Sending a message
| 08 Feb 2011
Last night at the beginning of the Phoenix game (I’ll call it an Avs game when they finally score a goal) McNab said something about Sacco that really starts to make me wonder about him.
Paraphrasing: Sacco told me he changed goalies for tonight in order to change things up and get a win. It’s not that Budaj played awfully, it’s that he felt like he needed to change things up to try and get a spark.
I’m taking it with a bit if a grain of salt. There’s (hopefully) more to Sacco’s decision than he mentions in this quote. That said, I also think there’s at least a kernel of truth to it. If this is the real reason it’s mind-numbingly stupid, for a multitude of reasons.
More after the jump
- 1st because Sacco’s basically admitting he has absolutely no idea what to do, so he’s just throwing random shit against the wall and hoping it sticks. It’s superstition and one step away from buying a voodoo doll of opposing players and hoping that it helps (And if we are going to do that we should start with former Avs). Can you imagine how royally pissed off you’d be if you’re mechanic said something this dumb?:
Well we’re not sure what’s wrong with the steering in your car, but the brakes seems to be working fine. We went ahead and changed brake pads though because we’re going to try anything to try and make it run better. That’ll be $100 for parts ‘n labor.
- 2nd, Sacco has waffled on goalies for two months now, “changing it up” despite solid goalie play in a losing effort isn’t doing anything different. IIf he wanted to really change things up he’d pick a goalie (and I think it should be Andy) and stick with him. He’d tell the team “This is our guy, and it’s up to you boys to play well enough to win”.
- 3rd There’s a great scene in Band of Brothers where Captain Sobel (David Schwimmer) is partaking in a combat training exercise and clearly looks lost. Instead of calm down and come up with a rational plan he makes panic moves (which end up resulting in his squad getting captured in the training). Of course his troops see these panic moves and it erodes their confidence in him as a leader (among many other things). These indecisive and panic moves undermine his authority, and I think Sacco runs the risk of doing this with these types of moves.
(I am in no way saying this has happened, because I’m not in the locker room, and I’m not a sports psychologist. These types of panic moves have the danger of eroding confidence.)
- 4th It hangs your players out to dry. I think players accept being called out when they aren’t playing well, but continuing to change up goaltenders will at some point go from benching an under performing player to deflecting blame away from their self. Even if that’s not a coaches intent, perception is reality, and players will tune out if their coach demands they be held accountable and then he deflects his own shortcomings to the players.
5th it’s probably a useless exercise anyways. It’s being a slave to small sample sizes and irrational thought. And he’s as likely to make the wrong choice as he is to get lucky.