Players are the ones who go out there and play.  Coaches can only do so
much.  I don't put all the blame on Tim's shoulders for the early season
struggles.  The players did not get the job done.  They did not always
play hard or together.  They lacked leadership on and off the ice.
Certainly Tim is not immune to criticism, but the players just did not
get the job done for him either.

I think there is a hangover associated with losing the national
championship game.  We saw it after Minnesota and now again after
Denver.  Those next two seasons just never clicked.  Maybe the players
think they were better than they were.  Maybe it is "supposed" to come
too easy.  I don't know.

That team that went to Michigan in the regionals in 2003 was dead on
arrival.  I don't have the same feeling about this team because I think
that maybe they've learned something and are better for it (that the
2003 never learned).

Ultimately we need to give Tim Whitehead some credit.  He held the ship
together and kept tweaking with things until it worked.  Has it been a
pretty season?  No.  But what more do you want from a coach than a guy
that doesn't give up until he finds something that works?

-Deron

D. B. Doucette wrote:

>How soon we forget.
>
>I think two coaches deserve the honor more for taking teams who were
>considered in the pre-season to fall in the second tier and made them
>instead solid performers this season in HEA.  Those would be Boston U and
>Mass-Lowell (Parker and MacDonald, respectively).  Two over-achieving teams;
>your choice, Steve, is coach of a team who slipped a notch.
>
>Maine is a team that by and large is populated by the players who suited up
>to take the team all the way to the National Championship game last year, to
>lose by a SINGLE goal; only this year they likely hold on by a thread to
>limp in to the Round of 16.
>
>This yeam HAS talent, Steve, it simply was not harnessed into an effective
>system until these past few games.  Why so late ?
>
>Whitehead has been playing around with line assignments all year, and one
>early season leadership candidate has been benched for most of the second
>half of the campaign.  A more wide-open playing style that clicked against
>Mass-Lowell in 4 recent wins was fairly well absent most of the early season.
>
>Maine played with a sense of urgency only in the last 10 games or so; sort
>of like how they played some games in the first part of this campaign -- not
>for a full 60 minutes.
>
>I know some think when I say "urgency" I imply a longing instead for the
>more "active" game coaching style of our late coach Walsh.   To that I say
>that I have seen "active" coaches lead dull teams (Pat Burns when with the
>Boston Bruins comes to mind).
>
>If the team played with urgency for 60 minutes and over 30 games I could
>care less if the team were coached by a bag of pucks.  When I see less than
>a full effort, I look at many places for reasons why, and some of them point
>to choices made obviously by the coaching staff.
>
>I get the over-riding sense this team plays and is coached generally not to
>lose.
>
>I know hockey as a whole has pretty much been driven to "NJ Devils" style of
>grind-'em neutral-trap defence, but isn't it nice to see Maine ramp up the
>offense and run it up on an opponent ? (yeah, Jim....)
>
>Whitehead is Coach of the Year only if we add a third in Columbus in April,
>no less.
>
>And BTW, Dick Umile could NEVER be Coach of the Year unless he gets a banner
>for the first time with those Mildcats....but we know he won't.  Prediction
>(using Bracketology pairing from today):  Dov "bars" Durham from a ticket to
>Columbus...
>
>
>
>steve hayes wrote:
>
>
>
>>i would vote for whitehead as hockey east coach of the year for turning this
>>team around ......he has taught a team with very little individual talent
>>how to play team defense and what it takes to win...........they may not go
>>far in the hockey east playoffs or the ncaa but they are peaking at the
>>right time and with the freshmen playing like upperclassmen and with howard
>>in net just think of the possibilities!!!
>>
>>