HockeyBuzz Hotstove: Picking the 2019-20 Vezina Trophy winner

Helly is a good candidate for the Vezina due to the number of games he has played this season, behind a very weak injury plagued defense that doesn't play a true defensive system. He faces 30 plus shots every game and bales out his team that plays most of every game in their own zone. Without him the Jets would be far out of the playoff picture.

Anyone (preferably jets fans) want to back up tanners comment on Maurice being one of the leagues worst coaches. Genuinely asking since I don’t follow the jets, I just recall over the past few years Maurice being regarded among the best (which may have been a byproduct from having a much better team). But has 1 year really killed his stock this much especially given that he went from having one of/if not the best defence core in the league to the worst. I would think the GM would be more at fault here for not only not building a good supporting cast around his stars but making his team effectively worse over the last year.

Helly and Maurice rightfully should be sharing credit for the Jets relative success. Helly made the saves he was expected to make and more, Maurice had the Jets playing with a structure that supported letting him shine. Many of the high danger chances were pucks in the crease that someone was trying to jam in - Helly’s strength/wheelhouse. He uses his size and positioning to make save after save. I believe this was deliberate rope-a-dope strategy that played to Helly’s strength while staying within the one strength his d has- the compete level. Not many clean chances got through. The way the danger level of shots is calculated doesn’t really respect this.
The Maurice haters are not being rational, usually their pet player is stuck behind Connor Ehlers Laine Wheeler and Sheiffele. They point to his overall record with powerhouses of the past like the whalers, pre-talent hurricanes and the raycroft era in Toronto. Forgotten is the development of Wheeler, Sheiffele, Connor, Trouba, Morrissey, Copp, Pionk, Tanev, and the list goes on. Almost no player from Maurice has had more success playing for a different coach. His systems thrived in 2017-18, few complained then.

Pretty easy one.. Helly in a cakewalk...

As a jets fan, I’ll weigh in on Maurice. Hellebuyck may not win the Vezina, but he’s deserving without a doubt.

As for P-Mo, he’s not the worst coach. He’s also not the best coach. The jets slid from Jan 1 until they playoffs, and exited promptly. This was largely due to Maurice “sticking to his guns” and refusing to modify a failing game plan/lineup structure. His most glaring failure as a coach in Winnipeg! However, this year his hand was forced to venture outside of his comfort zone. Between losing 4/6 D men, and injuries (some long term) up front... he had no choice but to experiment. The jets were actually hitting a nice stride before the flu came along. Their advanced stats are not pretty, but deployment and opportunity allowed him to bring this rag-tag roster to an unexpectedly confident group, even if the confidence was slightly misguided. The Jets top 6 (well, top 5) can win games. Period. Connor is a stud, ditto scheifele. Wheeler is big character and has great passing ability. Ehlers is as shifty as they come, and for everyone hating on Laine’s “slow season”... kid is WAY more valuable playing 200 feet’s with 30 goals in a season than scoring 50 waiting at the top of the circle for a pass. Bringing in DeMelo and Eakin were underrated moves this deadline, and although that’s GM Chevy pulling the trigger, Maurice will be involved in those discussions.

Tanner is almost certainly bipolar, possibly schizophrenic. His writings often contradict each other, and although this may be a missed attempt at sarcasm or ironic writing... I can’t help but view him as someone who was opportunistic to receive his gig blogging here. Kiddo doesn’t know hockey, and throwing advanced stats into the mix isn’t fooling me. Having said this, his posts ARE entertaining. Just take them with a grain of salt.

As a jets fan, I’ll weigh in on Maurice. Hellebuyck may not win the Vezina, but he’s deserving without a doubt.

As for P-Mo, he’s not the worst coach. He’s also not the best coach. The jets slid from Jan 1 until they playoffs, and exited promptly. This was largely due to Maurice “sticking to his guns” and refusing to modify a failing game plan/lineup structure. His most glaring failure as a coach in Winnipeg! However, this year his hand was forced to venture outside of his comfort zone. Between losing 4/6 D men, and injuries (some long term) up front... he had no choice but to experiment. The jets were actually hitting a nice stride before the flu came along. Their advanced stats are not pretty, but deployment and opportunity allowed him to bring this rag-tag roster to an unexpectedly confident group, even if the confidence was slightly misguided. The Jets top 6 (well, top 5) can win games. Period. Connor is a stud, ditto scheifele. Wheeler is big character and has great passing ability. Ehlers is as shifty as they come, and for everyone hating on Laine’s “slow season”... kid is WAY more valuable playing 200 feet’s with 30 goals in a season than scoring 50 waiting at the top of the circle for a pass. Bringing in DeMelo and Eakin were underrated moves this deadline, and although that’s GM Chevy pulling the trigger, Maurice will be involved in those discussions.

Tanner is almost certainly bipolar, possibly schizophrenic. His writings often contradict each other, and although this may be a missed attempt at sarcasm or ironic writing... I can’t help but view him as someone who was opportunistic to receive his gig blogging here. Kiddo doesn’t know hockey, and throwing advanced stats into the mix isn’t fooling me. Having said this, his posts ARE entertaining. Just take them with a grain of salt.
- Burnt_juice

Good comment, I understand this point of view of Maurice’s way. I see this as one of the strategies used effectively to create a structural environment where expectations are understood and respected by players. Players on the ‘outside’ stay hungry, injuries happen and all eventually get their opportunity.

I agree that Tanner’s insights are empty

Anyone (preferably jets fans) want to back up tanners comment on Maurice being one of the leagues worst coaches. Genuinely asking since I don’t follow the jets, I just recall over the past few years Maurice being regarded among the best (which may have been a byproduct from having a much better team). But has 1 year really killed his stock this much especially given that he went from having one of/if not the best defence core in the league to the worst. I would think the GM would be more at fault here for not only not building a good supporting cast around his stars but making his team effectively worse over the last year.
- RedC21

Paul Maurice is not a bad coach, necessarily. He’s just probably the worst coach the Jets could possibly have.
Maurice is great at getting a meal out of a few crumbs. He can take a ragtag, rebuilding team and shape them to respectability. He would be good for a veteran heavy team like Nashville, that has a strong blueline, but not a lot of offensive weapons.

For the Jets? He’s terrible. He doesn’t trust young players, over-uses his declining veterans, and refuses to make any changes to his strategy or lineup. The Jets are an offensively loaded, defensively hilarious team with more speed and shooting talent than almost anyone else. So, naturally, he has them playing a straight shutdown game that panders to the horrible blueline by smothering the offence in favour of *attempting* to cover for the defensive issues. Even though playing a shot for shot, breakneck pace game would work infinitely better for a team already letting Hellebuyck get shelled.
He also has a thing for not holding veteran players accountable. Sami Niku makes a mistake once, and he’s benched. Nathan Beaulieu makes that same mistake 3 times per game, and plays his next shift on time. It’s almost as if he thinks understanding what your mistake was is more important than fixing it, so a veteran who knows what he did wrong 20 times plays over a rookie who has no idea what he whiffed on a play once.

Paul Maurice is not a bad coach, necessarily. He’s just probably the worst coach the Jets could possibly have.
Maurice is great at getting a meal out of a few crumbs. He can take a ragtag, rebuilding team and shape them to respectability. He would be good for a veteran heavy team like Nashville, that has a strong blueline, but not a lot of offensive weapons.

For the Jets? He’s terrible. He doesn’t trust young players, over-uses his declining veterans, and refuses to make any changes to his strategy or lineup. The Jets are an offensively loaded, defensively hilarious team with more speed and shooting talent than almost anyone else. So, naturally, he has them playing a straight shutdown game that panders to the horrible blueline by smothering the offence in favour of *attempting* to cover for the defensive issues. Even though playing a shot for shot, breakneck pace game would work infinitely better for a team already letting Hellebuyck get shelled.
He also has a thing for not holding veteran players accountable. Sami Niku makes a mistake once, and he’s benched. Nathan Beaulieu makes that same mistake 3 times per game, and plays his next shift on time. It’s almost as if he thinks understanding what your mistake was is more important than fixing it, so a veteran who knows what he did wrong 20 times plays over a rookie who has no idea what he whiffed on a play once.
- Rexypoo

I totally agree that Maurice and his trust and over-reliance of over the hill veterans and waiver wire pickups at the expense of faster stronger and more talented draft and develop players has hurt this team greatly. He had the 2015 line that was playing great only to see him break it up and relegating Harkins to the pressbox once Perreault and Lowry returned from injury, while keeping a useless Shore in the lineup.
Niku never truly was given a fair chance as when he was in the lineup he was often paired with Bitetto, Sbiza and Kulikov which play a mistake laden game. I would rather forgive a rookie that makes a mistake because he's learning than a veteran who continues to make the same error over and over again, with no repercussions.
Maurice is a good coach who however hasn't embraced what the players he has available to him can bring to the team due to his short sightedness and fear of changing his so called systems to fit his roster.

Paul Maurice is not a bad coach, necessarily. He’s just probably the worst coach the Jets could possibly have.
Maurice is great at getting a meal out of a few crumbs. He can take a ragtag, rebuilding team and shape them to respectability. He would be good for a veteran heavy team like Nashville, that has a strong blueline, but not a lot of offensive weapons.

For the Jets? He’s terrible. He doesn’t trust young players, over-uses his declining veterans, and refuses to make any changes to his strategy or lineup. The Jets are an offensively loaded, defensively hilarious team with more speed and shooting talent than almost anyone else. So, naturally, he has them playing a straight shutdown game that panders to the horrible blueline by smothering the offence in favour of *attempting* to cover for the defensive issues. Even though playing a shot for shot, breakneck pace game would work infinitely better for a team already letting Hellebuyck get shelled.
He also has a thing for not holding veteran players accountable. Sami Niku makes a mistake once, and he’s benched. Nathan Beaulieu makes that same mistake 3 times per game, and plays his next shift on time. It’s almost as if he thinks understanding what your mistake was is more important than fixing it, so a veteran who knows what he did wrong 20 times plays over a rookie who has no idea what he whiffed on a play once.
- Rexypoo

Well said Rexy. And thanks for finding a gray area for discussion without the ‘absolutes’ that piss everyone off. Seriously- good comment.

I felt that 2017-18 was a ‘prove it’ year for Maurice and feel that this year was another. The team was in the playoffs and for this group that is the right result. Lots of different scorers, outstanding goaltending, strong sense of team cohesion, Laine playing in three zones without panicking, no significant regression with any individual. He did enough to prove he should continue to be the coach.

Well said Rexy. And thanks for finding a gray area for discussion without the ‘absolutes’ that piss everyone off. Seriously- good comment.

I felt that 2017-18 was a ‘prove it’ year for Maurice and feel that this year was another. The team was in the playoffs and for this group that is the right result. Lots of different scorers, outstanding goaltending, strong sense of team cohesion, Laine playing in three zones without panicking, no significant regression with any individual. He did enough to prove he should continue to be the coach.
- 2.0

Lots of different scorers? This team has relied on its top 5 forwards to do the scoring, when this team had amongst the worst bottom 6 production in the league Maurice did nothing with his lines to find some offense then injuries forced his hand and when he started getting production from his 3rd line he broke them up for some reason, these hardly seem like things he should be commended for.

Lots of different scorers? This team has relied on its top 5 forwards to do the scoring, when this team had amongst the worst bottom 6 production in the league Maurice did nothing with his lines to find some offense then injuries forced his hand and when he started getting production from his 3rd line he broke them up for some reason, these hardly seem like things he should be commended for.
- JetFuel

5 forwards with excellent numbers and without a #2c (Bryan Little would have been the 6th forward with good numbers somewhere around 50 points in 80 games), Pionk on a career year, no Perreault or Lowry - both guys who push play up the ice better than most. And they didn't need the bottom lines to score regularly, just to put in some good minutes. the so called 2015 line played just a few games together and had some good moments. The team played their best hockey after the return of Lowry&Perreault and the 2015 line was grounded.

Injuries happen and are a legitimate part of player and team development. The system works.

5 forwards with excellent numbers and without a #2c (Bryan Little would have been the 6th forward with good numbers somewhere around 50 points in 80 games), Pionk on a career year, no Perreault or Lowry - both guys who push play up the ice better than most. And they didn't need the bottom lines to score regularly, just to put in some good minutes. the so called 2015 line played just a few games together and had some good moments. The team played their best hockey after the return of Lowry&Perreault and the 2015 line was grounded.

Injuries happen and are a legitimate part of player and team development. The system works.
- 2.0

Yeah 5 forwards do the majority of the scoring, doesn't really support your lots of different scorers claim.
The Jets worst stretch of hockey this season was when both Lowry and Perreault were in the lineup and doing nothing yet the coach didn't change anything to try and create some scoring from that line, that's a very poor decision by Maurice.
The 3rd line was doing well when Copp was centering it so just to be clear I wasn't only meaning the 2015 line though they were good too.
There was no reason to put Lowry back to the 3rd line when he returned, aside from his fight and a couple hits he was invisible and his usual drag on his linemates, the Jets were trending in the right direction before Lowry or Perreault returned, neither guy was missed much.

Well said Rexy. And thanks for finding a gray area for discussion without the ‘absolutes’ that piss everyone off. Seriously- good comment.

I felt that 2017-18 was a ‘prove it’ year for Maurice and feel that this year was another. The team was in the playoffs and for this group that is the right result. Lots of different scorers, outstanding goaltending, strong sense of team cohesion, Laine playing in three zones without panicking, no significant regression with any individual. He did enough to prove he should continue to be the coach.
- 2.0

You are misreading me entirely.
I fire Maurice for the Vegas loss. I fire him again in February 2019. I fire him before the season this year, and at the halfway mark.