2010-11 Rink Wrap: Bruce Boudreau

Rec’d for a damn good roundtable, Editors.

Voted 4. The PK improvement was good, not sure how much of a real system change there was on defense other than “skate lower in the d zone” (but it did work, so +1). But the non-rookies took steps back, not forward. The failure to improve the power play and general postseason play still are big negatives.

No matter if the Caps’ window is closing or not even open, I do think we’ve reached the point that the players need a new voice, even if it’s just to find out whether they in fact really need a new voice.

I agree…assuming the regular season isn’t a disaster, it’s Eastern Conference finals, or he’s gone.

Haven’t voted yet, but am interested in hearing from one of the 6/7 voters.

I give him props for working on the powerplay, defense, etc,

But if you can’t get that playoff monkey off your back… (i.e. gotta be able to adapt more quickly)..

Did what I expected of him so started with a 5 but was knocked down 2 full points for the playoff disappointment. Gave him a 3.

For a 10, BB needs to win a cup. 8-9 would be Eastern Conference Finals. Anything less and he’s gotta be gone.

Even with the PK and change of playing style, he gets a 4 from me with the second round sweep. I’m glad they finished up the regular season strong and finally won a series in less than 7, but this team didn’t accomplish anything when it mattered. I’m kinda disappointed he isn’t gone yet, and anything less then ECF in 2012 and i’ll likely be calling for his head, once again. A 10 would be a Cup.

Below expectations, but gets points for effort.
But I’m tired of going into playoff series not thinking, but knowing, that strategically, and on the details, the Caps are going to get out coached. But he’s apparently coming back for another year, and I no doubt will feel the same way again come next April.

I don’t think we can fault Bruce for what happened in the Tampa series. In the first 3 games, the Caps lost because of some stupid play on the ice by players who had been on the ice all year, and it cost them. If not for about 15 minutes of collective ineptitude, the Caps might have been up 3-1 or at least at 2-2 after game 4.

That said, Bruce is the guy who put the guys on the ice and picked the line-ups.

What impressed me the most is what happened in December with this team. The Caps traded in the run-and-gun attack for a sound, defensive system. They learned it during the season and eventually excelled in it. They also did this while never dropping out of a playoff spot in the standings. While the Caps were struggling, and behind Tampa Bay in the standings, they were still in the top 8 the entire time. That was impressive.

Why he only gets a six was again the failure to get deep in the playoffs, and not making the adjustment to a more sound game sooner in the season, if not in the preseason. The Habs showed the entire NHL how to stop the Caps run and gun (admittedly, they had a hot goalie that helped them a lot), and that should have pointed out to Bruce he needed to adjust the system in training camp.

Here’s hoping the lesson is learned and that the Caps come out with an adjusted style in October.

To get a 10 – Stanley Cup… that’s all there is left.

Kareem, I couldn’t have said it better that expectations have dulled every year to the point where we don’t dream of Cups anymore, just east finals appearances (not even wins, just getting there). I, for one, still hold this team to a Cup Championship standard, and thats how I grade these players and this coach.

I’ve wanted BB gone since losing to Pitt. I think his move to a defensive system really hurt this team overall. Yes, we needed a better defensive system, but totally neutering this team’s identity is so sad. He completely neutered Ovie and Nicky’s game, forcing square pegs into round holes. If we’re going to lose, I’d rather do it cheering highlight reel goals and Ovie individual hardware vs. Crosby teams successes each morning on the news, than no Ovie news at all. This team has become irrelevant. Literally just wasting a playoff spot each year that should be given to another team who seems to actually care.

…it will be hugely important for Boudreau to find a happy medium that incorporates both responsibility and aggressiveness going forward.

THIS is the question for next year. At times over the past few years, this team has dominated in almost every aspect of the game; but never all at once. It is incumbent upon Bruce to design/refine his system into a hybrid that puts it all together…keeps the team playing sound defense but also exploits their offensive firepower… and he needs to be doing that right now so that he can implement it this fall.

“Corsi? What’s that?” Yeah…

Pretty sure JP won this roundtable…

You have to ask, how does this guy keep his job? In four years, he hasn’t taken his team past the second round despite having a ton of talent to work with. His teams have blown big leads in the playoffs or they win the eastern conference and then lose to a lesser team from the SE division. He looks like he’s consistenly being out-coached and has shown little ability to adapt in the post-season. Every year, we talk about him being fired and for some reason the GM and owner won’t pull the trigger and keep preaching patience. I mean, c’mon…. Oh, wait. This is a Boudreau wrap. I thought we were talking about Claude Julien. Nevermind.

4

BB came in with a plan for improving the PK that succeeded. But he seemed to feel that the failed PP against the Habs was an aberration, and by the time they tweaked it (as noted by GMGM at the time of the trade deadline) it showed fits and starts of success but injuries caused BB to return to a similar setup as before. I give him credit for helping the rookies develop well but at the same time I was frustrated because he had to shelter them. This factors into why my best playoff expectations were for the team to go deep. With so many rookies (and near rookies) at key positions, this was not the year that winning the SC seemed viable.

BB got the team to play well leading up to the playoffs, an improvement over the previous two rather lackadaisical end of the season timeframes. I’m not as concerned over the seedings in general, because I thought the top seeds were all pretty close. The Caps easily could have switched with TB had that team not played so inconsistently near the end of the regular season.

Playoffs. I thought they were solid against the Rangers, especially given the fact that they had given the Caps some pretty big black eyes—once on national television no less—during the regular season.

But I was sorely disappointed in the TB series. Losing sucks. And we were all so concerned with the 7 game series tendencies of this team. But the Caps managed to get swept which I found worse. It was as if BB had a game plan for what to do with the 1-3-1, but not for when Boucher opened up his system to be more aggressive.

Clearly TB had scouted and studied the Caps hard and had a plan in place. And had a balance between his conservative defensive setup and for when he wanted to maximize his offense. So the question I asked was why didn’t BB have a counter plan in place for when TB went on the aggressive. it’s more than just making adjustments on the fly or between games. They should have been studying TB hard much earlier.

I lay this failure at his feet because when the players themselves still have no answer for why they failed against TB, then BB clearly was floundering and conveyed that sense of frustration and confusion to his team.

To get a 10 next season it’s simple. He needs to get them into the SC and to win the damn thing. Not to be like the Canucks and lose (I got an eerie sense of deja vu watching them stuck on the perimeter against the Bruins).

He needs to change his PP system and get it working again. At this point it’s stale and well scouted. I’d like BB to keep lines intact for a change. It’s weird how he keeps certain defensive pairings together unless injury forces him adjust, but his forward lines are in constant rotation. If Laich is a Cap next season, give him that center position he so desires, but on the third line. I’d like our first line to play some easy minutes along with those hard ones. I’d like BB to develop options in his systems so that he can switch his players to a plan b or c in his system as opposed to just mixing up the lines to jumpstart them.

Oh hell. I’d like them to have a season where they have their confidence back so they can go into the playoffs believing that they can win it all.

Oh and don’t start the season with teeshirts that say “We Believe” or any other damn thing.

Weight: 170ish

 
Most hyperbolic use of “ish” ever(ish).

I feel like almost everything that’s being said is a repeat of last year. I"m over him. The only reason he didn’t get lower is because I give him credit for the PK. But at this point I have little to no faith that he can do anything more with this team.

The only thing keeping him from getting rated 1 is the improved PK. The PP was a mess the whole year, and he didn’t do anything about it. He doesn’t discipline the players who need to be, and he blames the ones who shouldn’t be blamed. I expected him to learn something from last season, but he didn’t. It’s time for BB to go.

5 for regular season, +1 for winning East regular season, +1 for the craziness of changing systems mid season.

-2 for virtually never changing the PP and allowing it to be a failure all season, -1 for sweep in the second round.

That leaves me at a 4. I almost want to give another -1 for how many damn “too many men on the ice” penalties the team continues to take. BB had a season marred with both meeting expectations, achieving some remarkable things, and also failure. An uneven season that produced an uneven team.

After another completely failed foray into the post season, I couldn’t give him anything better.

The PK and mid-season strategy change raised him from a 1 to a 3.

Do better Bruce.

What gives me the most hope about the mid-season change is that next season the team will start with that mindset and strategy in place. Hopefully, they will also figure out how to bring back their fearsome power-play in combination with the committed defense.

I think a trip to the ECF next year is necessary or else someone else needs to be given a chance to motivate from behind the bench. If he can make sure that all of the Young Guns pay more attention to their conditioning (I’m thinking of Arnott’s comments and a picture of Alex & Sasha from the locker room where they looked non-athlete flabby), I think that would go a long way to making sure the team doesn’t fizzle in the playoffs.

didn’t really improve in the areas I needed to see improvement from (PP, shift lengths, discipline, playoffs success, line combos / stability still problem areas). He needs to improve those areas, and also find a way to get the most out of the team both offensively AND defensively in the same season. do all that, and it should earn him a 10 (since if he fixes all those problems the team success in the post-season is bound to follow).

I think he needs a deep playoff run to keep his job…but I felt that way going into this season as well.

Gave him a 1 as a protest vote, although I was tempted by Gouldie’s line of analysis, above.

Really annoyed at the prospect of another season with Boudreau.

And I expected another playoff disappointment with him at the helm. I say that only half-jokingly, but in four playoff seasons he’s taken two steps forward, and now two steps back (in terms of results). When this team is down, he instills zero confidence in me that he knows how to right the ship. It seems like his bench reactions go from anger to befuddlement to resignation. I don’t see the tactician in him.

I also see two traits that really don’t go well together in a leadership role: being stubborn and inarticulate. Granted, the only communication skills I see are with the media, at practices, and the brief glimpse behind the scenes in 24/7, so for all I know he may wax eloquently like Bill Shakespeare when the cameras aren’t around. I just feel like his message either has been or is on the verge of being lost with the players. That’s hard to get back.

I gave him a 6. I expected to see the same issues that plagued the team in years past and a first round flame-out by getting thoroughly out-coached.

I saw the same issues that plagued the team in years past and got a second round flame-out by getting thoroughly out-coached.

The Vote: Rate Boudreau below on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the best) based on his performance for the season – if he was perfect, give him a 10; if he was average, give him a 5 or a 6; if he was terrible, give him a 1. Note: This is a different rating system than our normal “relative to expectations” system.

BB’s various weaknesses have been discussed ad nauseum… or was it “at nausea”? :) In any event, the prospect of him returning this year makes me nauseous. If there was any question about BB’s playoff coaching chops, or lack thereof, the inexorable losses in the Tampa Bay series settled them. Based on what we’ve heard from the players that have talked about that series, they had no solution to TB from a strategic perspective. It does not seem like BB has the sort of intellect for a short series against a single opponent (he does have other virtues), and the players have to recognize this as well.

I don’t see any reason to think that this team will do any better in the playoffs next year with him at the helm. And if the wheels come off to the point that he gets canned mid-season (I agree with Becca’s thought that it will take a pretty high level of fail for that to happen), there’s probably only the smallest of chances that a team doing that poorly under BB could advance farther in the playoffs with another coach after only part of a season together. In short, I expect another first or second-round exit.

Since this isn’t based on expectations, BB gets the lowest score from me. Seeing as how he didn’t fix the serious issues that were keeping the team from going deep in the playoffs while still getting the team to do well enough to keep his job, this is just about the worst case scenario, IMO.

Yeah, he changed the PK, but that doesn’t mean much for me. The PK was so bad the past couple years that changing it up is a must for any coach. The PK was passive, so it took a more aggressive approach. It’s not rocket science. I’m also not sure how much of that was from the assistants. He got a huge boost from improved personnel as well. Shamo and Juice for Carlznerson. Theo for Neuvirth. Better play from Varlamov. None of that stuff is in BB’s control.

I also don’t give him a ton of credit for changing the defensive system. Yeah, he did a good job adapting to the lack of scoring, but it also took about 20 games. That doesn’t excite me come playoff time when you are done if you lose a 7 game series. I also don’t think the change was nearly as drastic as many people say. He tightened up the neutral zone defensive coverage and used the trap at times in the third, but it’s not like the team went into a passive defensive shell. The team was still getting lots of shots and chances all year, they just weren’t finishing.

The same personnel issues that helped the PK also helped the 5 on 5 defensive system too. Plus, the team was actually a very good 5 on 5 team last year (#6 in GA) – the improvement is really from the PK. In general, I think a huge portion of the improved defense (and drop in offense) was due to things out of BB’s control. Not considering these things leads people to exaggerate the effect of the systems change, IMO.

But for the good he did with the PK and the 5 on 5 system, that was more than made up for by his failures in other areas. His inability to adjust the PP was absolutely inexcusable. The Caps with their firepower should never be near the bottom of the league in PP%.

For all the talk about the Caps not playing the right way in past years, their real problem was a lack of discipline and ability to deal with adversity in the playoffs. And on that front there was no improvement. The team lacks any sort of accountability, the star players seem to do whatever they want, and the team gets flustered when things start to go badly. That’s the culture BB has created, and it didn’t improve at all from past years. Changing that I think is far more important for playoff success than any systems change.

I haven’t voted yet, but a question:

With our “Win the Stanley Cup or bust” mentality, isn’t the fact we went out in the second round (and him being at least partially culpable for our loss) automatically make him a one, two, or three? He can’t have done an above average or even slightly below average job if we didn’t get closer to what we’ve set as our undeniable goal.

gets a fail from me. The Caps got schooled by a tampa team that was good but nowhere near great. The Caps consistently give up the first goal—bad sign. Power play has deteriorated badly since last year—bad. Think he’s strangely stubborn about his goalies in the playoffs, too—was wedded to Varly last year when he shouldn’t have been, and the same for Neuvy this year when he shouldn’t have been. Not playing Varly against Tampa in game 3 or 4 was stupid, IMO.

During the regular season, I will be looking for whether the Caps can remain disciplined in games that aren’t as much fun for them — the low scoring games against teams who’ve watched the playoff film and figured out how to frustrate the Caps. Given that we have a very talented roster, I think a lot will ride on whether Bruce makes some changes in how he approaches in game tactics, (particularly special teams) accountability for his players, and so on and so forth. And if we flame out in the post season again — we need someone else behind the bench.

That was my comment in last year’s rink wrap. I will give Bruce credit for implementing changes to help the Caps have success in scoring games during the regular season. That’s the good news. However, he didn’t fix the power play, which we’ve discussed ad infinitum and ad nauseaum. Accountability for players — sad to say, I’m not sure we had any before Jason Arnott arrived. And I think it’s a serious indictment of the team culture when a veteran acquired at trade deadline feels he has to speak up about poor decision making and lazy play after the first period of his first game. I understand that John Wooden and Dean Smith were coaching college basketball, which isn’t hockey. But I don’t understand why a college basketball coach can give his players credit for the wins and take responsibility for the loses, and a professional hockey coach can’t. (I did notice in reading about John Wooden and Dean Smith that they expected attention to detail from the first minute of the first practice, and also, that if a player didn’t want to execute the coach’s plan, that player knew that he would be watching someone else on the team who did in the next game.)

And yes, as far as I’m concerned, we flamed out in the playoffs, so I think we need someone else behind the bench. I’m with those who are disturbed by the players’ comments during and since the Tampa Bay series. There were a lot of things that were painful about the postgame after game three, but Mike Knuble’s comments were particularly galling. (The idea that Tampa Bay could almost score at will, and order up a goal, and so forth.) This roster has enough talent that our opponents should be saying that about US I know that we were outcoached by the Lightning, but I think a significant part of it was waiting for the Caps to beat themselves. And I think it goes back to not establishing the habit of playing with focus, attention to detail and not solidifying the attitude that they won’t be outworked, outchanced and outplayed – bit by bit, practice by practice, shift by shift, period by period, and game by game during the regular season. Unfortunately, that pattern has become firmly established during Bruce’s tenure. I can’t see it changing without a new voice behind the bench.