SENShobo
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Where Do We Go From Here?
by SENShobo on 02/03/09 at 08:04 AM ET
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Tonight, the Senators will take on the Kings, both teams having played 48 games and the difference being just three wins. The Kings are coming off a last-minutes loss to the Habs, and the Sens a disappointing 7-4 blowout at the hands of the Caps…
No, that’s not what’s on my mind either. Yesterday’s firing of Hartsburg still dominates my mind.
Time for a very thorough look at the Senators, their crash landing, and where we might hope they start to head from here.
What happened? 17-24-7 happened (Craig’s record with the Sens). Most hockey fans would look at a team that was three wins from the ultimate prize, sporting that record a year and a half later, and think nothing of the change. But there have been five separate coaches now in that span (Murray -> Paddock -> Murray -> Hartsburg -> Clouston), and suddenly you wonder if it really was Hartsburg’s fault.
Say what you will, but the man knows the game. He played in three All-Star Games, and in his 10 NHL seasons he amassed 98 goals and 315 assists for 413 points in 570 games, incredible stats for a defenseman. He won the last two World Junior Gold medals as coach before Quinn did the feat this time around, and with the Soo he even managed to get great seasons out of Ray Emery. The man has talent.
What he lacked, if anything, was opportunity. The Senators have become a coach-eating squad. In their skilled days, 10 minutes of turning it on could seal the deal, and if they’d only been able to focus on the hard battles of the playoffs a little more, they might’ve won it all when New Jersey turned the feat in 2002-03, and were only three victories from Lord Stanley’s Cup two seasons ago against the Ducks. Now, the team’s become a shadow of its former self. Pay a kid $5 to be your video coach, and after watching half a period of a Senators game you’ll be reminded of the most simple and effective Ottawa killer: “forecheck.” I wish it hadn’t come to this for Hartsburg, and had he a more willing group of players, he might’ve done quite well with them.
Will Cory Clouston make the difference? I can’t say. You can read all about his praises courtesy the Ottawa Senators’ website, and there are good highlights: he’s guided the Binghamton Senators to their best first half in team history, topping even the lockout-stuffed squad. Before that, he was the WHL’s coach of the year, compiling an impressive 209-111-24-15 record with the Kootenay Ice. The highlight I think slips under the others was only mentioned in the Ottawa Senators’ bulletin, that Clouston pulled a Murray, acting as both head coach and GM of the AJHL Grande Prairie Storm, compiling a 143-82-15 record and picking up coach of the year honours at that level as well. Just might give him a little more eye for helping Murray and Melnyk to decide who’s really a committed part of the core here, and who doesn’t really care whether they bleed Ottawa red or not.
The word on Clouston sounds pretty good. Murray voiced great admiration for Clouston’s coaching ability during the press conference video. More to my liking, though, was hearing Clouston himself speak. He said the old cliches of course, “It’s a big challenge but as I told the guys this morning, they’re a good team. They’ve got to remember what it felt like when they were a good team. .... The biggest thing is, I believe in the guys in this dressing room,” he said. “It was only two years ago that this team was in the Stanley Cup final. There have been some guys that have gone in and out of the lineup but for the most part, that nucleus is still there. They’ve shown they can do it and now it’s a matter of getting back to that point.”
But it wasn’t the cliches that got me. It was just the way he spoke. He looked directly at the person posing the question, did very little mumbling, and was incredibly direct and straightforward. I detect little BS from this man. That’s no guarantee of success, but it’s one positive you can latch on to right now. Plenty of others had positives to say of him, too.
Binghamton assistant coach Mike Busniuk, courtesy of Sharp on the Sens,
“He’ll give them a system up there. He’ll get them ready in practice, and he’ll practice systems that they’re going to use in the games. And he’s very good at that. And he knows the game of hockey, and he’ll get up there, and he’ll have them do the same things. His practice will be very structured, and he’ll make sure they’re in the right place at the right time, and doing that. And to me, that’s what makes him so successful. He’s very meticulous. He has the players do the same things all the time. He doesn’t have many drills in practice, but the drills he has, he uses them for a reason.”
Structure. Systems. Routine. Meticulous. (Throw “intense” in there too). These have all been buzzwords about Clouston.
From the Ottawa Senators’ website, some more from Clouston’s once-again flock,
“I think he’s a no-nonsense kind of guy,” said Brendan Bell, one of five players on the team’s current active roster who played for Clouston when he was the bench boss with the Binghamton Senators of the American Hockey League. “He means what he says and he follows through on things. He’s the right guy to right the ship, hopefully.”
...
“We were sad,” forward Nick Foligno said about the decision to change coaches. “We all liked Craig. I don’t think any guy in this room didn’t like Craig ... We feel bad about the situation and we wish it could have worked out. But that’s the business and we have to move forward and get wins.
...
Added Bell: “Unfortunately for us, we did this to Craig and, hopefully, we can realize that and get this thing going the right way.”
...
“(Clouston) is a guy that hates losing as much as the next guy,” said goaltender Brian Elliott. “He’s going to try to get the full potential out of you, whether you like it or not. He tells it like it is and sometimes it might not be what you want to hear but he’ll let you know it and, hopefully, you’ll be better in the end.”Added defenceman Brian Lee: “He’s a hard coach but if you work hard, you gain his respect and that’s probably what we need around here. He’s going to be on guys that are not working hard or making soft plays and that’s a really good fit here.”
Demanding? Straightforward? Rewarding of hard work? Riding the guys who don’t get it? Structure? What are all these buzz words doing here in Ottawa? If the players can buy in, this just might mark a good turning point. The fact that the axe over all their necks looks even more glistening now, fresh from removing Hartsburg from the fold, should only help the players get the point.
The real question is, what next (season)? The theory of course goes that if Clouston is just a temporary placement, players won’t be pushed as effectively by his coaching. Depending on the freedom Murray is given (or the compulsion he is made to feel) to make any necessary roster changes, it might not matter much what Clouston’s job is come training camp. There are still plenty of coaches out there who’d love to get back in the fold, and yet the question remains whether or not they’d feel crumpled to death in Ottawa’s fold.
Shakeups have been demanded at all levels, even Murray getting called out to be put out to pasture. Has he done his job or not though? Looking back to his predecessor, Muckler, and bad moves galore spring to mind. Hennessy is all that remains of the trade that saw the skilled-if-oft-injured Havlat leave Ottawa. Redden, signed to a two-year deal by Muckler, languishes in New York with fewer goals than Phillips, as Chara has been the foundation of Boston’s League-leading drive this season in the third year of his seven year deal. Gerber is currently finishing out the third and final of his $3.7 million Ottawa years down in the AHL, and despite their impressive record in Binghamton, Muckler barely managed to stock the system at all, Binghamton fans perhaps having more anger for him than Ottawa fans.
The story goes that the final nail in his coffin came when he failed to pay the price to get Gary Roberts on the team for their failed Cup drive, and if anything that has to make you wonder to what level Murray has had to follow Melnyk’s wishes and whims. On one hand, there have been the words of confidence, the freedom to choose Clouston, and at the other end the visits Melnyk had with De Boer and Hartsburg before the very same decision was made this past off-season. I don’t want to go so far as to say we have a Tampa situation here, but exactly how much pressure and influence has Murray had to face?
Critical enough to get the players to respond to coaching is the coach’s clear position as head of all on-ice tactics and decisions; undermining his authority risks punching holes into a very rapidly sinking ship. The same is true of the GM; exert too much pressure on him as to which choices must be made, and the players gain too much power and too easy a ride. Last season’s trade of Corvo and Eaves (both still with Carolina) for Commodore and Stillman (now with Columbus and Florida, respectively) didn’t please too many fans, though Corvo’s apparent unwillingness to play in Ottawa combined with Eaves’ injuries made it a tad easier to swallow. After all the talk of not giving up, how the test of our mettle was supposed to be the Christmas road swing, the test constantly pushed back again and again until math finally does the team in, might it not seem that Murray may have felt a little pressure from above to try and plug the holes at any cost?
Ok, that’s enough speculation without confirmation. But still, it’s so easy to wonder when you can look to the Ottawa Citizen for quick bites like this (and I’ll keep in the pursuant quote, to be fair):
General manager Bryan Murray, who speaks to owner Eugene Melnyk two to three times a day, according to assistant GM Tim Murray, says he is willing to accept his share of responsibility.
“It definitely is on my shoulders,” Bryan Murray said. “Everything that happens here I take full responsibility for, and I should. I took this job, as I took other jobs, to be accountable.”
What evidence, though, might there be that the players weren’t dealt with, GM-wise, as best they could have been? Look no further than the two biggest contracts: Heatley and Spezza. Both are well paid, paid for a great many seasons, and come July 1st Spezza will join Heatley with precious No-Trade-Clause protection. As much as you want to nail down your core as cheaply as you can in the new cap world, NTCs helping to lower the hit, such immovable objects that they now are works so very counter to the control a GM needs.
Where is the motivation, when a player knows they are safe? You could pull a move similar to the ones that saw NTCs ‘waived’ in Tampa departures, but such a tarnish on a franchise is best avoided at all costs. Are Heatley and Spezza core players that should be kept? Their contracts make you wonder.
If they were not core players to be kept around for the long run, why the six and seven year deals, with NTCs and fairly heavy cap hits? If they are core players, then the deals fall on the short side, the cap hits on the high side yet again, and the NTCs an unnecessary addition. To Detroit, Zetterberg proved himself to be a must-have player, and the 12-year deal and its $6 million cap hit allow him to don the winged wheel for a decade to come, and simple retirement or rule changes at that point could allow him to effectively have pulled down as much money per year as Heatley or Spezza, no muss, no fuss. The middle of the road nature of our boys’ deals only speaks to the confusion of their importance to the team. That the cost of their deals is so high only makes them that much more immovable.
A sky-high initial payment with a greater sliding scale, rather than the high but constant pay they both see now, may have allowed them to work into a lower cap number, money so quickly put into their hands. The flip side would be the true power: a quickly descending pay could have made the players tradeable far earlier in their deals, giving the GM more power of motivation, having the option of shipping them off to any one of a number of teams all too happy to have seen Melnyk bite the largest chunk of the contract off. That power and freedom could well have been enough to ensure that motivation stayed strong in the pair, battles never looking too nasty for them to skate into as they now seem always too much to worry about. That they have effectively been given the power over any coach or GM only further shows the potential folly of it all.
The folly, now, must end. This off-season had best be one where Melnyk looks long, hard, and deep at what kind of team he wants. He must evaluate whether Clouston and Murray are the men to guide the franchise on and off the ice, or what men can bring the system to ensure that the next five years see the team grow strong again.
And then he must be sure to back off. He has been a great owner in his love of the game and his willingness to put every penny he can into seeing it rise. But once he has put the machine in place, he must let it run its course. Only with complete iron-fisted-if-necessary authority can the coaching staff and management team start churning out success from this city’s team again. Sure, push out an Avery, or encourage your employees to see how certain core players might be kept at the heart of the franchise, but as much as can be done, leave it simply be. To delve into another faculty, consider that quantum mechanics teaches us that information can become so secure because even looking at the molecular state forever changes it, much less actively attempting to copy or alter it warps it even further; let that be the example that encourages a heart-on, hands-off approach.
The Senators’ season is all but mathematically lost at this point, though the players and Clouston can still show the fans enough fight to encourage them to stick around. What’s really on the line is the future of the franchise. For too long, it has been swirling in confusion. The next 4-6 months may well be the final chance that everyone from the players on up through Melnyk have the chance to set things on the right course, lest it not be another season but another decade that is lost to the swirling vortex.
Make the choices now in the coming months, and then let the team go. Let the team grow, falter and stumble if it must, but always running its sure and confident course.
Hope need not be truly lost if cooler heads prevail. Let Hartsburg be the last head to unnecessarily roll, and let us finally start off in a clear direction.
Filed in: NHL Teams, Ottawa Senators | SENShobo | Permalink
Tags: Brian+Murray, Cory+Clouston, Craig+Hartsburg, Eugene+Melnyk, John+Muckler,
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