Phil Housley - How bad was he?

[inkman]

So Sabres Twitter exploded Saturday night with "How bad was Phil Housley" mantra.  Here are some excerpts:

 

Is there a Head Coach Ralph Krueger filter?

Answer: yes I typed Ra©®u 

Edited October 7, 2019 by inkman

[darksabre]

I expressed similar sentiment. But things are probably more complicated than Housley simply being bad all on his own.

That said, I think it's possible that he was terrible and probably worse than even Bylsma.

 

[LGR4GM]

2 minutes ago, darksabre said:

I expressed similar sentiment. But things are probably more complicated than Housley simply being bad all on his own.

That said, I think it's possible that he was terrible and probably worse than even Bylsma.

 

idk... 9 whiteboards is pretty bad. 

[Randall Flagg]

He was probably a bad overall head coach, but I also don't think our final record last year was out of line with our talent level. 

[miles]

I think it is way too early to tell. However I will say this, putting it bluntly. the last couple of years the Sabres looked like a slow, disorganized and generally disinterested team. 

This season they look terrific so far. They look well coached. They look faster than I have seen in a while and in general seems to be playing harder. 

Obviously they will not win every game.  I'm most interested in seeing how they react when losing. That was when they fell apart last years

Edited October 7, 2019 by miles

[...]

2 hours ago, Randall Flagg said:

He was probably a bad overall head coach, but I also don't think our final record last year was out of line with our talent level. 

So, are you implying these first two games were played at unsustainable levels?

[msw2112]

We're only 2 games into this season and Krueger has a better roster than Housley had.  But you can still say that Housley was bad without comparing things to this season. 

Housley was a great NHL player and is in the Hall of Fame.  That was because of his tremendous skill.  He was one of the best offensive defensemen in history and had a really long and productive career.  One thing he was not, however, was a team leader.  Phil never wore the "C" for the Sabres, and I can't recall whether he ever wore the "A" - but I don't think so.  Some guys are skill guys, some guys are grit/glue guys and some are both.  Most successful coaches that were former players had that grit/glue element to their game and were natural leaders.  Phil the coach had some good systems that worked well in Nashville when he was an assistant,  but he was not able to get the guys to buy in and stick to the program in Buffalo when things went south.  They became disinterested and disorganized and it spiraled down.  He didn't have the leadership skills to get it back on track.  Housley could probably be a good assistant coach somewhere else again, if there is a strong leader as the head coach.  I see he is an assistant in Arizona, with Rick Tocchet as head coach.  It might work.  He just doesn't have the personality to be a head coach at the NHL level.

[GASabresIUFAN]

Ask me again in 39 games.

When I look at the players Wowie had to coach on D,  I’m not sure what anyone could do.  Bogo is terrible and oft injured.  Scandella fell apart. Baloo stunk and they were being counted on for the last two years.  Awful.

[Randall Flagg]

25 minutes ago, ... said:

So, are you implying these first two games were played at unsustainable levels?

Two games are less than three percent of the season, so I would go as far as saying the "sustainability" of the play in them is not even a well-posed topic.

If they were to continue playing the way they have in these games, there's nothing "unsustainable" about that. Beating teams into the dirt by ramming the puck down their throats over and over again, and winning while doing so, is the type of winning that lends confidence in future winning, statistically and otherwise, and that's what we did for two games. 

I understand your question in the sense that the rosters are fairly similar, but Dahlin growth, Olofsson being a player, steps up from Jack and Sam, a best-case-scenario Johansson, and Miller/Joki being what we'd hoped and Scandella/Risto bouncing back are all things that collectively could have made last year's team into a good one, and they have all happened in our brief two games. If they were all to continue such that we carry the play in most of the games we play, it's sustainable. But we won't know if that is going to happen until it happens! 

[PromoTheRobot]

Phil was a coaching succubus.

[pi2000]

3 hours ago, darksabre said:

I expressed similar sentiment. But things are probably more complicated than Housley simply being bad all on his own.

That said, I think it's possible that he was terrible and probably worse than even Bylsma.

 

The team did better with less talent under Bylsma... why do people forget this?

[darksabre]

4 minutes ago, pi2000 said:

The team did better with less talent under Bylsma... why do people forget this?

I sure haven't.

[Randall Flagg]

7 minutes ago, pi2000 said:

The team did better with less talent under Bylsma... why do people forget this?

Bylsma is a better coach than Phil, but I'd take EITHER of 16/17 or 15/16's rosters over 17-18 and it's not particularly close. Tennyson, Beaulieu, Gorges, and Falk all got significant playing time together behind Nolan, Josefson, Griffith, Moulson, and Pouliot all existing throughout the forwards at once, all in front of a melted-down Lehner rather than a .920 Lehner. Post-injury Kyle was a trainwreck, and Larry and Zemgus did not have the confidence and established roles they were given for the 18-19 season that allowed them to excel as shot suppressors.

2016-17 in partuclar, the top six forwards were actually really good, in ROR, Eichel, Reinhart, Kane, pre-injury Kyle, and whoever else you wanted to put in there. That team was flying high into early February, we were hoping for a playoff run before the final ~20 games were played at a 55 point pace, which culminated in Dan's firing.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Randall Flagg

[...]

48 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

I understand your question in the sense that the rosters are fairly similar, but Dahlin growth, Olofsson being a player, steps up from Jack and Sam, a best-case-scenario Johansson, and Miller/Joki being what we'd hoped and Scandella/Risto bouncing back are all things that collectively could have made last year's team into a good one, and they have all happened in our brief two games. If they were all to continue such that we carry the play in most of the games we play, it's sustainable. But we won't know if that is going to happen until it happens! 

I think we would have to measure this year's performance against the metrics from last year when Olofsson was playing with the big club.  Historical data is used to make assessments of the season at-hand, I can't see throwing that data out because we like what we see.

[bunomatic]

Its like someone else said we’ve basically added a whole line of players and a boatload of mobile puck moving defensively responsible D-men. Phil could have used that depth. Don’t know if he would have but he’s gone and Ralph is here with more assets than Phil had. I’ m liking what I’ve seen so far.

[ddaryl]

Phil's style just did resonate with this team IMO..  The team gave up on him and that's usually a tell tale sign of a coach.

[erickompositör72]

Not going to name names, but some people on here are bewilderingly contradictory. I've seen the same posters say things like:

• it wasn't totally Phil's fault, the team didn't have enough talent
• this year's roster isn't really any better/different than last year's
• Krueger might be better, but he has a better roster

Some of you guys make my head spin

[SwampD]

2 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Phil was a coaching succubus.

I think you mean incubus.

[PromoTheRobot]

12 minutes ago, SwampD said:

I think you mean incubus.

I'm aware that succubus refers to a demon of the female persuasion, however as an entity that sucks the joy and skill out of hockey players, succubus is more apropos than incubus.

[inkman]

44 minutes ago, SwampD said:

I think you mean incubus.

Pardon Me 

[Randall Flagg]

2 hours ago, ... said:

I think we would have to measure this year's performance against the metrics from last year when Olofsson was playing with the big club.  Historical data is used to make assessments of the season at-hand, I can't see throwing that data out because we like what we see.

Olofsson only played in six games last year. By itself that's not enough to lean on, much less given the fact that in just about all of those games, either the Sabres (@NYI) or their opponents (vs OTT, @DET) were in full-on run for the bus mode.

[SwampD]

58 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

I'm aware that succubus refers to a demon of the female persuasion, however as an entity that sucks the joy and skill out of hockey players, succubus is more apropos than incubus.

I still think incubus fits better. We all watched those games. He ***** us while we slept.

[Randall Flagg]

1 hour ago, erickompositör72 said:

Not going to name names, but some people on here are bewilderingly contradictory. I've seen the same posters say things like:

• it wasn't totally Phil's fault, the team didn't have enough talent
• this year's roster isn't really any better/different than last year's
• Krueger might be better, but he has a better roster

Some of you guys make my head spin

Considering that I have held something close to all of those views, allow me to explain how they can all be held in concert with each other:

- The Sabres relied on untalented players in too many critical roles last year to be successful
- Too many of those players came back for us to be happy at the start of the season, because as I and others have explicitly stated, the list of things needing to go right for the team to be good was too long to be reasonable, and we'd like to go into any given season with a "these things need to be good for us to be good" checklist that is short and probable to be filled
- Through two games, all of those things have gone right, which if extrapolated over 82 games, would earn a "well that was pretty damn fortunate, or Botts is a genius, but let's hope our laundry list is never that long again either way" response
- I guess I haven't explicitly said the last bullet, because I'm not really super focused on Krueger's two games when he will ultimately have no less than 162 to judge him on, but either way, IF the laundry list has all been checked off, then the roster was indeed better, even if on a surface level it was problematic to rely on so many dart throws to start the season

[inkman]

18 minutes ago, SwampD said:

I still think incubus fits better. We all watched those games. He ***** us while we slept.

Stop being a Megalomaniac

[inkman]

17 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

Considering that I have held something close to all of those views, allow me to explain how they can all be held in concert with each other:

Don't bother, we already know you're an overly verbose Dbag  ?