Thursday, February 20, 2014

Ted Nolan did a remarkable job with Team Latvia...

despite what WGR's Mike Schopp thinks.

Throughout much of yesterday's GR show, Schopp continually downplayed the accomplishment of the Latvian hockey team and their coach, Ted Nolan.

Not all that surprising for a guy who relies upon stats for most his sports knowledge.


This is the same guy who once downplayed the virtues of winning faceoffs because of former Sabre Paul Gaustad and his contract. And it's the same guy who once said that he knew what was wrong with goalie Ryan Miller a few years back based upon his time as an intramural goalie.

As usual, Sabres beat reporter Paul Hamilton came on-air and completely destroyed Schopp's theory concerning Nolan.

Hamilton had played college hockey for Iowa State and was inducted into the Cyclone Hall of Fame in 2009. Although not perfect and sometimes widely off the mark, Hamilton has pretty good insight into the game of hockey outside the realm of stats.

The point Schopp was trying to make is that the Latvian team was thoroughly outplayed and was hanging on for dear life. He did mention that it was a very entertaining game, but he had it stuck in his head that Nolan had very little to do with Latvia's keeping it close.

Schopp points to Latvian goalie Kristers Gudlevskis and his 55-save performance and Canada's complete dominance of the Latvia squad. And, whether directly or indirectly, Schopp parallels performance's like that with the Nolan-coached Sabres teams that featured Dominik Hasek.

The big question in Schopp's mind (to paraphrase) is "how does a coach earn such high praise after his team end's up 1-4 in the Olympics."

From a purely statistical standpoint, it makes no sense. Just like losing a game 2-1 after being thoroughly dominated is not cause for celebrating the coach either.

A little research from our friend Schoppsie would reveal that Latvia had not won a game since 2002 (0-7-1) when the beat Austria 4-2 in the opening round at Salt Lake City.

The Latvian Team had never made it to the quarterfinals in their Olympic history.

Yesterday's game was the first time Latvia had faced Canada since 1936,  an 11-0 thrashing by the Canadians.

And had Schopp been paying attention to the Latvia/Canada match-up, a little stat sent out there by NBC would have revealed just how far outclassed the Latvian team was vs. Canada.

The Canadian team boasted over 15,800 NHL games played on it's roster. For Latvia that number was 1350, with 875 of them belonging to captain Sandis Ozolinsh.

This was an epic David vs. Goliath akin to the 1980 US amateurs vs. the mighty Red Army team at Lake Placid.

What stats don't tell is how Nolan--the highly touted coach with a 1-4 Olympic record--got this team to believe in themselves, bust their collective asses and give it all they had despite the insurmountable odds.

For nearly two and a half periods, that's what they did, keeping the game knotted at 1-1 despite wave after wave of Canadian superstars coming at them.

Cold stats don't reveal that this was the only strategy they had, make the Canadians work hard for everything the got and hope that an opportunity would present itself for and offensive chance.

Stats don't tell the story of Nolan squeezing blood out of a stone, as he somehow has done throughout his coaching career.

Schopp asked Hamilton what he thought of the job Nolan did with Latvia (27:30-mark.)

"It was great," remarked a clearly impressed Hamilton, "because there's really not much there (for the Latvian team.)

[Nolan] has a 170lb, soaking wet defenseman hacking away at Rick Nash and he didn't care. None of them cared. They just get up and come back for more."

Hamilton summed it up, "That's what Ted Nolan is all about, that's what he preaches. That's what he wants to see. He understands that you're the heavy underdog, that the other team is better. That's how he gets a team to hang in there. It's impressive to watch littler guys do what they were able to do in that tournament, [Especially] when they can't even get in the same ballpark as a team like Canada."

And, without probably realizing it, Hamilton puts Schopp in his place concerning Nolan and what he's able to accomplish with what little is given him.

When asked by Bulldog if Nolan's reputation is enhanced by the Latvian's performance at the Olympics, Hamilton replied, "For those who doubt [Nolan,] and there's a faction out there who think he's the village idiot, just a clown as far as coaches go, maybe he can start winning those over. When they've seen him do this time and again with different teams, he somehow gets them to play."

In conclusion, Hamilton points to something Schopp said the day before, and what would Nolan be able to do with a team that's expected to win.

And that's a great point.

Some coaches can coach a team up from the depths to respectability, but can't take them to the next level. Others can coach a good team and take them to the promised land, but can't do jack with a poor team.

For the Buffalo Sabres, during the next 1-3 years, they will be underdogs and until they get things in place, it looks as if Ted Nolan will be behind the bench.

Which isn't a bad thing.



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