Alright folks, here is this week's Chirp of the week. It comes from a SensChirp regular who goes by the name of Engin. This recent skid has people questioning some of the decisions being made by Coach Clouston but Engin thinks we should all take a deep breath when it comes to criticizing Clouston.
Here's what he had to say....
Here is my rant about Cory Clouston,
On February 1, 2009 former Ottawa Senators head coach Craig Hartsburg was fired after 7-4 lose to the Washington Capitals. The following day a 39 year-old by the name of Cory Clouston took over has the coach on an interim basis. On April 8, 2009 after a 3-2 win against the Boston Bruins. Ottawa Senators management rewarded Cory Clouston with two-year deal thus making him the head coach on full times basis.
Fast forward to the 2009-10 season and Sens Army seems to start the "FIRE CLOUSTON" or "CLOUSTON IS AN IDIOT" comments. You guys do realize that our hockey has a reputation of being Coach killers. By firing Clouston, that would make it 4 coaches in the past 200 regular season NHL games. Thus adding more foul to the fire of team's reputation of being Coach killers.
Here is some advice for our fans. How is about taking a look at our roster before you start ripping Clouston.
As you can see it's not a star-studded roster like Chicago, Pittsburgh, Washington and San Jose are. Outside of Alfredsson, Spezza, Kovalev, and Michalek the rest of the forward group lack skill. The defensive group as you can see isn't super either with an AHLer in Carkner, a rookie in Karlsson(who will be a solid NHL defenceman in the future) and a No.4 or No.5 guys in Campoli and Picard.
Honestly, Clouston has done a good job with the hand he has been dealt with. Sure there will be times where the team will go through rough patches. That doesn't mean Clouston should be fired because it.
Give Clouston another two or three years when the Senators add better pieces to the puzzle before you starting busting out the pitch forks and torches. This isn't soccer Sens Army.
Engin
44 comments:
I agree with your rant, Engin.
What really baffles me though, and I'd love to hear opinions or theories about it, is why we suck so bad on the road and are relatively good when at home.
Rob
Completely agree. Until this road trip, the team had actually exceeded my expectations this season, Clouston is doing a good job.
I think a lot of Sens fans are still under the impression that we can play like the star studded teams we had for the first part of this decade.
Give Clouston time, he's a good coach.
Although i agree with Engin...I do believe Clouston has been making too many mistakes in a small amount of time.
Benching foligno, campoli and donovan (when he was healthy) are very stupid moves. I think he should seriously stop putting Shannon on the top line because even though he has speed he cant put the puck in the net to save his life.
He always change the lineup and its difficult for the players to gel when they probably wont be with the same person the next game.
Make a lineup and stick with it. Put the best players together and let them make their own chances. I know your job is on the line Clouston, but Murray understands that:
1) Youre a new coach.
2) Youve never coached an NHL team 3) You're still young and you have to make mistakes.
Construct a permanent line up and just run with it for a week. If it doesn't work then its back to the drawing board. But until then don't aggravate the fans (and the players) even more by making several changes before every game.
Just a thought.
GO SENS GO!!
-Carlos
I totally agree.. It's not the coach that needs to do something, it's Murray that needs to do something. A trade needs to be made whether it be a forward or a defenceman we need to make our team better somehow. This road trip has been terrible but it's not the end of the world, Ottawa is still above 500 and has lots of time to turn things around. And i'm not convinced that Spezza is 100%, It's a long shot for him to make the olympics now and I think that when he comes back from the olympic break he'll be back at 100% and his game is going to pick up.
K
I've never been on the fire Clousten bandwagon, but you have to admit some of his moves leave you scratching your head, whether there right or wrong are up for debate though.
Things like:
Like some-one mentioned, benching Foligno/Donovan, and not sure who is behind the whole Lee sitch.
The insane amount of 2 many men penalties, or not holding players (especially star players) accountable for taking dumb penalties or not playing to there potential.
And last but not least, the love affair with Shannon, don't get me wrong I think he's a decent player but I highly doubt he would get this many chances with any other coach.
Just my 2 cents...
Carlos,
I agree that Clouston changes his line pairings too often, but benching Foligno, Campoli, and Donovan all had valid reasons.
Foligno hasn't played up to the level he did last year, and has quite frankly been rather disappointing.
Campoli was benched because he was not contributing enough offensively to offset his defensive liability. On Phoenix's first goal you could see him screen Elliot, which lead to Elliot yelling at him. As much as I am not a Picard fan, as long as he wasn't crapping the bed, he was able to contribute offensively.
And as much as many fans like local boy Dono, he wasn't the guy to chose if you want to use skill and speed. Speed is pretty useless if it can't get the puck in the net.
The only real problems I see Clouston creating is the all too frequent line combinations, and his unusual man-crush on Shannon.
He is a good coach he is just utilizing some players very poorly. Shannon on the top line instead of Cheechoo or Foligno? He has this real hard-on for Shannon because he did so well under Clouston in the AHL. He has done nothing to deserve top line minutes.
Also scratching Foligno over Keller. Yeah send a message.. but put him on the 4th line and cut minutes. The guys is always one of the most tenacious forecheckers on our team and battles all the time. Scratching him did nothing but hurt the team.
Kovalev on the point on the PP. When Kovalev and the Habs PP was so successful, was Kovalev on the point? No, he was on the right side boards send sick passes through lanes to open players.
He is a good coach, but it does nothing but divide the room and hurt the team when he is playing favorites with certain players who have done nothing to earn it. If he keeps it up, I really think the players are going to tune him out because they don't respect him and we are back looking for another coach.
I just think twice in a row we picked the wrong man for the job. It should've been DeBoer over Hartsburg and Laviolette or Torts over Clouston.
SC,
Spezza and Kovalev isn't the answer - you do that and you'll watch fisher's numbers slowly dwindle. Spezza is playing with 2 good players, he will have to get it going on his own.
Oh and I dont think I've ever seen a team take so many too many men bench minors in my whole life. That is on the Coach.
*yawn*
This team doesn't have 2-3 years Engin. This isn't a fantasy league.
If the team misses the playoffs, people will cancel season tickets and attendance will drop to 14,000-15.000 per game.
That's the truth of it. This market does not have the patience to support a non-contender. If we are to practice patience, then let Murray explain the plan to the proles.
So far, it seems he and Melnyk think this team has a chance to win the Cup.
Rob
Agreed Engin.
TOsensfan
Without Kovalev, Fisher's numbers wouldn't dwindle. More like free-fall...
James Ray,
No offence but Bryan Murray most likely did contact Torts and Laviolette. Given our teams reputation of being coach killers and add to the fact the amount of acid that Sens Army seems to spit at everyone. Both Laviolette and Torts most likely said "No Thanks" to Bryan Murray.
Moving Kovalev would hurt Fisher's production but for this team to be succesful, Spezza has to be producing.
He needs a spark.
I think Ottawa fans really know hockey and thats not always a good thing, I think we are all kind of hurt over what happen to our great Senators, We have lost hope the furture does not look bright, We are scared we have that feeling the Leafs are going to start kicking our butts, We should have hope as as well we are good fans the smartest in Hockey by far, We also should of rebulit our team. Ya we always have a lot to say we also know more then the rest.
Nobody wants to FIRE him, we just want to rant about some of the decisions he's made that we don't like. That's just called being a fan. I'm not in love with the guy and feel he has too many loyalties to AHLers from time to time, but he's won games and I like the style of play. I will openly question some personnel decisions (who the fark is Ryan Keller and why is he dressing?), but that's simply because I'm a passionate fan and want to see us win.
We can openly question Spezza's struggles, but it doesn't mean we all want him traded. Same scenario here.
And yes, the too many men penalties are ridiculous.
forsure Murray has lost all respeced with the other GMs in the NHL over that Heatley deal. The other teams GMs are like fat kids in a candy store when dealing with BM
Hey Chirp,
a buddy's dad works at capital tickets, pretty high up and my buddy says he heard that there would be new red jerseys next year but the black jersey would still be the third. Apparently there's some milestone night that they are making them for. Don't know if you heard that one too or not.
The problem with Clouston is that people extrapolated what he did in 34 games last year and applied it to this season expecting the same pace, without taking into account the inevitable "bump" that comes when hiring a new coach. The fact is, this just isn't a great team. It's a bubble team, this is where we should be, struggling to get into the playoffs.
Clouston has shown flashes of being a good coach, but he still does a lot of things that deserve criticism, such as the seemingly endless supply of too many men penalties, the bizarre line combinations and his selective singling out of certain players while ignoring others. The team's penalty kill and power play need a lot of work, and there are too many periods of disinterest by the entire team when he is supposed to be a motivator-type coach. He's definitely not a systems coach, so I expect the team to be out there working 100% every game but that isn't the case.
Some of you have it
right....Clouston isn't the issue here.
It's Bryan Murray. He's terrible and needs to go!
One bad move after another with this guy!
And I agree with Chirp's post earlier as well as what John Paddock(last year) said...Murray CANNOT fire another coach (without being fired himself this time).
Well, Let's look at the Sens problems:
Lack of discipline, too many too many men penalties:
It's a coaches responsibility to make sure his club is disciplined and not taking bad penalties. If a player takes a dump penalty, bench him for a shift or two after he returns.
It' s the assistant coaches job to make sure line changes run smoothly. However if the assistant isn't doing his job properly, or the players are not making it easy for him, it's time for the head coach or GM to step in and find out why and attempt to fix it.
Lack of scoring:
Ottawa's had trouble finding secondary scoring for awhile now. This year they have trouble finding ANY scoring. Spezza and Kovalev have been horrible, and few other than Michalek, Fisher and Alfredsson have provided consistent offense. Kovalev is Kovalev, there's nothing you can do with him unless you try sending him back to Montreal. Spezza needs to sit a few games if his back is still bugging him. He also has to realize that points won't come a seasy as they did when he had a premium sniper. He needs to learn that goals/assists come from hard work. Michalek, Fisher, Alfredsson have some skill, but they're offense is the result of hard work.
Weak defense.
Kuba is a really good top 4 all-around puck-mover. Phillips and Volchenkov are solid top 4 shutdown defenders. Karlsson is all potential. Picard and Campoli are 5th-6th defenseman. Carkner is 7th defenseman/AHL call-up exceeding expectations. This group just isn't good enough. They need another top 4 guy if they want to win now. It's hard to say that one man can help fix this whole group 's issues, but he can certainly help a lot.
Goaltending
Well, Pascals days of letting in soft goals seemed behind him. He seemed more comfortable in net. And then, the common theme in the story of his life: He gets injured. Twice. Once while he was sitting on the bench. Elliot started off solid, but has not been good on the road trip. I suspect this is fatigue. This is a man, who was drafted in the 7th round who has overly exceeded expectations placed on him before the draft. He had previously 30-some games of NHL experience. And all of a sudden he's expected to play Brodeur/Luongo/Kiprusoff- like minutes? And on the farthest road trip from home of the year?
Many of these problems fall under the coaches responsibilty. Has Duff from "Another Ottawa Senators Blog" said, he just 'needs to be better"
Should he be fired? No. Unless Afghanistan freezes over and the rumoured potential firing of Mike Babcock actaully happens.
fire BM..
Clouston should try Cheechoo-Spezza-Kovalev. He said he tried playing Kovalev with Spezza in preseason and didn't work-out. He has nothing to lose, we're still losing with the line combos we have now.
1st line: Alfie-Fisher-Foligno
2nd line: Cheechoo-Spezza-Kovalev
anon 141
no michalek??
it should be:
michalek fisher alfie
kovy spezza cheech
foligno is a 3rd liner.
Holy geez - ENOUGH with the fire Brian Murray trash! Honestly. The guy has rebuilt our prospect pool that was otherwise dessimated by Muckler (unless you want to include Hennessey and Lee). And, of course, someone will bring up the Eaves/Corvo trade as being so terrible. You know what, it was what Ottawa needed at the time - the fact that they didn't sign is what hurt. The deal, when it went down was good.
And sure the Kovalev signing was a gamble, but who the hell else was he going to sign after Cammeleri went to Montreal? We needed a top 6 winger, so he got one. End of story. We needed a goalie, he went and got one, and drafted one with the same deal.
Murray is a good GM, and an amazing drafter. This team is going to take time to rebuild - the prospects need time to mature. This is not a star studded team anymore so they are going to falter at times. Have some damn patience.
Fisher- Spezza- Kovalev
Michalek- Foligno- Alfredsson
Ruutu- Kelly- Cheechoo
Keller- Winchester- Regin
Anon at 1:41, and Michalek is where? The guy has been our best scorer...
Anon 1:41 -- where do you put Michalek -- the top goal-getter for the Sens?
The reality is Western road trips in the Calfornia time zone are always difficult. It's a lot of travel and a terrible jet-lag. Just look at how well teams like the Coyotes, Ducks, and Kings do when they actually come out East. It's not pretty. We also have to keep in mind that this road trip has been what.
Boston - Most likely a playoff team this year in the top 6. Should win our division if they play our best (we should come 2nd, and be in the 6th-8th playoff range).
San Jose - Arguably the 2nd best team in the West next to Chicago. Extra incentive to win for Heatley. Our #1 goaltender is also out.
LA - Playing well and currently in the top 8 in the West. Expected to make the playoffs this year. We probably should have beat them but bad penalties and crap cost us the game. It's a 4-3 hockey game before the last 3 minutes gaff and the EN goal. The final score didn't reflect the closeness of the game.
PHX - We lose another 3-2 game where we probably didn't show up until the third period. Against a team playing really well of late and a team that is also expected to be in the playoffs or close to it.
Those are four tough teams. I was hoping for a 50% points road trip. That's about what the good playoff teams average. If we beat Anaheim who is shorthanded and not playing well we can get 3/5 points I was expecting. Not great, but not as terrible as people want to think.
Just to say this for Engin. I think Clouston is a very good coach. What annoys me is that he also appears to be a stubborn one. It is obvious he has a first line combination that is more effective than the one he's been playing. Finally he moved Alfie off that line but instead of bringing Cheechoo up he brought up Shannon. Like what the hell. Shannon probably just played his best game of the year with Kovalev and Fisher. Why would you break that up when Cheechoo is the obvious answer?
He seems to CONSTANTLY break up good chemistry groups of players and then put out players together who should never be together.
Here's another golden example. Lee should have been called up instead of us playing Campolli. Even with the time constraints its the wrong call to put him back in (Although really Murray makes this call).
The too many men on the ice penalties and the lack of discipline from our guys is another area that has seemingly gone unaddressed. It's not okay to be the most penalized team in the league. Despite the fact that the refs hate us we're giving them a good deal of easy calls to make against us.
I'm just a passionate fan who sees easy adjustments to try and make things better. It frustrates me as a fan when a coach is blind to the obvious. I mean I was there at ice level for the Toronto game watching Kessel own our first line every time out - at least 15 or more scoring chances for his line that night. Not once did Clouston make any adjustment in our floundering Michalek-Spezza-Alfie line. He's stubborn.
I mean everyone has been complaining "Spezza has to be better!" but yet Clouston in this 10-15 game stretch has only changed that line ONE time to include a player other than the three that have been struggling as a unit. When he does it he chooses Shannon the player he has a man-boner for instead of the obvious choice in Cheechoo. I like him as a coach but sometimes the decisions he makes are enough to make you want to pull you hair out.
anon @ 1:41 pm
michalek on the third line? i'd much rather see
michalek-spezza-kovalev
cheech-fisher-alfy
I like it.
We need to be much more patient and let things mterialize. Anyone who is expecting us to immediatly shoot to the top of the standings and back to the finals is dreaming. Murray needs to find a way to add a well rounded defenceman and another skill forward...i just dont know how he is going to do it.
Also injuries have certainly been a factor with Ottawa this year...like we're saying, be patient!
Anyways definetly hoping they get the W in Anaheim tonight, we need a win in that barn.
@ Anon 1:41pm
I agree we need to try something new with the lines, but Kovalev with Spezza might not be the answer.
Cheechoo has come alive this road trip, so why not try putting him on the top line again? He can put the bread in the basket (well, over the last few games it seems he can), but he works harder than Heatley ever did. So there's a familiarity in giving SPezza a 'true' (in spirit anyway)sniper to pass to, but at the same time, he'll still have to work harder than he did with Options. Keep Alfie on the other flank because again, there's that familiarity and chemistry.
Kovalev stays with Fisher, because let's face it, he has to have something to do with his resurgence. Michalek rounds out the line.
Foligno-Regin-Winchester can form a third line that's defensively responsible but also has second-line offensive potential.
If that doesn't work out..then maybe try the Tin Man with Spezza, and bump Cheechoo down with Michalek and Fisher.
Now, is it a coincidence that our struggles coincide with Volchenkovs return? Probably mostly. But the Phillips-Volchenkov pairing has always adversely effected our offensive attack I believe. They just can't move the puck up the ice and get it to the forwards. This wasn't so bad when we had Redden, Meszaros, Corvo and Preissing filling out the blue-line, not it spells disaster.
Kuba-Volchenkov
Karlsson-Phillips
Picard-Carkner.
whose in net today?
what r tonights lineup?
good rant about clouston
Come on Clouston, I know you're reading this! Let's see these lines for a game or two:
Michalek-Fisher-Alfredsson
Kovy-Spezz-Cheech
Pylon-Puck-Goalpost
Waterbottle-Stick-Jockstrap
To the poster who asked why we're so much better at home than on the road, I think there are a number of reasons. Home crowd advantage, habits of being at home, but another factor is the last change.
Clouston is a smart coach in this regard. He matches lines well, and with the advantage of last change at home, he can ice the best lines as the situation dictates. On the road, he has to try and compensate. The Sens don't have as much 'depth' as people think. In particular, defensemen capable of shutting down the oppositions top lines beyond Phillips and Volchenkov. I love Carkner's play but his skating just isn't up to it. It's difficult to play our best duo so often. I'm thinking things will be better next year with Cowan on board.
I agree with Engin that there is no need to hit the panic switch.
However, 2-3 year is the lifespan of most coaches with a team. He should be given at least a full year, but 2-3 Y is what you give to a GM to see improvements, not a coach.
Better coaches do more with less. The roster is obviously a major factor, but the reason Ruff and Trotz have been coaches for so long is that they compete with average teams. I believe that Ott has a better team than Buff or Nash, so there is something to work with here.
I can't fault Clouston for shaky goaltending, but defensive cohesion can be improved by coaching. Can't blame the coach for Spezza's lack of scoring, but the PP can be improved by Clouston and staff.
So don't panic, but don't go for the roster excuse either.
PL
im just wondering how many anonymous people who said agreed 100% with engin's post was in fact engin sending it lol.
nobody is saying fire clouston, but he has made numerous questionable decisions this year. we are the most penalized team in the league, most bench minors in the league, he cant make lines worth a crap, he cant motivate stars like kovalev and spezza. I like clouston and i know he is young so im willing to give him 2 years. For me however its Bryan murray thats got to go, he had his shot, and our team is full of overpaid underachievers because of his mistakes
Michalek is sniping at about the same rate as Heatley.
That is not Spezza's problem. It's hard to say what is. He looked so good at the beginning of the season even though he wasn't getting any points.
He does stretch his back during TV timeouts. It has to be the cause of his struggles.
Hopefully he can get things on track sooner than later.
Agreed. Enough with the fire this person or that... Enough with the bench this person or that. Enough with the why'd he bench this person or that... Enough with the why'd he play this line together or that.
All these things are minor details in the big picture. The truth is this team just is not good enough to compete with the better teams in the league. Forget the elite team, we're not even good enough to compete with the "sub-elite" teams. And it's not because of the coach. This team does not have the talent to compete at a very high level. I personally like Clouston. I think he's smart and wants the team to play an up-tempo style of hockey that I personally like watching. And I hope he's our coach here for a long time.
pg
coaching isn't the problem, its the players. This team needs a few tweaks to the lineup to make it capable of going deep in the playoffs, a gritty top six forward and a gritty top 4 d man would definitley help.
This team lacks intenstiy and nastiness, they don't bring the physical play to any teams; the only time they do is when they have neil leading the way, they never play physical when he is out of the lineup. The sens need a nother player or two like him in the bottom six, I would like the sens to give yablonski a shot, even with limited minutes he would help set the tone physically.
The key for success for the sens is the forechecking and this team needs more hard hitting agressive forecheckers.
They need neil and yablonski.
They should also get another physical player that can put up some points like eric cole, tuomo ruutu,owen nolan, raffi torres or colby armstong
even a physical player that can play in the bottom six would help like scott walker, ethan moreau, ben eager or jordin tootoo.
If the sens become a hard hitting forechecking team, they will increase their chances of success
Very good rant Engin. Just for future references though, please NEVER INSULT SOCCER(the most beautiful game in the world) AGAIN !!
i agree with engin. and its something i ask myself before ranting here as to why the team was all high flying 10 days ago at home and then has gone atrocious all of a sudden. however, i think the holes were there when they were winning too. dont get me wrong, some of the wins for example against the caps and penguins were awesome and greatly satisfying, but each win left wanting for something more, something was always there that stopped the wins from being complete absolute domination, except the win against the penguins which these guys just absolutely clinically surgically outplayed the pens.
and i think those holes have finally come to count. holes like spezza's horrible production. the carousel on the bottom two lines due to injuries and/or clouston's decisions. the semi-carousel on defense also with injuries/unsatisfactory play. the biggest hole that hasnt been addressed which i think really counts above spezza's lack of production is the huge amount of penalties these guys take. thats something they havent fixed since the first game. also, they have missed energy guys like neil and donovan, who really would push this team when it used to be down with good solid shifts. i think cooke deserved a suspension on the dono hit and so did peters. faceoffs is another area where these guys havent been very good also.
ofcourse, we cant lay all the blame on clouston. he cant control the injuries and he certainly cant predict how much Elliot would slump. but he certainly being coach can do things to spark spezza. figure out if its injury or what it really is. to me it seems motivation. he can obviously show his displeasure with kelly's penalties but he refuses to do so. something i really dont get is for example: he bumps foligno and regin out of the lineup. sure, those guys might not be producing, but i dont think foligno and regin handicap this team during a game. but a guy like kelly with his dumb penalties, absolutely handicaps this team. im sure the whole bench goes "not again" with each penalty he takes. so, why bump a guy who if not producing atleast isnt costing you the game by dumb moves, but play a guy who without production is costing the game at crucial times.
sure, moves need to be made, this roster is far from a perfect team. but i think we can all agree that its not too bad on paper. and the performance on the ice for atleast the last 4 games does not reflect that at all.
I'm so glad this was posted... you said most of what I wanted to rant about. Clouston looks good (minus the Too Many Men calls), the Sens don't look consistent.
Ottawa is lacking a top 2 centerman, a top 2 winger and a PMD. Plus their starting goaltender is hurt. Plus they are playing on the road. Perhaps these are reasons why Ottawa is losing, not clouston?
Go Sens go!
What a Western road swing can do to this fan bases perception of the coach and its players.
People were crying jack adams for this guy, albeit early, hes done one hell of a job since coming on. And the style of play he preaches is the reason for the turnaround last year, and the turnaround which continued this year.
God the fire coach BS is annoying.
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