Curious Coaching

With their teams right in the thick of the most competitive playoff race in years, Edmonton's Craig MacTavish and Minnesota's Jaques Lemaire have been making numerous puzzling choices in terms of player personnel and ice time recently. I want to highlight a couple of the decisions I found particularly disturbing.

On Sunday, the aforementioned teams were playing each other. The Oilers were behind by two goals in the third period. Who might one expect to see on the ice, and on the ice a lot? Perhaps Ales Hemsky, Andrew Cogliano, Shawn Horcoff, Ales Kotalik. You know, people who can score. People who can create offence. Instead, for at least four shifts during what in retrospect might be one of the most important periods of the Oilers season, we all got experience the joys of watching fourth-line players fail miserably at generating any kind of attack while skill players wasted away on the bench. Now, I am baffled enough with the fact that "Mac T", as they call him, continues to lean towards spreading out his ice time, but the fact that he chose to stick to his strategy under such circumstances was beyond my comprehension. This isn't Minor Pewee House League in Newmarket, Ontario. This is the National Hockey League. Your best players are your best players - so you have to win with them or lose with them. By that I mean, it is the coach's responsibility to at least TRY to win with them. I think this team has underperformed this season. On paper, they should have been able to compete with Calgary and Vancouver, especially when you factor in the world-class goaltending they've received from the ageless Dwaybe Roloson. As a Ranger fan, I'm the last person to point the finger at a coach, but it this case, I think it is the only fair place to be pointing.

I'll take a less harsh stance against Jaques Lemaire, because his record speaks for itself. But he made a curious decision tonight against Vancouver that left me scratching my head. And I'm sure the fans in Minnesota aren't too thrilled either. The game was heading into overtime, and the Wild were starting the extra frame on the power play. In fact, they were set to have over a minute of 4-on-3. Now, given what you know about Minnesota's roster, who might be the first person you send onto the ice under such circumstances? There is one, and only one correct answer. It starts and ends with Marian Gaborik. He's one of the most dangerous offensive weapons in the league, and since returning from injury he has been on fire. In addition to that, he traditionally does very well against the Canucks (remember the '03 playoffs?). And oh yeah, he scored Minnesota's only goal in the third period tonight. Lemaire, for whatever reason, elected to throw Andrew Brunette out there with Mikko Koivu instead. Nothing against Brunette, he's always been a capable scorer, but c'mon, you absolutely have to go with Gaborik. Why? Same reason Mac T shouldn't have had Stortini, Jaques, and Brodziak running around on Sunday. To make it even worse, Brunette had four, count 'em, FOUR chances to one-time the puck onto the net and/or walk the puck into the crease area. He failed each time. I'm not guaranteeing Gaborik would've scored, but the odds suggest he may have performed more admirably than the others on the ice. I hope Minnesota doesn't miss the playoffs by a single point...