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Reputation:99
Level:Superstar
Since:Oct 16, 2006
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I always remember Ron WIlson's teams under-achieving, so this is no surprise. He's a good but not great coach. He had no answer for the Red Wings when he was with the Capitals, and was swept. He has come close to chocking with the Sharks in the playoffs, and ultimately being beaten by a less talented team like the Flames or the Oilers every year. I thought that they would choke away the Flames series this year for sure, and almost did, and ultimately got beat by a less talented Stars team. They had the Red Wings right where they wanted them last year, and then completely unraveled. This guy reminds me of Joel Quenneville and Terry Murray. Good coach, but lacks the ability to get a good team become great.
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Reputation:94
Level:All-Star
Since:Aug 30, 2006
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I'm wondering how your score is 103 pal. You make a few decent pts in a badly worded paragraph but the main problem is - you call coach Wilson a choker. Do you even know what it means to choke? A choke is referring to specific moment when a player fails under pressure. Doesn't apply to an entire team underachieving. Don't toss around words just to sound cool. I mean how can a head coach of an NHL team choke? He can do a poor job of preparing them but he can't choke away a game or series. The '07 game 4 vs DET was on the players. And they weren't that much more talented than the Wings then or Calgary in '04.
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Reputation:91
Level:All-Star
Since:Dec 30, 2006
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Yeah but his team choked at home to Dallas. They were an all-star team that barely got it done against the Flames. I love the Sharks but they can never get past the playoffs, forget the RedWings.
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Reputation:89
Level:All-Star
Since:Aug 22, 2006
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I have no idea how you can call Ron Wilson a choker. I do agree that San Jose lost too many games at home this playoff season, but to say that he choked while in Washington against the Red Wings in the Cup Finals in '98? His Washington Capitals team didn't have the players to compete with the Red Wings that season. Did any team have an answer for the way that Detroit played that playoff year? The answer is "no." He did a wonderful job taking that group of over acheivers to the Finals.
Ron Wilson will catch on with another team this off season, and I'm sure that he will do a good job there as well.
A coach like Bryan Murray can be called an under acheiver, since he has had very talented teams in the past and has not had much success in the playoffs.
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Reputation:83
Level:All-Star
Since:Mar 20, 2008
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In Ron Wilson's defense, no team in 1998 had an answer for the Red Wings, let alone the Caps. Also, everybody keeps pounding on how talented this team is (and they are), but not on how little moxy they have as a group. Sorry, but Joe Thorton, for all of his regular season stats and heroics, has been a playoff bust in both Boston and San Jose. Cheechoo and Marleau are both streaky players that also do not show up in the playoffs. They need a Chris Drury or Claude Lemieux type of player. And while the constant talk was of needing a puck moving defenseman before the playoffs, Brian Campbell proved to be more of a product of Buffalo's system than the uber-defenseman everybody was making him out to be (he'll be this year's Shelon Souray in free-agency). Anyhoo, all said, I think it will be hard to find a coach that can put a flame under this ho-hum bunch of underacheivers and get them to the next level.
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Reputation:22
Level:Amateur
Since:Jan 30, 2008
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I agree with Carrier - he choked - it was his game plan and he decided who played. Why did Jody Shelley sit the entire time with ozolinsh? We could have used them a lot against Dallas. Poor preparation, poor substituting - finesse and no hitting - that is why Wilson will never win a championship. He takes great teams like the Wash and Anaheim teams he was given and systematically ruins them. I watched every game that was televised and went to a few and it was the same story - finesse game. Finesse doesnt win - hard Hockey does. If we would have hit Dallas physically like we did in game 5 - we would have won that series easily.
I said in february we would not make it to the finals based on Wilsons history. And so it is. Now we can get someone who can motivate and actually coach this team. The only bad part is - this should have been done a year or 2 ago.
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Reputation:91
Level:All-Star
Since:Nov 11, 2007
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Esa Tikkanen sure choked when he missed that empty netter in Game 2 that would have given the Caps a 3-goal advantage and probably sent the series back to DC tied 1-1. That really took the wind out of the Caps after they played hard in Game 1 and up until that point in the 2nd game. Was all down hill after that.
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Reputation:93
Level:All-Star
Since:Mar 18, 2008
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Brian Campbell got 7 points in 13 games and was a plus 3, not bad for a d-man in the playoffs. as for jumbo joe with 10 points and a plus 3, not great for a superstar center. joe has trouble performing in faster games because he applies a very controlled style of play in which he gets a lot of time with the puck. however, he showed improvement towards the end of the playoffs and could be better next year, but i wouldn't count on it too heavily. i don't understand how anyone can call patty and cheech underachievers in the playoffs. patty has always been a huge playoff competitor, despite his struggles in the wings series last season, and cheechoo is the king of timely, game changing goals. their efforts don't show up on the scoresheets all that much but their contributions are tremendous. just look at patty's leadership in this playoffs. the Flames take multiple viscous runs on patty and what does he do? he gets right back up, wipes off the blood, and competes like a madman for the rest of the night! then down by 3 against dallas? no big deal for patty as he leads his team into battle with 2 shorthanded goals in as many games! then you look at cheechoo, who came through when the Sharks seemed moments away from going down 3-1 to the flames with a gorgeous shot from a brutal angle for the tying goal.
but with all this, why then did the team lose? COACHING!!!!!!! i'm not just looking for a scape goat in a desperate attempt to understand repeated disappointment here! I said we need a different coach after ron's first year! doug wilson is the genious that made this team good, it just looks like ron because doug came in just after him! this team DOES have the tools to win but they need a new coach.
so why is ron so bad? look at this year, the sharks string together an amazing 20 games in which they took 38 of a possible 40 pts! what was happening that led to that stretch? consistency. the line combos were stabilized, the gameplay finalized, and the roster was always the same game in and game out. the sharks found a rythm, a rythm that could've quite possibly carried the sharks straight to the stanley cup. so when the playoffs role around, what does ron wilson do? he completely alters the roster and jumbles up all his lines! when your team is a finely tuned hockey machine going into the playoffs, YOU DONT SCREW WITH IT!!!!!!!!!!!
he is also so damn stubborn with his gameplan that even when dallas started swarming the puck, ron clinged to his very spread out system. that made it easy for dallas to win every battle and pick off tons of passes! this was especially apparent on the power play as they couldnt get passes through to any other player because they were completely spread throughout the offensive zone.
sorry ron, better luck elsewhere, but we definitely needed to move on.
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Reputation:99
Level:Superstar
Since:Oct 16, 2006
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Ok, so in the world of semantics choker may not be the best description of Ron Wilson to some. My point is that he has not been able to get his teams to out-perform the other team under numerous circumstances. It's not that he was supposed to beat the Red Wings when he was with the Capitals, it's that he couldn't even get his team to be competitive in four games. The Sharks were absolutely stacked this year, and should have demolished the Flames and the Stars. Yes, the players have to perform too, but the coach is partly responsible for making sure that the team is put into the best possible situations. This happens every year with Wilson, why? It' | |
