GDT: Ottawa @ Atlanta - Sun. Mar. 27 @ 2pm ET

Big Ev wrote:
The team wasn't in rock bottom when he took over, they just weren't a playoff team. THIS is rock bottom.

And yes that 13 game streak is the reason we made the playoffs but he was obviously coaching well and getting amazing goaltending from Elliott.

Not gonna get into the specifics, but they were pretty far down the ladder. They hit rock bottom for sure on that season and it was low enough to make them miss the playoffs despite a 19-11-4 run. Who's to say his benching of karlsson didn't turn him into a better player? who's giving him the ice time? development of spezza? anyways my main point is that people attack this guy at any and every turn and rarely give props to him when something good happens. I think I made that clear

We need Clouston and Ken Hitchc0ck to co-coach the team. Clouston can't handle the vets and Hitch can't handle the kids. A match made in heaven.

Michallica wrote:
? seriously? Shannon has been one of our best players and has shown nice hands (see Tampa Bay shorthanded goal). Why is it that he picks one of our better performing players and suddenly clouston is in love with shannon? Diddle I know ppl can't wait for clouston to be gone, but it gets ridiculous when people look for everything and anything to attack the guy with.

Get no credit when the team actually does something right, and take all the blame when nothing goes their way....its a bogus 'rule' that unfortunately brainwashes too many fans.

I wasn't even gonna comment on it, but yeah, it gets old. Shannon is one of our best forwards right now, why wouldn't he be used in a shootout. Not to mention that he's very good at it as well.

Michallica wrote:

Big Ev wrote:

tim1_2 wrote:That was a fairly useless point Ottawa got, but it's quite fun to watch them right now.

Dunno why Clouston picked Shannon to go in the shootout again. His move against the Rangers was TERRIBLE, and he tried the exact same move again...and it was STILL TERRIBLE.

The guy is all over Shannon's nuts and it's pretty sad.

? seriously? Shannon has been one of our best players and has shown nice hands (see Tampa Bay shorthanded goal). Why is it that he picks one of our better performing players and suddenly clouston is in love with shannon? Diddle I know ppl can't wait for clouston to be gone, but it gets ridiculous when people look for everything and anything to attack the guy with.

Get no credit when the team actually does something right, and take all the blame when nothing goes their way....its a bogus 'rule' that unfortunately brainwashes too many fans.

Not sure who incited your rage (me or Ev), but all I was saying was that it was a weird decision given Shannon's FAIL against the Rangers in the shootout. I thought finally using Karlsson (against the Rags, and continuing in this game) was smart, but that also should have started months ago.

I probably would've tried the kids before giving Svatos or Shannon a shot. Condra, Greening, Butler.... You don't know 'till you try (just like Karlsson).

SpezDispenser wrote:

Michallica wrote:
? seriously? Shannon has been one of our best players and has shown nice hands (see Tampa Bay shorthanded goal). Why is it that he picks one of our better performing players and suddenly clouston is in love with shannon? Diddle I know ppl can't wait for clouston to be gone, but it gets ridiculous when people look for everything and anything to attack the guy with.

Get no credit when the team actually does something right, and take all the blame when nothing goes their way....its a bogus 'rule' that unfortunately brainwashes too many fans.

I wasn't even gonna comment on it, but yeah, it gets old. Shannon is one of our best forwards right now, why wouldn't he be used in a shootout. Not to mention that he's very good at it as well.

Shannon is 25% lifetime in the shootout and was coming off of a horrible attempt vs. the Rangers. That is not "very good at it".

Hoags wrote:The team went from 5th in the East to a lottery team in the span of a year. You can't have a massive collapse like that without at least considering holding the coaching staff partially accountable. The team looked bad right out of training camp and never improved. I'm not holding Clouston responsible but I think we can do better. He's not doing himself any favors telling the media it's bad goaltending and a few scapegoats like Kovalev and Fisher who were holding us back.

I agree to be honest, just trying to play devil's advocate here. The goaltending was OHL quality for long stretches this season + Kovalev and Fisher were taking up valuable spots in the top six that could have been used by...well Greening and Condra for two and Butler for 3. Is it Clouston's fault that he had to wait for Murray to purge some of the old guard (plus Kovalev) and bring in some new blood? By definition it's certainly nothing to do with Clouston, he works with what he's given.

On the other hand, he made some really bad coaching decisions that I can't just forget about. And if I can't forget about it, surely Murray can't either.

Still...when the chips are down, goaltending cost us the year, his decisions only accelerated it, but it was Elliott, Cussing Leclaire, Kuba being out for the season, then coming back and blowing chunks, and old and tired players who desperately needed to move on. Now that we see the new product that will define the Senators for the next 5+ years (or it had bloody well better!) - youth, enthusiasm, hard to play against, hard forecheckers, driving the net etc., I'd say Clouston can handle them just fine. His system is working now that there's an element of speed and youth, whereas it was dead before because we had tools like Kovalev who are dinosaurs in this league now.

It's a much harder decision than the so-called experts are saying IMO. Clouston has shown as a young coach that given the ingredients, he can make something here. And I imagine we're gonna get younger, not older next year, so...who knows what the right decision is.

tim1_2 wrote:Shannon is 25% lifetime in the shootout and was coming off of a horrible attempt vs. the Rangers. That is not "very good at it".

25% lifetime would be considered quite good at it.

tim1_2 wrote:
Shannon is 25% lifetime in the shootout and was coming off of a horrible attempt vs. the Rangers. That is not "very good at it".

25% before the attempt or after the attempt? either way, that percentage is still higher than most of our players....like spezza and alfie.

Big Ev wrote:

Michallica wrote:

Hoags wrote:

Michallica wrote:team's winning.....'well that's cuz of anderson'. team's losing....'Cussing clouston can't do jack, makes terrible decisions all the time'

The team went from 5th in the East to a lottery team in the span of a year. You can't have a massive collapse like that without at least considering holding the coaching staff partially accountable. The team looked bad right out of training camp and never improved. I'm not holding Clouston responsible but I think we can do better. He's not doing himself any favors telling the media it's bad goaltending and a few scapegoats like Kovalev and Fisher who were holding us back.

Yeah definitely not. He definitely has to shoulder some responsibility for that and he has come out and said that he does. He claims it to be a learning experience, and yeah he may just be saying that but he never really threw any of his players under the bus while they were with him. He seems to have done it to Eliott (which was a shocker), but by the same token that a 5th place team went to rock bottom, how about when he took a rock bottom team to 5th place?

queue the 'well that was cuz of the 11 game win streak, not clouston' there's literally nothing this guy can do right in ottawa

The team wasn't in rock bottom when he took over, they just weren't a playoff team. THIS is rock bottom.

And yes that 13 game streak is the reason we made the playoffs but he was obviously coaching well and getting amazing goaltending from Elliott.

Nah, rock bottom was when they got blown out by The Leafs at home on a Saturday night. That was the game where The Sens packed it in on the fans and each other. The slid along the bottom for a while after but that was about as bad as it got.

Right now, this isn't rock bottom, it's the begining of the climb to the top again. If you put this season on Clouston then all of last year and the unexpected success they had is on him too. Fact of the matter is The Sens may need a new face behind that bench but it has to be a guy that everyone is 100% confident in. Is it Dave Cameron? I have no idea. Could be Cameron, Muller, Clouston, maybe Cunneyworth, but anyone saying that Clouston with 100% certainty is wrong because no one's season is over and clearly no decisions have been made.

Thing is, say Murray stays on with a one year extension, and he wants to keep clouston around for the same period...if you're clouston, do you accept anything less than 2-3 years? It's a tough call but it makes ZERO sense in having Murray hire a different coach, I can tell you that much.

I just don't see how anyone can make that assumption right now that it's 100% not Clouston. I had a lot against him earlier in the year, but I'll gladly admit that a lot of it had to do with the players themselves.

I don't think people really appreciate just how obvious it was that some players in Ottawa like Kovalev, Ruutu, and to a lesser extent Elliott and Fisher had just packed it in on Clouston, Murray, their team, and the fans. Also, the Leclaire fiasco had a huge effect from the very top all the way down to Elmira. It was an absolutely brutal year in that sense and those are the biggest reasons why this team is in the basement.

Next year if Anderson plays 1/2 as well as he is playing right now, the team plays a system that will help them win close games, and they can get some points in OT and the shootout, The Sens are right in the playoff hunt. They are not as bad as teams like Florida, Atlanta, NYI, Toronto, and are right on par with teams like NYR, Carolina, Buffalo, Montreal, Tampa, so on.

Michallica wrote:Thing is, say Murray stays on with a one year extension, and he wants to keep clouston around for the same period...if you're clouston, do you accept anything less than 2-3 years? It's a tough call but it makes ZERO sense in having Murray hire a different coach, I can tell you that much.

The second he balks at a 1 year deal, Murray will move on. Clouston doesn't really have the options (I don't think) to not accept another year as Head Coach.

SpezDispenser wrote:

Michallica wrote:Thing is, say Murray stays on with a one year extension, and he wants to keep clouston around for the same period...if you're clouston, do you accept anything less than 2-3 years? It's a tough call but it makes ZERO sense in having Murray hire a different coach, I can tell you that much.

The second he balks at a 1 year deal, Murray will move on. Clouston doesn't really have the options (I don't think) to not accept another year as Head Coach.

Agreed. That said, can we assume that Clouston himself wants to stay on? Not like he's come out and said he's fighting for a job (like Murray did).

SpezDispenser wrote:I just don't see how anyone can make that assumption right now that it's 100% not Clouston. I had a lot against him earlier in the year, but I'll gladly admit that a lot of it had to do with the players themselves.

When almost every single person in the media says it's highly unlikely he returns as head coach, especially the people who follow the Sens closely, then I tend to believe them.

Big Ev wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:I just don't see how anyone can make that assumption right now that it's 100% not Clouston. I had a lot against him earlier in the year, but I'll gladly admit that a lot of it had to do with the players themselves.

When almost every single person in the media says it's highly unlikely he returns as head coach, especially the people who follow the Sens closely, then I tend to believe them.

Were those the same media people that said Phillips was 100% on the move?

NEELY wrote:

Big Ev wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:I just don't see how anyone can make that assumption right now that it's 100% not Clouston. I had a lot against him earlier in the year, but I'll gladly admit that a lot of it had to do with the players themselves.

When almost every single person in the media says it's highly unlikely he returns as head coach, especially the people who follow the Sens closely, then I tend to believe them.

Were those the same media people that said Phillips was 100% on the move?

No, those people who said either Phillips is traded or he is signed right away.

Michallica wrote:

tim1_2 wrote:
Shannon is 25% lifetime in the shootout and was coming off of a horrible attempt vs. the Rangers. That is not "very good at it".

25% before the attempt or after the attempt? either way, that percentage is still higher than most of our players....like spezza and alfie.

Spezza is 33% and The Alfie is 30.5%. I'm not a math wizard, but I think I know which is "higher". Maybe you should look at stats before making them up.

Also, 25% is NOT "very good at it". Again, look at stats before commenting on them. The LOWEST team shooting % in the shootout is currently held by the Panthers at 24%. The Sens team % is 28.7%. Having a shootout % that is BARELY above the WORST team average in the league is not good at it. Shannon's % puts him below the NHL average. Again...not "very good at it".