How Crawford won in the past; How can he win in the future?

by Brad Gardner on Jun 11, 2009 2:07 PM CDT

A lot of Stars fans are dwelling on the recent failures of Marc Crawford in Los Angeles, and his rather messy exit from the Vancouver Canucks. He was criticized for failing to translate regular season success into playoff series wins in Vancouver. Sound familiar?

Rather than trying to figure out where he went wrong with those teams, let's look at the commonalities of his teams that advanced to at least the second round...

Goal scoring. Plain and simple. Crawford is known as someone who likes to get the offense flowing and get the puck moving up and down the ice; Something with which the Stars are not particularly synonymous.

When Mattias Norstrum was traded to the Stars in the spring of 2007 from the Marc Crawford coached Kings, he remarked how different the two systems were, observing that the Stars were encouraged to make D to D passes and to have patience. He said the Kings puck movement was strictly up and down the ice. Quickly.

Marc Crawford coached teams have advanced to at least the second round three times. In 95/96 he won a Stanley Cup in Colorado's first season. The next year they went to the Conference Finals, and in 02/03 he led the Canucks to the second round where they lost to the Wild in 7 games.

1995/1996: Stanley Cup Champs.

-Only one team (Pittsburgh) scored more goals that season than the Avalanche did (326)

-Crawford had two of the league's top 5 scorers: #3 Sakic (120 points) and #5 Peter Forsberg (116 points)

-Crawford had Patrick Roy

1996/1997: Conference Finalists

-Once again only the Penguins scored more than the Avs did (277)

-Patrick Roy. What can you say?

2002/2003: Conference Semi-finalists

-Canucks scored 264 goals, second only to the Red Wings.

-Canucks had two of the league's top scorers: #2 Naslund (104 points) and #5 Bertuzzi (97 points)

That's it

Playoff success in only three seasons, and all three years his team was the second highest scoring team in the league. Two of the three years he had not one, but TWO top 5 scorers in the league.

The other side of the coin is that his coaching was the reason why these players and teams were so high scoring. That may be so, but a look over that list of players again reveals talent of all kinds: Physical, God-given, and coached...

Over the course of the last decade, the Stars haven't been a top 5 scoring team, much less a top 2. They don't have top 10 scoring players, much less top 5. It's not who they've been, and it likely won't be what they'll turn into. Mike Ribeiro is a wizard, and Brad Richards is a point a game guy when he's at his best, but they're not going to dominate the league Sakic/Forsberg style.

This is not to say that having an offensive juggernaut is the only way Marc Crawford can win in the future; It's just the only way he's ever had success in the past

Joe Nieuwendyk is surely aware of all of this, and as he'll be the one shopping for the proverbial groceries, I hope none of that deters him from keeping his shopping cart pointed squarely at the defensive end of the rink this off-season.

This is a user-created FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of SB Nation or Defending Big D. FanPost opinions are valued expressions of opinion by passionate and knowledgeable hockey and Dallas Stars fans.

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Big challenges for Nieuwendyk

How is Joe going to stay “well under the salary cap” but compete with teams who drafted much, much higher than the Stars for years?

Maybe we’re in more of a rebuilding mode than we realize. How Joe deals with Jere and Sergei is likely going to impact that fact a lot. But the teams in the Conference finals and Cup finals all had good or great defensive corps but also had great offensive systems. I suspect that is the trend going forward.

The Stars have a great work ethic on the top lines- possibly one of the best in the league. The kids all try hard most games too, and no one seems to have a diva complex. Raw skill is something else though, and I’m not sure the Stars can currently compete with that.

Even if you get Jere and Sergei back for a combined total of $5 million (and I think they’ll get both or neither) you’d be around $44 million with several other players to bring back. If the cap stays the same, that’s around $11 million to play with…but how far under the Cap are they staying? $5 million under? $10 million under? Assuming you don’t trade any big names, that’s one or two notable players at best and almost certainly no huge offensive talents.

If they have to get rid of Zubov, they have a dire need for a PP QB. But so do a lot of teams so how do they compete if they can’t pay?

I’d hope that things loosen up around the trade deadline if Hicks manages to sell the Rangers. And if they haven’t slumped yet again by then, maybe that could happen.

by jabudi on Jun 27, 2009 10:21 AM CDT reply actions

So far no D...

Someone must have big plans for the D corp if they had three relatively high draft picks and didn’t pick a defenseman yet..are they in the hunt for Matthias Ohlund at all? I know everyone has mentioned Jay Bouwmeester but I don’t think they’ll get him. Just too much locked up on one guy.

They desperately needed a RW, and if Glennie is ready to play that helps. If Jere leaves, it’s all young guys, or guys who usually play C.

Mike Cammalleri might be Crawford’s style too. But we’re good at C. Has he ever played wing successfully? I still say keep Brendan Morrison around.

by jabudi on Jun 27, 2009 10:39 AM CDT reply actions