Froggy wrote:Desiato wrote:Eddie Johnston. He's an example of a bad coach with a good record leading a superstar Pens roster that he seemingly had little or no control over.
Yeah, he also has like 7 seasons as a pens coach. his season by season records were largely mediocre.
He had two stints with the Pens. During the second, his regular season record was quite good.
- Code: Select all
Season GP W L T P W% Div
1993-94 84 44 27 13 101 60.10% 1st
1994-95 48 29 16 3 61 63.50% 2nd
1995-96 82 49 29 4 102 62.20% 1st
1996-97 62 31 26 5 67 54.00% 2nd
Total 276 153 98 25 331 59.96%
Pretty good record for a coach that was completely out of touch. Give that team shootouts and OTLs, and they'd probably have a similar record as DB's Pens. Those Pens won on talent and lost on coaching. Unfortunately, that's how I see the current Pens.
Edit: for those who don't recall or weren't around, Mario had 22 GP in 93-94 and 0 GP in 94-95. In 96-97, Jagr's groin problems began (19 games missed, reduced effectiveness 2nd half of season) and Mario, despite playing most of the season, had a bad back.
The more I think about it, the more parallels I see between those Pens and the current Pens. Both played in post-cup seasons. EJ also preached an up-tempo style, a simple N-S game for the non-stars, with no control over Mario or Jagr. The Pens dominated most teams in the regular season, but lost the important games and played poorly against well-coached teams. And despite Finals predictions by analysts each year, they generally disappointed in the playoffs because of poor coaching. They also lacked discipline and could be agitated into taking bad penalties. Both teams tried to play with an aggressive forecheck, but were owned in the neutral zone by well-coached teams and had frequent breakdowns defensively.
Another edit: Makes me wonder: is DB coaching Mario's system? Because we all know that EJ was a shill.