The Barr Has Been Raised at UMaine

[Drew S.]

I dont know about a worse season, my feeling is this season will be better than Reds averages. Have high hopes with Barr. Players should be better motivated, etc.
I dont think much demo has to be done for rebuilding. Grow, strengthen, recruit, teach, team!

Discipline: really it couldn't get much worse. How many six on the ice penalties will there be this coming year? None!

I just checked and Red averaged 14.5 wins a season. If Barr gets more than that next year it would be great. I think given the roster(we don’t know the final roster right now but it looks like it should be solid enough) and schedule it is definitely achievable. As I said earlier Maine doesn’t need a great season but I think an awful one would be a massive setback.

[Ma#1ne Hky]

If the roster is that good, why couldn't Red go .500 with it?

I'm okay if Barr needs to rip this thing down to the studs and rebuild from scratch.

Its a good chance you will see it happen over this year and next.

[Ma#1ne Hky]

I just checked and Red averaged 14.5 wins a season. If Barr gets more than that next year it would be great. I think given the roster(we don’t know the final roster right now but it looks like it should be solid enough) and schedule it is definitely achievable. As I said earlier Maine doesn’t need a great season but I think an awful one would be a massive setback.

Why???? Setback in what way..?

[NorthMike]

I just checked and Red averaged 14.5 wins a season. If Barr gets more than that next year it would be great. I think given the roster(we don’t know the final roster right now but it looks like it should be solid enough) and schedule it is definitely achievable. As I said earlier Maine doesn’t need a great season but I think an awful one would be a massive setback.

What is it a 34 game schedule, with a 14.5 win average, getting better than .43 win %. Should be very possible, Im ok if they fall flat too.

[walrus]

I'll bet Coach Barr is more worried about getting the program going in the right direction with kids who buy into his perspective then he is won loss at this point. I don't expect miracles, I expect a team playing with more discipline and playing whatever systems Coach Barr thinks can win games with the talent he has.

[Chuck Murray]

I just checked and Red averaged 14.5 wins a season. If Barr gets more than that next year it would be great. I think given the roster(we don't know the final roster right now but it looks like it should be solid enough) and schedule it is definitely achievable. As I said earlier Maine doesn't need a great season but I think an awful one would be a massive setback.

Yes, good point. UMass Amherst is still reeling from the horrendous first season when Carvel/Barr led an 8 win team from the previous season to only 5 wins in their first year. Wonder whatever happened to that program after their "massive setback"??

[sezenack]

The roster isn't that good flat out. This is a team that had a .250 winning percentage last season. Anyone expecting 15 wins is delusional. Not like the first season of a new coach matters much though. As the previous post mentions, UMass had 5 wins their first season with Carvel

[AMC]

I'll bet Coach Barr is more worried about getting the program going in the right direction with kids who buy into his perspective then he is won loss at this point. I don't expect miracles, I expect a team playing with more discipline and playing whatever systems Coach Barr thinks can win games with the talent he has.

Exactly. This isn't a situation where a coach has left a successful, winning program behind and the new guy needs to sustain that same level. This is a rebuild, start from the ground up situation. Win/loss year one does not matter at all to me.

Start building the culture, evaluate the players on the roster, recruit hard, and at the end of the season have set up some building blocks to start a true renovation year two. This is going to take a lot of time.

[UncleRay]

18-11-5 in his last year. I don’t expect Barr to do that good, but don’t think he should be much worse than a couple games under .500. It’s not the toughest out of conference schedule in the world either.

Convenient how you pulled Red's best year by far - an anomaly, really - as representative of his body of work.

[QUOTE =Drew S]I just checked and Red averaged 14.5 wins a season. If Barr gets more than that next year it would be great. [/QUOTE]
There you go again, forgetting that they did, in fact, play the '20-'21 season. When you include this most recently concluded year, his average wins per year are actually 12.875. But math obviously isn't your strong suit since using your definition of Red's career delivers a result less than 14.3. I guess that's a rounding error?

I believe the elimination of the truly stupid penalties will get the team to 15 wins this year no matter the change up or down of relative talent level.

[Drew S.]

Exactly. This isn't a situation where a coach has left a successful, winning program behind and the new guy needs to sustain that same level. This is a rebuild, start from the ground up situation. Win/loss year one does not matter at all to me.

Start building the culture, evaluate the players on the roster, recruit hard, and at the end of the season have set up some building blocks to start a true renovation year two. This is going to take a lot of time.

Maine’s last normal season was a winning season though. I don’t really understand the view of looking at Maine in binary terms. It seems like for a lot of folks if Maine isn’t one of the top teams in Hockey East and in the NCAA’s that means they’re one of the worst teams in the country. There is obviously a long ways in between those two places and that is where Red got Maine to. It’s obviously not where we want to be, but it’s not like there is nothing to work with.

If college hockey was like the NBA it would make sense to trade away all your good players, tank for a few years, and then hope you had a good team, but that obviously isn’t how things work. I get that you’re willing to be patient and I am as well, but what percentage of fans feel that way? I doubt it is more than thirty or forty percent and we need to get the Alfond full again, or at a minimum not as empty. On top of that I think it’s important for the current players to be part of a respectable team and makes Maine a lot more appealing to recruits as well.

Here is roughly how I think Maine lines up this year:


Breen Dawe Suthers

Morrissey Poission Schmidt

Westerlund Renwick Fawcett

Quinlivan Houle Drobot


Sirota Spicer

Butala Dunn

Bisson Dockey


Ostman


Is that good enough to get you to the NCAA tournament? Almost surely not, but I don’t see any reason with that you can’t be around .500 with that team.

[Bradz]

Jeff Cox
@JeffCoxSports
Ben Guite is out as associate head coach at Maine. According to multiple sources, Jason Fortier will be joining Alfie Michaud as an assistant for Black Bears. I have more on how it went down and reaction here.
It has been awhile must be a visa thing.

[Chuck Murray]

Maine's last normal season was a winning season though. I don't really understaend the view of looking at Maine in binary terms. It seems like for a lot of folks if Maine isn't one of the top teams in Hockey East and in the NCAA's that means they're one of the worst teams in the country. There is obviously a long ways in between those two places and that is where Red got Maine to. It's obviously not where we want to be, but it's not like there is nothing to work with.

Maine's "last normal season" also saw them heavily reliant for any success on someone who was arguably the most talented goalie in the program's history, posting an almost 94% save percentage, and who may be an NHL starter a year out of Orono. When he left last year, the thoroughly mediocre Ostman/Thiessen tandem took over, and the overall lack of talent was exposed.

"Where Red got Maine to" was a level substantially below the level he took the program over at. Granted, the drop-off from where Walshy left off to where Whitehead left off was more pronounced, but all in all, Gendron was at best 8 years of treading water, and at worst a further slide down towards the lower half of D-1 hockey. I think most of the evidence points to the latter.

For a program that (in most people's minds) has "won the offseason", I don't understand your dogged determination to try to set up falsely high bars for Barr to clear in comparison to what in cold stark reality were Red's (very) modest accomplishments. Contrarian much???

[NorthMike]

Maine's "last normal season" also saw them heavily reliant for any success on someone who was arguably the most talented goalie in the program's history, posting an almost 94% save percentage, and who may be an NHL starter a year out of Orono. When he left last year, the thoroughly mediocre Ostman/Thiessen tandem took over, and the overall lack of talent was exposed.

"[???

EXACTLY
But, skating talent isnt bad just mediocre, 3rd, 4th line in HE upper tier. Gritty guys though.
Aside from a few who were 2nd line material or just fun to watch like Fossier.

[walrus]

While last years goaltending may not have been Swayman like, I think Ostman is pretty good.

[Chuck Murray]

While last years goaltending may not have been Swayman like, I think Ostman is pretty good.

"Pretty good" is what we have with Mike Robinson, too. Not good enough to challenge the big boys.