{"id":182771,"date":"2014-12-10T09:14:53","date_gmt":"2014-12-10T14:14:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the6thsens.com\/?p=3548"},"modified":"2014-12-10T09:14:53","modified_gmt":"2014-12-10T14:14:53","slug":"paul-maclean-speaks-final-press-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/news\/paul-maclean-speaks-final-press-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul MacLean Speaks: Final Press Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"
It’s kind of a sad moment realizing that this may be the last instance when I’ll ever be able to use the ‘MacLean red phone’ image for a post, but damn it all if this won’t be a memorable last time.<\/p>\n
Even though he was under no obligation to speak to reporters following his dismissal as head coach of the Ottawa Senators yesterday morning, to his credit, Paul MacLean did comment and address his firing.<\/p>\n
I was hoping to embed the audio for the press conference, but TSN 1200<\/em>‘s running a broken link for the audio. The transcript for MacLean’s press conference appears below.<\/p>\n As always, my thoughts are in bold.<\/strong><\/p>\n MacLean’s opener…<\/p>\n “I\u2019d like to start by thanking you all for being here. I know it\u2019s a long day and it\u2019s a little extra time for you today, but I appreciate it. First of all, I\u2019d like to thank Eugene Melnyk, Bryan Murray and the Ottawa Senators for the opportunity to be a head coach in the National Hockey League. I brought with me a resume that included playing in June. My team had won a Stanley Cup, went to three Stanley Cup Finals, and (I) coached in four Western (Conference Finals). I had a habit of playing in June. That was what I tried to establish here because to play in June, your best players have to be your best players. I pushed them to be. I want to thank all the great people that I got to work with here at the Canadian Tire Centre, especially on an everyday basis. George, Greg, Bill, Robert and Carla in the command centre. The training staff of Gerry Townend, Dom Nicoletta and Shawn Markwick. The equipment staff of Scotty Allegrino, Woody Gervais, Mike Foley and Alex Menezes. The PR staff of Brian Morris, Chris Moore, Amanda and Kaite. To Hockey Operations\u2019 Allison Vaughan, Pierre Dorion and Randy Lee for the great opportunity and the players that we had, to my coaching who are obviously still working hard at it and will continue to do so and to the players, thank you very much for their efforts. Most of all, I\u2019d like to thank the fans for the support and the advice that they\u2019ve given me for the last three years. I leave today with my resume fuller by three years as a head coach in the National Hockey League, a Jack Adams Award, a runner-up for a Jack Adams Award, two playoff appearances in April \u2013 which I know is a place to start. I\u2019m a better coach today and I will be better prepared for the next opportunity and I will still coach to play in June. My daughter Erin said to me today something about the \u2018players play, play, play and I\u2019m going to shake, shake it off.\u2019 Any questions?<\/p>\n What can you say about Paul MacLean other than he\u2019s bringing it. Listing off his resume accomplishments before dropping an unexpected Taylor Swift pop culture reference? Gold. Probably a good idea to omit current possession rates or how his goaltenders\u2019 save percentages made his resume look a little better than it probably should be, but hey, it was a solid opener that no one will soon forget.<\/strong><\/p>\n After some female fan yells \u201cyou\u2019re the fucking best Paul MacLean. I love you. You\u2019re the best.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat is not my daughter.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Like the timing of Erik Karlsson’s overtime goal, MacLean’s comedic timing was beautiful. All that was missing was the celebratory fist pump to go with it.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n On whether he saw this coming\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think anything ever surprises me in this business. Stuff happens. All I know is it\u2019s all about winning. If you don\u2019t win enough, you don\u2019t get to hang around.\u201d<\/p>\n On there being anything specific that he can take from this experience\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I don\u2019t think anything specific (from) today. I\u2019m going to have a little bit of time to mull it over, but I\u2019ll be better prepared. I\u2019m a better coach today than I was when I got here and I look forward to the next opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n On who the \u201cold Paul\u201d was and why he couldn\u2019t come back\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what that means. I\u2019m just Paul MacLean and that is who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n Finally, after taking the high road for the majority of the availability, we’re finally seeing\u00a0a little bit of agitation or defiance from the former coach. The reference to “old Paul” comes from Bryan Murray who used the expression to articulate how the expectations\u00a0or demands by\u00a0MacLean of his players negatively affected his relationship with the players.<\/strong><\/p>\n I put this on Twitter last night, but it’s interesting to me how the “old Paul” left at a similar time to Daniel Alfredsson. Even though the organization spun Alfredsson’s loss as an opportunity to acquire a better player in Bobby Ryan that made them “better on paper”, it would be foolish to think\u00a0that the loss of the long-time captain didn’t affect the team during the early stages of\u00a0the 2013-14 season.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n At the same time, Paul MacLean has acknowledged himself that he felt a change in his coaching style had become necessary when he returned for his third season, so completely dismissing the “old Paul” thing outright isn’t completely fair. He has admitted to becoming more demanding of his players, but it’s obvious from his comments today that if the current group was going to take a significant step forward, there had to be a considerable amount of growth and improvement. It seems like Paul felt that if management couldn’t bring in better players, he’d have to simply get more out of the guys that he had here, hence the decision to demand more.<\/strong><\/p>\n Under MacLean’s watch players like Kyle Turris and Erik Karlsson grew exponentially as players, but a number of the team’s other players,\u00a0especially on the blue line, have fallen flat. Obviously in some instances, circumstances beyond MacLean’s control\u00a0have affected certain players (ie. Jared Cowen and his injuries), but I don’t know if I’m willing to put the majority of blame on a coach when ownership and management are the ones responsible for assembling this collection of players on the league’s smallest budget.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Now with that being said, we’ve heard in the past that some players haven’t been pleased with their utilization or roles. Bobby Ryan wasn’t happy with his utilization in the early stages of last season and\u00a0Jason Spezza’s unhappiness\u00a0culminated with a\u00a0request to be dealt\u00a0because he was tired of being a\u00a0scapegoat for this franchise. Without knowing how much of that was going on behind closed doors, Spezza was always a polarizing individual amongst the fan base,\u00a0but it’s possible that he could have been one of these “better players” that Bryan Murray alluded to that Paul simply demanded too much of.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n On whether he felt he needed to change his personality as a coach to appease players\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I have no regrets over the way I did anything. I have no regrets. I can\u2019t change anything. It\u2019s all done. All I can change is maybe what I would do going forward, but I ain\u2019t changing nothing I did behind me and I don\u2019t regret anything I did, the way I did it, (or) how I did it. I did it the best way that I thought it would be to get the team to play in June, that\u2019s all it was about.\u201d<\/p>\n MacLean should\u00a0take his doppleganger on the road with him to his next stop.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n On whether he thought he had the roster to get to June\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cI was coaching what I had and trying to get them to play in June. That\u2019s what I was doing. I certainly believed in the players, the level of skill that we had, the level of work ethic we had. I had total belief that we had every opportunity that we could be a team that wasn\u2019t only competitive \u2013 we weren\u2019t an elite team, we were working to be an elite team \u2013 but I certainly felt that we were competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n He’s right. They’re not elite. The team hasn’t been elite since the mid 2000’s and it’s tough to sit here and say with any kind of confidence that they’re headed in the right direction.<\/strong><\/p>\n On whether his initial success changed his coaching philosophy\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think so. I tried to approach each year as every year \u2013 the whole goal was to play in June. There\u2019s 30 teams that do that every year.\u201d<\/p>\n It may not have changed his approach, but the performance\u00a0of this team’s goaltenders made people in this city and outsiders overlook this team’s\u00a0inability to suppress shots and by corollary, scoring chances. Combine this fact with modest success in light of the\u00a0low expectations for his team and you have the recipe for how to be a runner-up to the\u00a0Jack Adams\u00a0and a Jack Adams winner in consecutive years. More to the point, maybe we should stop referring to the Jack Adams as the trophy for the league’s best coach and just call it what it is, an award handed out to the coach whose team exceeds expectations\u00a0the most.<\/strong><\/p>\n On whether the comment he made about \u201cbeing afraid to play certain players\u201d was said in jest\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I thought we lost four games in a row. I didn\u2019t think we lost our sense of humour. I felt the pressure, I didn\u2019t feel any extra pressure than I put on myself every day that I came in here to do what was best for this team to get this team to play the way it needed to to play in June. And that day was no different than another. Like I just said, I thought we lost four in a row, not our sense of humour. If that took anybody by offence, I\u2019ll have to apologize for that, I suppose. But to me, it was simply, again, we lost four in a row. I didn\u2019t think we lost our sense of humour.\u201d<\/p>\n