Dave Poulin

[Rip Rap]

What is your favorite thing about Poulin? Do you think he is a good coach? Any beefs? I want to see some discussion about the man and his staff.

[the_voidoid]

Originally Posted by Rip Rap

What is your favorite thing about Poulin? Do you think he is a good coach? Any beefs? I want to see some discussion about the man and his staff.

i'm not sure i particularly care for poulin. i don't care what our talent level may be, i feel the team underperforms, ESPECIALLY this season. our only saving grace (and it was our first win of the year) was a miracle last-second shorthanded goal versus then #1 boston college. otherwise, it's been lousy results versus some pretty mediocre competition. obviously i can't see any of the games live, so i can't really analyze whether we're undertalented, overmatched, or simply undercoached. if the team is showing strength in the fundamentals and losing to better talent, that's one thing. but if we can't pass and can't defend and can't create open looks, that's the coach's fault.

[Rip Rap]

Originally Posted by the_voidoid

i'm not sure i particularly care for poulin. i don't care what our talent level may be, i feel the team underperforms, ESPECIALLY this season. our only saving grace (and it was our first win of the year) was a miracle last-second shorthanded goal versus then #1 boston college. otherwise, it's been lousy results versus some pretty mediocre competition. obviously i can't see any of the games live, so i can't really analyze whether we're undertalented, overmatched, or simply undercoached. if the team is showing strength in the fundamentals and losing to better talent, that's one thing. but if we can't pass and can't defend and can't create open looks, that's the coach's fault.

I don't know. I really don't think we get very good players. He does offer two things:

1.) Alumni Status

I think, much like Charlie Weis, it is good to have a successful alumnus as head coach. He doesn’t exactly come across like Scotty Bowman or Jacques Lemair might, but then expectations are lower for a sport we’ve never really been good at. Accordingly, he understands hockey’s place at the university and its relationship to football in particular. Frankly, I wish we were great at everything and the fans were stoked about everything we did. The reality is football will always dominate ND. We can still hope to be good at hockey too though, and I think we need a better rink to attract better players.

2.) NHL connection

Again, at least he had a very fruitful professional career. You would think that would also help. Great players are usually smart players. I have to think he understands the game on a deeper level.

[the_voidoid]

Originally Posted by Rip Rap

2.) NHL connection

Again, at least he had a very fruitful professional career. You would think that would also help. Great players are usually smart players. I have to think he understands the game on a deeper level.

talented players going into coaching is a bit of a dicy issue. in baseball, the best managers around tend to be guys with a nominal amount of talent who had to get by on hard work, smarts, and hustle. look at the playing careers of guys like bowa or garner or hargrove. torre, while a very good player, was not exactly mike schmidt at the hot corner. conversely, ted williams, arguably the greatest natural hitter of all time, was a terrible manager - he could not teach what came naturally to him, and could not understand why his players couldn't see the ball as well as he could.

in hockey, players who have that "sixth sense" awareness of the game are the great players, and that is an attribute more instinctual than learned. i would group poulin in with that type of player. possibly the players best suited to be coaches are the guys that had to work their assess off to get to that level. pat quinn was a workhorse as a player, as was barry melrose.... scotty bowman never played in the NHL.

[Rip Rap]

Originally Posted by the_voidoid

in hockey, players who have that "sixth sense" awareness of the game are the great players, and that is an attribute more instinctual than learned. i would group poulin in with that type of player. possibly the players best suited to be coaches are the guys that had to work their assess off to get to that level. pat quinn was a workhorse as a player, as was barry melrose.... scotty bowman never played in the NHL.

I actually agree with you somewhat, but Melrose and Quinn are bad examples to build this argument from.

Patt Quinn and Barry Melrose were point-men and played defense while the modern weaving pass formations and the accompanying alternations of the forward positions were just beginning to be adapted from a European style of play. I would hardly call blue-line slap-shots the product of a "sixth sense." That's more of the shots-on-goal plug-the-net and stand-the-guy-up-at-the-line dump-and-run philosophy. Do you think Quinn or Melrose ever circled the lower face-off circle backwards for a full minute waiting for the passing-lane to open a quick wrister stick-side? I don't.

Hence, Barry Melrose's only words of wisdom after a decade of ESPN commentary are: "yoo've gaht to ween those battles in the trenches."