) were riding a four-game win streak and had won six. of eight (6-1-1) before losing 6-5 to the Calgary Flames at the Scotiabank Saddledome on Monday. Apart from that, there hasn’t really been much; Two games over .500 is a pretty good record in the NHL right now.
Key injuries can be part of it. With the Flames (7-6-2), we can talk about defenseman Chris Tanev. Calgary recently went without a win in seven consecutive games (0-5-2), and one of the key issues was missing Tanev, who was out for five of those games. You miss a guy like him and it’s hard to replace that type of player. He’s just such a calming influence on defense for Calgary and he’s such a big entity. It pushes guys to the right spot all the time when you have healthy players who play the right way.
Look at the St. Louis Blues (6-8-0) without a defenseman Marco Scandella (hip), who has yet to play this season. He played 70 games last year and was a big part of their success. When you have a guy like Scandella on the blue line, what you get is a surety. You get consistency, you get how coaches are always wanting control. You know what you’re getting from Scandella every shift; you know he’s going to be consistent, whereas some of the other players in their defense core like Nick Leddy and Torey Krug, they have a little bit more on the risk side of the element. You appreciate their creativity, but when things are not working defensively, the way they seem to have been for St. Louis early in the season, when goals against are up and save percentage are down, the squeeze is on.
The biggest area where the Blues are down right now is goaltending (Jordan Binnington is 6-5-0 with a 3.07 goals-against average, .903 save percentage and one shutout in 11 starts). The Blues’ underlying numbers also aren’t good. A lot of that is that they are in close games and the empty-net goals end up throwing some complication into their play. Their lack of ability to score falls on a few people, including Jordan Kyrou, Pavel Buchnevich and even Ryan O’Reilly, who you’d expect to have at least 10 points by now. The underlying factor is what complicates a team’s play: You’re dependent on all aspects of your game to win and it’s highlighted when multiple areas of your game aren’t at the right level.
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Depth comes up as a factor sometimes. With 32 teams in the NHL, are there enough good players to go around? That’s always the question. Personally, I don’t think it matters because, ultimately, you deal with what you have, and you must have the most competitive team that you can. I think depth can be in a lot of areas. You may not have depth of scoring, but you should be able to have depth of skating. You may not have depth of creativity, but you should have depth of responsibility.
I look at a team like the Seattle Kraken (8-5-3) having that right now. I think that they have really focused on playing the right way. They have speed throughout their lineup. They’re responsible. You can see their swarming mentality, their backside pressure, and their transition is predicated on hard work. When you have a team that has that at the forefront, then you have a chance of being very successful. The Kraken have shown that. They’ve beaten teams that probably have more skill than them this season.
Another aspect is the inability of some coaches to really give some players opportunities and other coaches being able to give it. Why are they able to give it? Part of it is the coach’s personality and beliefs. But the other part of it is having those really, good nurturing players with them.
Look at all those kids playing defense for the Montreal Canadiens (8-6-1). Kaiden Guhlehe’s a nice-looking player, Jordan Harris and Arber Xhekajthey’ve got Johnathan Kovacevic off waivers from the Winnipeg Jets. It’s about opportunity for these guys and the confidence that the coaching staff is showing in them. In talking with people around Montreal, you’re just seeing that they’re being encouraged and when they make a mistake, coach Martin St. Louis is probably telling them: “I know exactly what you saw there. Keep trying it. I see what you’re looking at. Keep trying it.” He’s encouraging them not to be afraid to make a mistake and is putting them in positions to do it. They also have David Savard and Joel Edmundson who are just great at nurturing guys back there. You can see them talking to players after the play is over.
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When you see that, it’s important in the developmental curve and when you’re forced to play those people, you have to have that type of attitude. if you don’t, then I think you end up having long losing streaks because the old adage is, what you expect from someone is usually what you’re going to get. So, if you’re worried and constantly belittling or badgering a young guy’s play, then you can’t be surprised at what you’re going to get.
The teams that are having the most success have it because of the simplicity of their play. With that, I looked at the Kings. When they go back for pucks, they have a set way that they break out all the time. If the puck goes in one side, they bump it back behind the net. If the puck goes in the other side, it’s a direct pass up the boards. For me, that expectation of everybody understanding how they’re playing and there’s not a lot of deviation in what they do.
I think that reliability goes a long way to allowing whoever the Kings plugin to be successful and, not only that, it allows the other people to position themselves because their expectation is similar. Nobody is always absolutely concrete one way or another, but if you have an execution rate that is high, usually it’s because you have a standard that most of the people on your team adhere to. Los Angeles is the greatest example of that and now the Kings are really starting to take off.
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