Maine Offseason 2020: We Stay Home But Swayman Leaves

[J.D.]

Tough to simulate game action in practice? That's probably what he meant. Didn't have their "game legs"...if you want to buy that.

AIC coach is an incredible story. Turned an absolute laughing stock of a program into an Atlantic Hockey powerhouse. I don't think he'd take Maine job though. He was mentioned as a candidate for UVM. That guy has big things headed his way.

[Runsub5]

There wasn't much offense generated earlier in the game when Maine had a 5 on 3 for 2 minutes!! Fatigue?

[Fishman'81]

Instead of overthinking the next coaching hire, why the heck wouldn't Maine just go get the guy who has AIC fifth in the pairwise?? That's incredible.

Could well be that the AIC coach would have zero interest in taking over the Maine dumpster-fire in the first place.

Red has p***ed-away whatever historical currency Maine has ever had.

This program has become a total re-build. I don't see why any up-and-comer would want the gig.

[uncle_cliff]

Red was never a head coach. The proof is in the pudding. All he's ever done is drawn around two million in taxpayer dollars without producing Jack S***.

He ought to be ashamed of himself. He's the worst Welfare Queen that Maine has ever endured.

Spot on. The AD should be ashamed as well for having extended the contract of Maine's version of Barney Rubble.

[Drew S.]

Could well be that the AIC coach would have zero interest in taking over the Maine dumpster-fire in the first place.

Red has p***ed-away whatever historical currency Maine has ever had.

This program has become a total re-build. I don't see why any up-and-comer would want the gig.

Maine finished in eighth Timmy's final year. No doubt he was great with Shawn's players/recruits but it went downhill afterwards. Maine is certainly no worse off with Red and I think one could reasonably argue things are improved. It seems like there is something personal between you and Red?

[NorthMike]

Spot on. The AD should be ashamed as well for having extended the contract of Maine's version of Barney Rubble.

Prior AD and interim AD

[Fishman'81]

Maine finished in eighth Timmy's final year. No doubt he was great with Shawn's players/recruits but it went downhill afterwards. Maine is certainly no worse off with Red and I think one could reasonably argue things are improved. It seems like there is something personal between you and Red?

Seriously..?

Timmy wasn't Scotty Bowman (and I'm on-record saying that sort of thing hundreds of times toward the end of Whitehead's tenure) but you must be out of your mind if you don't recognize how much better TW recruited.

TW brought in NHL talent. Some of them are still there. If there's a single Red recruit who made that grade, I'm not aware of it.

If anyone knows and loves Red, it has to be you. You've been a hockey-denier for several years now.

[Drew S.]

Seriously..?

Timmy wasn't Scotty Bowman (and I'm on-record saying that sort of thing hundreds of times toward the end of Whitehead's tenure) but you must be out of your mind if you don't recognize how much better TW recruited.

TW brought in NHL talent. Some of them are still there. If there's a single Red recruit who made that grade, I'm not aware of it.

If anyone knows and loves Red, it has to be you. You've been a hockey-denier for several years now.

Brady Keeper? Swayman certainly will as well.

To be honest though who cares what they do after they leave Maine? If you look at Timmy’s last eight recruiting classes between 2005 and 2012 he had one really good class and one decent class. If you have that sort of stretch you’re not going to be successful.

I don’t really know how you can claim Red is a horrible recruiter and horrible coach yet somehow Maine was qualified for the NCAA tourney last year in what turned out to be a great year for hockey east. Don’t forget that two teams that most people would have had as NCAA locks before the season finished decent and eighth in the league.

There is no doubt if Maine wants to get better they need to upgrade their forwards. Ideally every year you would be bringing in more talent than you lose. This year’s class gives me hope but it will obviously take more than that to get back to where we want to be.

[amkirby10]

I certainly don't claim to be an expert on Whitehead, or anything from before when I started going to Maine, which will be five years ago this fall. Not exactly a long body of work on my part. Therefore, you should take my analysis with a grain of salt.

From what Ive been able to gather, Whitehead's problem seemed to be rounding out his roster, or finding depth. The top tier players from the Tim era always seemed to be there, that Maine would have a dominant first line and top pair, and maybe a few other good players as well, but the bottom six forwards and bottom pair D were just always awful. Flynn, Abbott, Nyquist, Shore, Hutton, Bishop, Darling, etc, and that's just up front and in goal, not even mentioning defense which I know less about.

Red has generally been the opposite, I think. He's got a lot of OK players, but very few really stand out. Maine has seemed to be filled with a bunch of third liners and second pairing defensemen, which isn't really going to win you a ton, especially in a top conference like Hockey East.

Though Red has never really recruited any true standout stars other than Swayman, certainly none up front, I do think he brought in some solid players. Fossier was a 100 career point player, and Tralmaks probably will be too. Pearson likely would have been if he stayed for his senior season. A step down would be to guys like Dawe, Vesey, Brown, and Byron, and Byron might be closer to the top tier. All of these players were solid contributors and would have stuck on nearly any team in the nation; the problem was that at Maine, they were all expected to be the very top guys, while they were probably all better suited as second or third liners on a true contender. On the back end, obviously Keeper was the cream of the crop, having already made it to the NHL and was easily Maine's best D while he was here. Other solid guys I can think of were Hamilton, Schurhamer, Michel, and Sirota. But again, as with up front, while all those players I think could likely make the team on a national contender, would any of them be on the first pair? Probably not, *maybe* Keeper at best, but even then I doubt it. In net we had Swayman, enough said, and Ostman and Thiessen both show flashes of potential but also look very porous at times.

My overarching point on recruiting is that I think Red has done a decent job at finding collegiate level talent, its just that the players he envisions being top performers are in reality better suited as middle or bottom of the roster players on a true contender. I think there were very few players that didn't belong on a college roster, but there were even less (i.e, basically 0) that could be considered top-flight talent.

Red is far worse at the "Xs and Os, behind the bench" element of coaching in my view. His system is outdated and clunky, relies on dumping and chasing, and can't really seem to effectively set up and relies way too much on transition to generate offense. That doesn't even mention the discipline, which has been horrible as long as Ive watched the team and is a direct reflection of coaching. I think he's a very below average, at best, coach in this regard.

As far as the state of the program, Maine losing some of their historical luster was inevitable the farther away you got from the Walsh era, unless you were able to return to competing for national championships under your new coach, which they obviously have not. How much Red impacted this is up for debate, but their "shine" decreasing was nearly inevitable regardless of who the coach was just because of the element of time.

Im sorry for such a long winded post, but I figured Id offer my analysis, as there isn't much else to talk about lately with this team seeing as they hardly play and the games feel worthless anyway.

[Wayuphere]

Effort and motivation. Lacking under this regime.

[umhockey91]

Maine Hockey is the new Maine Baseball.

[NorthMike]

Amkirby,. I think your analysis is about right.

The school made a mistake hiring Red, and extending his contract even more so. That is if the school wanted to get hockey rebuilt. Its been lost years with Red in trying to get back to post season contention. So we have even further to go since whitehead.

[AMC]

Maine Hockey is the new Maine Baseball.

I don't know. Maine hockey can be fixed with investment and energy.

All the money and effort in the world can't change the weather in Orono in February, March, and April. (Is climate change a long term conspiracy to bring Black Bear baseball back into national relevancy? You decide!)

[Drew S.]

Amkirby,. I think your analysis is about right.

The school made a mistake hiring Red, and extending his contract even more so. That is if the school wanted to get hockey rebuilt. Its been lost years with Red in trying to get back to post season contention. So we have even further to go since whitehead.

If you think back to that time Maine had a leadership void at the system, school, and athletic department level. Of the names floated Red probably was the best one and I think he has stabilized the program. For all the doom and gloom Maine’s average finish during his tenure is what sixth or so? I know that isn’t what we want but when you factor in the lack of resources it obviously could be worse.

I also more or less agree with AKirby’s analysis. The bizarre thing with Timmy’s later years was he found three great forwards in one year and then had a lot of years where he couldn’t find one. Maine really struggled in net and on the blueline(outside of Hutton and O’Neil.)

If Maine gets a new coach in who can find a few elite forwards we’ll be in contention relatively quickly. Let’s hope it happens.

[Fishman'81]

Brady Keeper? Swayman certainly will as well.

Keeper has one NHL appearance, and didn't show-up in the box. Sway is way good, but there are very limited goalie jobs in the NHL. Nothing certain about that.

Drew, please, of course I want Maine to succeed. But I don't see it happening under Red, and no one else should, either, considering the abject disaster his reign has amounted-to during the longest 8 years in the history of the program.