My case against Ron Wilson

The Leafs fans in attendance at last night’s 5-0 pasting of the Leafs by the visiting Edmonton Oilers were very vocal in their disapproval of the club’s performance, booing them soundly towards the end of the second, contuining on into the third before eventually forming a “Fire Wilson” chant coming from the upper bowl of the Air Canada Center.

The Oilers were one of three teams below the Leafs in the NHL standings, and with the win have cemented the Leafs solidly in 28th place. What’s more, the Oilers are an example of what could have been for the Leafs, with rookie Taylor Hall, chosen #1 overall in last summer’s entry draft, potting two goals in a powerful effort. Had the Leafs hung onto their draft picks and not acquired Phil Kessel, chances are they would have had the opportunity to select Hall with the 1st overall pick.

The loss puts the Leafs at 0-3-1 in their last four, and a dismal 8-12-4 on the season to date. The shut out was the 6th time this year the Leafs have failed to put a goal on the board. Can anyone blame the fans for booing the futility shown by this club, especially on home ice? Can anyone blame the fans for calling for Ron Wilson’s head, when recent history shows it’s the right thing to do?

This team is clearly not playing up to its potential. Contrary to popular belief, the Leafs do have some talent on the club. Players like Tyler Bozak, Phil Kessel, Kris Versteeg and others aren’t contributing as expected. We’ve seen this happen a lot recently with young, talented clubs, and the coaching change seems to have sparked the club and gotten guys out of their slumps.

Bruce Boudreau is a prime example of this, turning the Washington Capitals season around a few years back after stepping in as head coach. Pittsburgh switched from Michel Therrien to Dan Bylsma and won the cup in 2009. Joe Sacco was hired to lead the Avalanche and they were one of the biggest surprises of last season. Scott Arniel in Columbus is working wonders and Cory Clouston managed to right the ship in Ottawa for the time being.

Wilson has a great track record as a head coach, but if you look a little more closely you’ll see he had a lot more to work with. Wilson is a great coach, but not for a young team like this. Not for a team lacking in leadership and confidence. Wilson’s tenures in both San Jose and with the US Olympic team have shown that he can coach when he’s got the talent to execute his game plan, but it’s quite obvious that he needs to change his game plan to suit this young Leafs club.

Wilson’s trademark had been special teams. The Sharks were among the league leaders in both power play and penalty killing proficiency when Wilson was on board, but this is not so with the Leafs. Given all the changes to improve the penalty killing and defensive group, is it really the players that are to blame here? Can you chalk up every one of Toronto’s 19 goals against to ‘missed assignments’ and ‘lack of skill’?

The Leafs have one of the best shut-down defensemen in the league right now in Luke Schenn. Their goaltending tandem of JS Giguere and Jonas Gustavsson have provided solid efforts and stability between the pipes unseen in Toronto since the days of Curtis Joseph. So why is their penalty killing still so awful? Could it be because Wilson insists on putting players like Phil Kessel and John Mitchell out in penalty killing situations? Or pairing Mike Komisarek and Francois Beauchemin together, knowing that neither are very good skaters and wouldn’t be able to make up for each others slow foot speed?

Is it Burke’s fault for leaving good penalty killers like Mike Zigomanis and Christian Hanson in the minors? Or is it still Wilson’s fault when he throws Tyler Bozak into the face-off circle over Tim Brent or Kris Versteeg? Is shot blocking a hard skill to teach a young player? Mike Brown, Brent, Komisarek and Schenn seem perfectly capable of doing so, and there’s video tape to prove it. Kris Versteeg has even blocked a couple himself.

How about the power play? Sure, Wilson’s Sharks were led by playmaker extraordinaire Joe Thornton and often featured snipers like Dany Heatley, Devon Setoguchi and big shots from Rob Blake and Dan Boyle, but it’s not like Wilson has nothing to work with in this regard.

Phil Kessel is a natural goal scorer. Given the time and space on the power play, as shown by his goals this year against Roberto Luongo and Martin Brodeur, Kessel can execute. What the team doesn’t have is a plan B. A perfect example of this was last night as Clarke MacArthur and Phil Kessel streaked in on a 2 on 1, and even though MacArthur himself has 7 goals on the year, he tried desperately to get the puck to Kessel, even when the play wasn’t there thanks to a diving block by Ryan Whitney.

Teams have been focusing on Phil Kessel ever since he arrived in TO. He has been identified as the team’s only threat and regularly sees the opposition’s top shut down defenders. However, it seems that the team itself sees him as their only offensive threat, which has led to two significant problems; the first being that everyone tries to find him on the ice and feed him with a pass, even if the play isn’t there, and the second is that Phil tries to do everything himself.

Those that watched the game last night know what I’m talking about. Kessel was the team’s shot leader and most of those opportunities were created by some deft stick-handling by Kessel himself, as he was regularly able to gain the zone. What hasn’t been there, has been the give and go style offense that worked so well for Kessel in the latter part of last season. This is something that needs to be coached.

Wilson has not stuck with any line combination outside of the pairing of Kulemin and Grabovski, for more than just a few games. He seems to just be trying anything to see what sticks and then sorts the rest out from there. This was quite apparent after shifting Nazem Kadri back to center, putting him on the top line with Phil Kessel and Clarke MacArthur. Considering that all three players lack size, they get beaten up on a regular basis when they try to use their speed and skill to gain the zone.

The Kulemin, Grabovski and Crabb line, on the other hand, were able to chip it in deep and work the boards to create offensive chances. This shows the difference in the two lines. Grabovski, Kulemin and Crabb are all willing combatants along the boards, while MacArthur, Kadri and Kessel don’t have the tenacity or size to be successful at grinding it out.

Kris Versteeg and Tyler Bozak have been relegated to a third line role with Fredrik Sjostrom, a line that has been largely effective in it’s own zone but not so much anywhere else. Versteeg and Sjostrom certainly have shown the ability and willingness to work the boards and the corners and have been effective in that role thus far, yet neither have been paired with any of the offensive types to create legitimate opportunities.

Granted, Wilson has a limited pool of talent to work with, but given the landscape of the salary cap era NHL, with more and more free agents re-signing with their current clubs and less and less big trades being made, it seems that this is what we’re stuck with personnel wise for the time being, so it just makes sense to bring in someone who can work with what we have.

Dallas Eakins is doing a great job with the Toronto Marlies, and knows how to get the most out of his players, both young and old. Matt Lashoff, Joey Crabb and Mike Zigomanis are perfect examples of that. Eakins will be a head coach in the NHL someday, and it may as well be with the Leafs. He’s worked with many of these guys before, including Bozak, Gunnarsson, Crabb, Mitchell, Hanson, Aulie and Kadri.

Sometimes coaches just don’t fit the players. Sometimes the coach loses the room and the players don’t execute his strategy. In this situation, it’s up to the coach to work with the players and modify the strategy to something more palpable for them. The coach needs to teach the fundamentals of the game and recognize when something clearly isn’t working. Ron Wilson is not a bad coach, he’s just not the right coach for this team. And since we can’t change the team, we should change the coach.

Popularity: 4%

Related posts: