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Fire Mike Eaves?

S

Scottyp

Registered User
Poor recruiting of forwards and centers - worst offensive team in the league and maybe college hockey.
lack of any player development on offensive side going back a long time
poor coaching
attendance way down, lack of any fan enthusiasm
players consistently unprepared or unwilling to play for him

I'm finding it hard to find any reason not to fire him. I'm tired of hearing we're young for the third year in a row, or we have a tough schedule. We just got outcoached and outhustled by Mankato team with a first year coach at home. We look like we've given up already.

Am I missing any reason to keep him?
 
Re: Fire Mike Eaves?

3 more years under contract... that's the only reason that I can think that they will keep him. Maybe if the season goes horribly wrong and they finish with 7 or 8 wins, but even then I think Alvarez will keep him around.
 
Re: Fire Mike Eaves?

Scottyp said:
Poor recruiting of forwards and centers - worst offensive team in the league and maybe college hockey.
lack of any player development on offensive side going back a long time
poor coaching
attendance way down, lack of any fan enthusiasm
players consistently unprepared or unwilling to play for him

I'm finding it hard to find any reason not to fire him. I'm tired of hearing we're young for the third year in a row, or we have a tough schedule. We just got outcoached and outhustled by Mankato team with a first year coach at home. We look like we've given up already.

Am I missing any reason to keep him?
Click to expand...

I'm on board with this. 8-10 of the forwards who played tonight would be 3rd or 4th liners at best on DU, MN or BC, plain and simple.

the reasons to want to fire Eaves now are as you state and as most people on the UW thread are stating, and the final nail in the coffin is this: the team will NOT get better any time soon. they'd have to wait to turnover 1/2 to 3/4 of the players and then those guys would have to be replaced by a whole hell of a lot of Blaine Moore-Jason Zent-Andrew Schier-Dany Heatley-Steven Reinprecht-John Byce-Steve Tuttle-Tony Granato-Scott Mellanby type players.

Impossible with Eaves at the helm because he absolutely under no circumstances will allow creativity to forwards, and that's why he'll never have more than 2 or 3 of the high-end guys on the team at one time when you absolutely need more like 6-8 of high end scorers and secondary scorers.
 
Re: Fire Mike Eaves?

Scottyp said:
We just got outcoached and outhustled by Mankato team with a first year coach at home. We look like we've given up already. Am I missing any reason to keep him?
Click to expand...

Mike Hastings is not exactly your typical first year coach. Have you ever seen his resume'? You are talking about a guy that was basically the Vince Lombardi of the USHL in his 14 seasons there. No losings seasons--EVER? The winningest coach in league history? 529-210-56? 3 league championships? 2 National championships? He was twice named the USHL’s Coach of the Year and, as the Omaha Lancer's general manager, besides being the Head Coach, was named the league’s GM of the year five times. During that time he developed 35 National Hockey League draft picks, many of whom are still playing in the NHL.

I don't think it's particularly shameful to lose a game against somebody with a background like this one. Wisconsin appears to have their problems but I don't think I'd try to pin any of the blame for it on the "poor quality" of the opponent's head coach in this instance.

This game might say more about Mike Hastings that it does about Mike Eaves.
 
Red Cows said:
Mike Hastings is not exactly your typical first year coach. Have you ever seen his resume'? You are talking about a guy that was basically the Vince Lombardi of the USHL in his 14 seasons there. No losings seasons--EVER? The winningest coach in league history? 529-210-56? 3 league championships? 2 National championships? He was twice named the USHL’s Coach of the Year and, as the Omaha Lancer's general manager, besides being the Head Coach, was named the league’s GM of the year five times. During that time he developed 35 National Hockey League draft picks, many of whom are still playing in the NHL.

I don't think it's particularly shameful to lose a game against somebody with a background like this one. Wisconsin appears to have their problems but I don't think I'd try to pin any of the blame for it on the "poor quality" of the opponent's head coach in this instance.

This game might say more about Mike Hastings that it does about Mike Eaves.
Click to expand...

He wasn't saying that Hastings isn't a great coach in fact he was giving him quite the credit in just pointing out that this is his first season at Mankato and he hasn't had time to get players he recruited onto his team and they STILL made the Badgers who Eaves had had a decade to build into his team look awful.
 
Re: Fire Mike Eaves?

Almington said:
He wasn't saying that Hastings isn't a great coach in fact he was giving him quite the credit in just pointing out that this is his first season at Mankato and he hasn't had time to get players he recruited onto his team and they STILL made the Badgers who Eaves had had a decade to build into his team look awful.
Click to expand...

Thats exactly what I am saying.
 
Re: Fire Mike Eaves?

I'll just preface by saying I don't much care for Eaves -- so take this as you will.

While I can certainly understand and see much of what the Wisconsin fan base is saying, I also think this Wisconsin team isn't going to look nearly as bad at the end of the year as they look now. The addition of Kerdiles and Zengerle in the line-up is going to give them a little more punch, and I think it will be enough to make them a pretty good team. They have the goaltending and defensive mindset to keep scores low and frustrate teams. Just a little bit of offense will go a long way.

Is that enough? Should Wisconsin better than "pretty good"? If I'm a Badger fan, I'd probably say no it's not enough, and yes the should be better. Objectively? As a Minnesota fan, I'm not qualified to answer that :p

I think there are certainly better coaches out there than Eaves. I also think that if Wisconsin went out and hired an "up and coming" coach, there is certainly a chance he would be worse than Eaves.

A couple years ago when Lucia was on the hot-seat at MN, I wasn't quite ready to kick him to the curb. 2 years ago I said if they miss the NCAA's I would be...they missed it, but I really thought they showed signs that year. Last year I said if they missed the NCAA's I'd be ready...but they ended up going to the FF. I don't know. That entire time when considering that question, the first question that came next was, who are they going to replace him with? If you don't have a good answer to that, I think it's hard to talk about replacing a guy.

How was Peterson tonight? He looked pretty good against MN, but you have about 1.3 seasons of evidence behind starting Rumpel. I guess I question the decision to bring Peterson back into the fold. At least when you are a bit desperate for conference points.
 
Re: Fire Mike Eaves?

Knowing WI was a young team last year......and talking with Almsy a bit about the team....I expected a bit better from WI this year. Not happening, yet. Will it happen this year? Dunno. But if I were a WI fan (shudder), I'd wait until year end before bringing out the guillotine. And at year end, if this team is still this bad? Guillotine plus electric chair.
 
Re: Fire Mike Eaves?

Despite getting destroyed, eaves did have his team in the 2010 title game. So what has happened to lead to this?
 
Re: Fire Mike Eaves?

J.D. said:
Despite getting destroyed, eaves did have his team in the 2010 title game. So what has happened to lead to this?
Click to expand...

The six defensemen in the title game were: McDonagh, Gardiner, Smith, Ramage, Goloubef, and Schultz. Ya, that helps.
 
Re: Fire Mike Eaves?

J.D. said:
Despite getting destroyed, eaves did have his team in the 2010 title game. So what has happened to lead to this?
Click to expand...

start with Eaves recruiting a team entirely made up of grinders at forward except for Zengerle and possibly Kerdiles. Mersch has been good but on a great team he's a 3rd liner.

on the 2006 NCAA team Jack Skille was a 3rd liner. If that's not enough to tell Badger fans what is wrong w/this current team than I don't know what is. Eaves chose this route, he alone decided to recruit almost a dozen Wisconsin kids not named Condon who cannot skate and cannot score with the CC's, DU's, MN's, etc.

there's no reason to believe he's going to adapt or change.

he needs to go so Wisconsin can once again begin to win battles for high-end forwards and their secondary complimentary scorers.

I feel bad for Kerdiles right now I really do. He'll have the weight of the world on his shoulders and there's nothing he can do on his own to take UW to the NCAA's, even if he put up 40 points in an abbreviated season that wouldn't be enough
 
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