Quoting: CrazyK04
I know. I've been frustrated with people talking poorly about Boqvist, but after looking at how he's being forced to play and his ice time, the best thing for him is to be in the AHL. He can become an offensive beast down there and prove to the NHL coaches that he is an offensive defenseman and that he needs to be allowed to score. IMO, Colliton is Dach's dream coach. Dach is a power forward. Colliton was a defensive player and is a defensive coach. Kirby Dach's defensively sound, big body forechecking ability allow him to get those A+ opportunities. His offensive prowess comes where? From the front of the net. If Colliton is the guy, he just has to relax on the offensive players. Again I say, look at a team like Tampa Bay, Kucherov and Point and Stamkos are all getting paid to score points. I think eventually Colliton could be a good coach, but they need an offensive associate coach to help him out. For the PK and defensive bottom 6 guys, Colliton can be and is a fantastic coach. For our Patty Kanes and Dom Kubaliks and Alex DeBrincats and God Save him, our Adam Boqvists, JC needs a little help. We have to remember, he's only been a North American coach for 5 or 6 years and an NHL coach for 2. With patience and help from veteran management, Kirby Dach's Chicago Blackhawks are gonna be super duper hard to play against.
Okay, so firstly, I totally with you’re assessment of Colliton. He is the coach that he is and he favors a certain style and certain players can get behind it. I do think it’s a detriment to the other players such as boqvist, cat, strome, Kane and kuba for sure though. In that sense, I almost feel that Colliton is here to baby and coddle one player and ONLY one player.
Secondly? And this is where I differ, I don’t think the hawks will ever truly become a difficult team to play against in the defensive sense. They’ll never be the islanders or blues styled team that that essentially imitates. The reason is two fold. 1) Colliton has shown his hand in terms of the coach he is and style he wants. To this point, the youngsters and even veterans in the team have not bought in in my opinion. That’s just me though. 2) and this goes back to what I said about drafting and luck favoring the prepared, Chicago hasn’t committed the entire organization to a unified philosophy of how they want to grow and move forward between playing style and players. Essentially, I don’t believe they have drafted tough enough players, specifically on defense, to play such a style. Regula is an offensive minded dman who isn’t great on defense and Vlasic has a looonnnggggg way to go in development. Reason I bring them up is because they are the only players in defensive development that are over 6’2’’. There is just no toughness in this Chicago team, plain and simple. We have a few grinders, but not not defense. Zadorov and Murphy are exempt cuz they are full timers and not prospects.
I do agree Colliton could be a good coach, but he’s got the wrong team to do it with. He’s only around in my eyes to cater to Dach. As being tough to play against, we need at least 2-3 more drafts worth of tough, big, and quick forwards and dmen to get to that point. That’s just my two cents.