Devils scouting reports

[BrooklynBound]

What are the differences between Robinson and Burns?

[bruins4777]

I'm a bruins fan...but as for just hockey knowledge in general, here's a tip. hate the leafs, and you'll be cool with pretty much everyone in the hockey world outside of toronto.

as for your question about burns and robinson...well i don't know robinson all that well as a coach. But burns...he coached the bruins. He is a ruthless "dictator" coach. He doesn't make friends with players and is strict as hell, but he gets the job done and is one hell of a coach. One of the best around. The one thing that i think he's known for is taking players people think are "borderline" players and turns them into players every team would die for. Guys like jay pandolfo and tim taylor. They are pure character guys. Not a lot of talent, but they each have certain attributes that make them really endearing.

Also for hockey knowledge in general. While i myself am a big stat guy, stats can be the best guide in hockey and the most misleading guide in hockey, its not like baseball where stats tell you almost everything. So watch out for stats. In general, people here can give you a great view on when to trust stats or not. You'll gradually pick it up and learn what to trust as you go along.

[BrooklynBound]

Is +/- a good indicator of production? It's starting to get used in the NBA, but I don't think it applies to the NBA well.

[bruins4777]

plus minus is awful for the most part. Because really skilled high scoring forwards tend to play with their best defensemen also so they get to run up the score while they don't get scored on. So guys like forsberg get this huge plus minus even if his defensive play isn't top notch.

Its good in some cases, but for the most part i don't like it. Its suppposed to help indicate how good a player is defensively, but it really doesn't.

For defensemen it kinda works, but not really. Its something impressive to show off, and when looked at appropriately its good to use, but in many cases there are lots of exceptions. You'll come to discover this eventually, with the more hockey you watch. I use to like plus minus a lot, but the more i watched hockey the less i liked it.

I can't explain its errors very well and conan is coming back on, so hopefully somebody else will explain it better than i do. But basically, 5 out of 10 times its bad.

[insanity_gallops]

BB, about Burns v. Robinson.

Bruins gave a good description of Burns (although I'll aruge that Pandolfo was a beloved Devil prior to Burnsie taking over, there's no doubt that he "flourished" under Burns, thus endearing him to more fans and stopping the calls of "TRADE PANDOLFO").

Robinson has been called "a player's coach." The term's pretty much the same when you hear it in the NBA. Robinson asks a lot of his players, but he's friendly with them and rather easy-going compared to Burns.

[Sarge18]

Burns teams and Robinson's teams also have much different styles on the ice. While both employ a defensively responsible system. I think Robinson's teams are more attacking, and more emphasis on the transition game. Under Robinson nobody moved the puck up ice faster then the Devils, but Burns seems to prefer to slow things down and reposition everyone before methodicly attacking.

Robinson also gave the defense more freedom to jump into or lead a play when they had the chance. Burns typiclly discouraged this type of risk taking. Though with fowards as good defensively as most Devils are, its not that bad as long as everyone understands what to do.

[Swede]

sarge, that kinda reminds me of what babcock screamed to his players in one clip of the 2003cup dvd. "we gotta help our d, they are on them too fast" (or something like that)