Minnesota Sports Forum

I just watched the last few minutes of the game again. The timeout after Ricky missed both free throws says a lot. First Ricky storms off the court and slams his fist into a chair. While this is happening Mitchell is of course away from the huddle doing whatever he does until he joins the players. So at this point the team is up 4 with 10 seconds left, yet they look like they have just lost the game. So Mitchell finally comes back to the players and starts yakking about something pretty much right in KAT's face. Wiggins is staring straight ahead, hard to tell if he's engaged, and Ricky is sitting on the end of the bench not even looking at Mitchell and obviously still upset over missing 2 free throws. At no time during this exchange does Mitchell try to draw Ricky into whatever he's saying. It's just bad leadership.

Our next coach needs to stay calm and smart down the stretch of games. A young team will take on the personality of their coach. Our coach is bitching out our best player with less than a minute left in the game. Then when another player, Ricky, throws a tantrum, he ignores him.

This team still has a lot of weaknesses: lack of big men, no 3-point shooting, no back-up point guard (although finally Tyus showed potential tonight), etc. But you can't underestimate how important it will be to find the right coach. They simply cannot screw this up. I'm hoping this is why Mitchell hasn't been let go already, because they realize they need to take their time and find the right guy.

You don't need to look far to see how much a difference in a coach makes. Look at the Wild. Look at the Vikings. I hope we are serious about Thibs because he is right guy for this team. He would be our Zimmer. Not perfect but damn good.

bleedspeed177 wrote:You don't need to look far to see how much a difference in a coach makes. Look at the Wild. Look at the Vikings. I hope we are serious about Thibs because he is right guy for this team. He would be our Zimmer. Not perfect but damn good.

I get the Vikings. That turnaround was gradual and Zimmer came in with a foundation and clear approach.

As for the Wild... I'm less convinced. I am convinced, however, that the players seem to be getting off pretty easily on this one. Pominville sucked balls all season... and suddenly it's the new coach that has him playing at a serviceable level? That team quit on Yeo. And they're getting a pass for it.


[Note: Not saying that Yeo wasn't to blame. At all. But it does bother me when a lack of effort gets a coach fired... then those same players get applauded for their effort when the new coach comes in. Be professional whether you like the coach or not.]

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

bleedspeed177 wrote:You don't need to look far to see how much a difference in a coach makes. Look at the Wild. Look at the Vikings. I hope we are serious about Thibs because he is right guy for this team. He would be our Zimmer. Not perfect but damn good.

I get the Vikings. That turnaround was gradual and Zimmer came in with a foundation and clear approach.

As for the Wild... I'm less convinced. I am convinced, however, that the players seem to be getting off pretty easily on this one. Pominville sucked balls all season... and suddenly it's the new coach that has him playing at a serviceable level? That team quit on Yeo. And they're getting a pass for it.


[Note: Not saying that Yeo wasn't to blame. At all. But it does bother me when a lack of effort gets a coach fired... then those same players get applauded for their effort when the new coach comes in. Be professional whether you like the coach or not.]

Yeo deserves exactly what he got. He's a class human being and good x's and o's coach, but he failed that team. You can only over-coach (which is what Thibs does) for so long before any group of players is going to tune you out. Yeo tried to control everything, and he had this misguided notion that his team had to dumb and slow the game down to be able to win. After a particularly good and yet rare stretch of good offensive hockey, Yeo said the team had to get back to playing tight low scoring games. It was the way his team had to play to be able to compete. HE ACTUALLY SAID THAT. And it was about the same time the team started it's horrific stretch of hockey that almost ruined the season. I agree the players quit on him at the end, but any group would have.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

bleedspeed177 wrote:You don't need to look far to see how much a difference in a coach makes. Look at the Wild. Look at the Vikings. I hope we are serious about Thibs because he is right guy for this team. He would be our Zimmer. Not perfect but damn good.

I get the Vikings. That turnaround was gradual and Zimmer came in with a foundation and clear approach.

As for the Wild... I'm less convinced. I am convinced, however, that the players seem to be getting off pretty easily on this one. Pominville sucked balls all season... and suddenly it's the new coach that has him playing at a serviceable level? That team quit on Yeo. And they're getting a pass for it.


[Note: Not saying that Yeo wasn't to blame. At all. But it does bother me when a lack of effort gets a coach fired... then those same players get applauded for their effort when the new coach comes in. Be professional whether you like the coach or not.]

Yes, Pominville's sucked but he's already said Torchetti has given him more offensive freedom and let him work in his favorite spots more than Yeo's system allowed so I think a good chunk of the goal flurry we've seen is X's and O's which is what Torchetti is supposed to be good at. The other part of it was Yeo just lost the locker room. He was healthy scratching some of our best scorers when we couldn't score goals. He was just way too focused on defense and our guys got tight when they couldn't score so the defense went down so he tried to tighten up the defense more and it was just a toilet bowl where he was pushing the wrongs things and guys got tired of it. So yes the players should have been more professional, but Yeo's style of play and coaching just wore them down and he double-down on his system when clearly he was just playing this team the wrong way based on what we've seen in the last 4 games.

khans2k5 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

bleedspeed177 wrote:You don't need to look far to see how much a difference in a coach makes. Look at the Wild. Look at the Vikings. I hope we are serious about Thibs because he is right guy for this team. He would be our Zimmer. Not perfect but damn good.

I get the Vikings. That turnaround was gradual and Zimmer came in with a foundation and clear approach.

As for the Wild... I'm less convinced. I am convinced, however, that the players seem to be getting off pretty easily on this one. Pominville sucked balls all season... and suddenly it's the new coach that has him playing at a serviceable level? That team quit on Yeo. And they're getting a pass for it.


[Note: Not saying that Yeo wasn't to blame. At all. But it does bother me when a lack of effort gets a coach fired... then those same players get applauded for their effort when the new coach comes in. Be professional whether you like the coach or not.]

Yes, Pominville's sucked but he's already said Torchetti has given him more offensive freedom and let him work in his favorite spots more than Yeo's system allowed so I think a good chunk of the goal flurry we've seen is X's and O's which is what Torchetti is supposed to be good at. The other part of it was Yeo just lost the locker room. He was healthy scratching some of our best scorers when we couldn't score goals. He was just way too focused on defense and our guys got tight when they couldn't score so the defense went down so he tried to tighten up the defense more and it was just a toilet bowl where he was pushing the wrongs things and guys got tired of it. So yes the players should have been more professional, but Yeo's style of play and coaching just wore them down and he double-down on his system when clearly he was just playing this team the wrong way based on what we've seen in the last 4 games.

The players are getting a pass for quitting. Lost the locker room? Meh.

Shouldn't keep millionaires from working hard. And the "more offensive freedom" stuff could just be rhetoric from a player trying to save face after mailing it in most of the season? It's at least plausible, right?

I think we see coaches being the scapegoats for players' poor performances far too often.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

bleedspeed177 wrote:You don't need to look far to see how much a difference in a coach makes. Look at the Wild. Look at the Vikings. I hope we are serious about Thibs because he is right guy for this team. He would be our Zimmer. Not perfect but damn good.

I get the Vikings. That turnaround was gradual and Zimmer came in with a foundation and clear approach.

As for the Wild... I'm less convinced. I am convinced, however, that the players seem to be getting off pretty easily on this one. Pominville sucked balls all season... and suddenly it's the new coach that has him playing at a serviceable level? That team quit on Yeo. And they're getting a pass for it.


[Note: Not saying that Yeo wasn't to blame. At all. But it does bother me when a lack of effort gets a coach fired... then those same players get applauded for their effort when the new coach comes in. Be professional whether you like the coach or not.]

Yes, Pominville's sucked but he's already said Torchetti has given him more offensive freedom and let him work in his favorite spots more than Yeo's system allowed so I think a good chunk of the goal flurry we've seen is X's and O's which is what Torchetti is supposed to be good at. The other part of it was Yeo just lost the locker room. He was healthy scratching some of our best scorers when we couldn't score goals. He was just way too focused on defense and our guys got tight when they couldn't score so the defense went down so he tried to tighten up the defense more and it was just a toilet bowl where he was pushing the wrongs things and guys got tired of it. So yes the players should have been more professional, but Yeo's style of play and coaching just wore them down and he double-down on his system when clearly he was just playing this team the wrong way based on what we've seen in the last 4 games.

The players are getting a pass for quitting. Lost the locker room? Meh.

Shouldn't keep millionaires from working hard. And the "more offensive freedom" stuff could just be rhetoric from a player trying to save face after mailing it in most of the season? It's at least plausible, right?

I think we see coaches being the scapegoats for players' poor performances far too often.

I agree with your basic premise here Abe, but not in this case. The move to sack Yeo was overdue and had to happen. He had turned the game into an ordeal. This Wild team has really good leadership. Zach is about as good of a leader as you can have, and he's only an assistant captain. For this group to quit something had to be terribly wrong. Yeo constantly insinuated his players weren't good enough to play straight up against the rest of the league, and that any success came as a result of his total control over the way we played. I just can't put much blame on the players in this case.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

bleedspeed177 wrote:You don't need to look far to see how much a difference in a coach makes. Look at the Wild. Look at the Vikings. I hope we are serious about Thibs because he is right guy for this team. He would be our Zimmer. Not perfect but damn good.

I get the Vikings. That turnaround was gradual and Zimmer came in with a foundation and clear approach.

As for the Wild... I'm less convinced. I am convinced, however, that the players seem to be getting off pretty easily on this one. Pominville sucked balls all season... and suddenly it's the new coach that has him playing at a serviceable level? That team quit on Yeo. And they're getting a pass for it.


[Note: Not saying that Yeo wasn't to blame. At all. But it does bother me when a lack of effort gets a coach fired... then those same players get applauded for their effort when the new coach comes in. Be professional whether you like the coach or not.]

Yes, Pominville's sucked but he's already said Torchetti has given him more offensive freedom and let him work in his favorite spots more than Yeo's system allowed so I think a good chunk of the goal flurry we've seen is X's and O's which is what Torchetti is supposed to be good at. The other part of it was Yeo just lost the locker room. He was healthy scratching some of our best scorers when we couldn't score goals. He was just way too focused on defense and our guys got tight when they couldn't score so the defense went down so he tried to tighten up the defense more and it was just a toilet bowl where he was pushing the wrongs things and guys got tired of it. So yes the players should have been more professional, but Yeo's style of play and coaching just wore them down and he double-down on his system when clearly he was just playing this team the wrong way based on what we've seen in the last 4 games.

The players are getting a pass for quitting. Lost the locker room? Meh.

Shouldn't keep millionaires from working hard. And the "more offensive freedom" stuff could just be rhetoric from a player trying to save face after mailing it in most of the season? It's at least plausible, right?

I think we see coaches being the scapegoats for players' poor performances far too often.

Pominville was a former captain himself in Buffalo of all places. The dude doesn't quit in bad situations. His style of play didn't fit Yeo's system and he's the kind of guy who needs the offensive freedom and deserves it because he plays both sides of the ice. I believe a guy like Vanek quit on Yeo, but not Pommer. He's a high character guy who was playing way too tight to try to play in his coaches' system. It's not a coincidence we've set a franchise record scoring goals since Yeo left. On paper this is one of the most talented teams we've ever had. Yeo just kept the talent bottled up because he believed in winning every game 1-0 and grinding for everything and working for everything. Hockey became a chore under Yeo and now that Torch updated the X's and O's to match the talent it appears fun again which is directly tied to our great performances since Torch took over.

We can agree to disagree. And I'll spare everybody my social commentary on the issue.



[Note: I agree that it was time to can the coach. I'm simply disappointed that the players are being applauded for trying harder after the new coach came in.]