Top Five Coaches Both classes

[BodyShots]

[quote="BodyShots]I did consider mentioning Aaron Forsythe at Flake (except that would be another 7AA coach, wouldn't it?) But he's relatively new, so I'm going to wait a little more time. And even though Flake has improved in recent years, there has been an influx of talent to go with it (Moberg, Fick, Kohls and the rest of his line.)

That said, I have seen Esse be outcoached within games. I have never seen Bill Lechner be outcoached. That's why he's at #1 for me.

Another note: I think coaches deserve credit if they can take a historically underachieving program and make it live up to expectations (Randolph, Pauly). It can be very, very hard to break a losing, "here we go again" mindset, no matter the talent that goes through it. No program exemplifies that better than White Bear Lake.

Good discussion; I'm enjoying it.

Karl, you make a lot of good points. I am only going to comment on a couple of them.

Concerning you comment on Aaron Forsythe and their influx of talent recently. You said you held off on mentioning him until you see more of the same over time. My point is that even with Moberg, Fick, Kohls, etc. Forest Lake as a team had not accomplished great things in the Youth ranks. To see them excell now in High School under Forsythe tells me he is doing a tremendous job. On the other hand, someone like Giles at Edina or Smith at EP inherited great teams that won consistantly in the youth ranks. Budish, Everson, Lee, Garder, etc won more tournaments during there Peeww and Bantam years than a trophy case can hold. Yet Giles wasn't able to win a state tournament with them. Smith on the other hand inherited a team that won something like three state championships in a row at the youth ranks. He got one with Leddy, but in my opinion, if EP doesn't win it all this year (now that they are all seniors), you can't put him any where near the top ten.

You've never seen Lechner be out coached? I have many times, but his depth of talent has overcome his coaching. In 2008, they won the state title with a loaded team made up of mostly blades players. In the section final they were heavy favorites to destroy WBL who had lost Jake Hanson and Taylor Johnson to the USHL. Then lost 4 returning seniors to suspension. WBL had a late winning goal waved off and HM ended up winning in OT. This years HM team has 7 elite players (should have been 8 with Schulze who nobody can figure out how he didn't make it). They have added young superstars like Guenzel (sp?) and Wood and have a three year starter returning in the nets. How are they 1-2? You can't tell me Lechner wasn't out coached in those games. I will give you this though, Lechner does have his teams playing their best at the end of the year!

Nice jab at the Bears. I can't defend the coaching at WBL. It will be very interesting to see how successful they are after this year, when the talent level drops off drastically.

Thanks for the banter. I enjoy it as well.

[mulefarm]

Tom Saterdalen
Willard Ikola
Larry Ross
Mike Randolph
Dave Peterson

[SPUDNUT]

surprising no 8aa coaches...maybe a little too much turnover lately.

No taters touting Moronville is odd...the spuds had some good runs under the guy just could'nt quite win it all. One of the most solid AA teams in the last 15-20 yrs or so.

The way you spell his name says it all - Morinville is a chump, just like every other Moorhead coach has been.

Like livin' up to your name, don't ya ? Jealousy will get you no place !

[CitiesSpudsGuy]

surprising no 8aa coaches...maybe a little too much turnover lately.

No taters touting Moronville is odd...the spuds had some good runs under the guy just could'nt quite win it all. One of the most solid AA teams in the last 15-20 yrs or so.

The way you spell his name says it all - Morinville is a chump, just like every other Moorhead coach has been.

The childish remarks about Morinville aside, I will say this about him, he has an impressive record but I wouldn't put him in the top 5 coaches for one simple reason - zero state titles with an abundance of opportunities to win one.

In fact, I think a case could be argued for Morinville being an underachieving coach for the number of times he's been in the state title game, with some extremely talented teams in the first half of the past decade and a relatively "easy" path to the state tourney during those talented years.

Just my opinion.

[urban iceman]

One point of focus on this topic would be to look at the coaches who kept their players on their home team and not watch them leave after they were developed by their respective youth programs to be great players, and then left for "better programs". Coaches who understood the concept of team unity and continuity at the for example , Bantams level, and let them develop together rather than decimate good team by taking more than a few up too early and causing a divide!

[black sheep]

one of the little known sides to these "best" coaches is what they are doing away from the game for their players. it is easy to judge on ice performance, but what do they do for the kids off ice takes a lot.

the games are the easy part.

[old goalie85]

Urban-- I think that is a great point. Today you have to keep kids from going to Jrs. And in the metro, keep them at the public school. I'm not saying that Makes a great coach but, something I never thought of.

[Pioneerprideguy]

"Keep them in a Public school"?? So a high school coach should take away options from kids/parents? So what's next, the only ones who can play are kids with blonde hair & blue eyes?? Yikes!

[muckandgrind]

"Keep them in a Public school"?? So a high school coach should take away options from kids/parents? So what's next, the only ones who can play are kids with blonde hair & blue eyes?? Yikes!

I think you know what he meant......"Keeping them in a public school" by making the public school team more attractive to the player who might otherwise leave to attend a private school JUST for hockey.

[mnmouth]

surprising no 8aa coaches...maybe a little too much turnover lately.

No taters touting Moronville is odd...the spuds had some good runs under the guy just could'nt quite win it all. One of the most solid AA teams in the last 15-20 yrs or so.

The way you spell his name says it all - Morinville is a chump, just like every other Moorhead coach has been.

The childish remarks about Morinville aside, I will say this about him, he has an impressive record but I wouldn't put him in the top 5 coaches for one simple reason - zero state titles with an abundance of opportunities to win one.

In fact, I think a case could be argued for Morinville being an underachieving coach for the number of times he's been in the state title game, with some extremely talented teams in the first half of the past decade and a relatively "easy" path to the state tourney during those talented years.

Just my opinion.

Totally agree, and you can place Cullen in the same company as Morinville for past Spud failures.

[old goalie85]

PPG- Giving them reason to stay!!! O.K.---

[karl(east)]

"Keep them in a Public school"?? So a high school coach should take away options from kids/parents? So what's next, the only ones who can play are kids with blonde hair & blue eyes?? Yikes!

I think you know what he meant......"Keeping them in a public school" by making the public school team more attractive to the player who might otherwise leave to attend a private school JUST for hockey.

One the flip side, should we also then honor coaches at private schools (and public schools, for that matter) who attract lots of players to their programs? (I am avoiding using the "r" word.) Personally, I would say yes...that's usually a pretty good sign that somebody's doing something right. Not all private schools are Hill-Murray.

Concerning you comment on Aaron Forsythe and their influx of talent recently. You said you held off on mentioning him until you see more of the same over time. My point is that even with Moberg, Fick, Kohls, etc. Forest Lake as a team had not accomplished great things in the Youth ranks. To see them excell now in High School under Forsythe tells me he is doing a tremendous job. On the other hand, someone like Giles at Edina or Smith at EP inherited great teams that won consistantly in the youth ranks. Budish, Everson, Lee, Garder, etc won more tournaments during there Peeww and Bantam years than a trophy case can hold. Yet Giles wasn't able to win a state tournament with them. Smith on the other hand inherited a team that won something like three state championships in a row at the youth ranks. He got one with Leddy, but in my opinion, if EP doesn't win it all this year (now that they are all seniors), you can't put him any where near the top ten.

You've never seen Lechner be out coached? I have many times, but his depth of talent has overcome his coaching. In 2008, they won the state title with a loaded team made up of mostly blades players. In the section final they were heavy favorites to destroy WBL who had lost Jake Hanson and Taylor Johnson to the USHL. Then lost 4 returning seniors to suspension. WBL had a late winning goal waved off and HM ended up winning in OT. This years HM team has 7 elite players (should have been 8 with Schulze who nobody can figure out how he didn't make it). They have added young superstars like Guenzel (sp?) and Wood and have a three year starter returning in the nets. How are they 1-2? You can't tell me Lechner wasn't out coached in those games. I will give you this though, Lechner does have his teams playing their best at the end of the year!

Nice jab at the Bears. I can't defend the coaching at WBL. It will be very interesting to see how successful they are after this year, when the talent level drops off drastically.

Thanks for the banter. I enjoy it as well.

I think you have a lot of good things to say about Forsythe, but I still hesitate a little--the team two years ago really wasn't all that great (9-16-2); they made the semifinals in the thinnest year for 7AA in my memory, and got one spectacular performance by the goalie to nearly cause an upset. Without Moberg's million saves against East, I doubt they'd be remembered. Last year was a good year, yes. But we'll see if that carries on or not.

I give Giles a lot of credit for last year, not only because he took a team that was less talented than his previous editions and won it all, but because he clearly learned from the mistakes of those years. (Edina won last year by using their greatest advantage over anyone else in the state--their depth.) A lot of coaches get tunnel vision and don't change, even when it's necessary. I also think he is a pretty good in-game coach; I can think of several games in which his line matchups were crucial to victory.

With Smith, it's hard to say. He got a lot of flak before the state title, and he didn't do anything particularly remarkable during the state title season. But that, in a way, can be great. Sometimes coaches just need to lighten up and let the stars do their thing. I've also seen plenty of coaches mismanage their stars--overuse them, ask them to do things they shouldn't do, etc.--and Smith, to his credit, does not do that. He found a good balance with Leddy, and in the EP-AV game I watched last week, he seemed to have done it again. But yes, I agree this year will be big for his legacy at EP.

I suppose I usually only see Lechner late in the year, so that may be why I haven't seen him outcoached. He certainly hasn't been in the last three state tournaments. Once he figures out what he has and gets his team together for the end of the season, he's almost untouchable. That 2008 team was very strong, but they went in as the 4-seed for a reason. Lechner did a great job in the wins over Roseau and Edina. I think that might be part of the explanation for the bad start, as I mentioned both in this thread and in this week's rankings comment--he's still figuring out what he has, and what he's going to do with it all.

Of course, the number of times we see a coach at work affects our opinion of them--I've seen Randolph way more times than any other coach, and have seen him do tons of things right but plenty of things wrong, too. Because of that, I have trouble judging him against the coaches I only see a couple of times a year--the more one watches a team, the easier it is to pick on little things that a coach does right or wrong (though usually the wrong ones stand out more).

[muckandgrind]

"Keep them in a Public school"?? So a high school coach should take away options from kids/parents? So what's next, the only ones who can play are kids with blonde hair & blue eyes?? Yikes!

I think you know what he meant......"Keeping them in a public school" by making the public school team more attractive to the player who might otherwise leave to attend a private school JUST for hockey.

One the flip side, should we also then honor coaches at private schools (and public schools, for that matter) who attract lots of players to their programs? (I am avoiding using the "r" word.) Personally, I would say yes...that's usually a pretty good sign that somebody's doing something right. Not all private schools are Hill-Murray.

Yes. As a matter of fact, I would consider Bill Lechner (Hill-Murray) probably the best coach in the state. I realize that he didn't start the tradition at Hill-Murray, but he has certainly kept it alive and strong, and at the same time, doesn't put up with any BS from his players...Some might say that it's easy to be demanding if you can just reload year after year....and that might be true. But players want to play for Lechner and parents want their kids playing for him as well. He must be doing something right, huh?

But I also think it the mark of a great coach that can build a strong enough program at a public school that players WANT to stay. Urick at Minnetonka is the first one that comes to mind. Sure, some will say that his feeder program is top notch. Well, so is Wayzata's and up until this year, many of their top players went the private school route instead of sticking around.

[MrBoDangles]

Hill Murray wouldn't be much less of a team with Scooby Doo behind the bench.
It's very easy with neverending talent.

Forsythe is way more deserving.... The proof of impovement is obvious.

[Pioneerprideguy]

Hill Murray wouldn't be much less of a team with Scooby Doo behind the bench.
It's very easy with neverending talent.

Forsythe is way more deserving.... The proof of impovement is obvious.

Define improvement. Flake 2...MV 2 (A winless Mounds View). Perhaps Aaron could call Shaggy & the gang to see if they can solve the mystery of "Terrifying Tie". Might wanna entice the guys with scooby snacks as well.

[MrBoDangles]

" Scoooooobyy Dooooooobie(no pun intended) Doooo!"

[muckandgrind]

Hill Murray wouldn't be much less of a team with Scooby Doo behind the bench.
It's very easy with neverending talent.

Forsythe is way more deserving.... The proof of impovement is obvious.

I disagree. The coaches are the reason the players want to go to Hill Murray and the reason why there is that "neverending talent". Without good coaching, any program will fail to succeed. Want proof? Look at the U of Minn. Lucia is slowly but surely destroying which was once a powerful hockey program.

[MrBoDangles]

Hill Murray wouldn't be much less of a team with Scooby Doo behind the bench.
It's very easy with neverending talent.

Forsythe is way more deserving.... The proof of impovement is obvious.

I disagree. The coaches are the reason the players want to go to Hill Murray and the reason why there is that "neverending talent". Without good coaching, any program will fail to succeed. Want proof? Look at the U of Minn. Lucia is slowly but surely destroying which was once a powerful hockey program.

When Lucia was winning he was looked at as the best thing since sliced bread. Is Lucia a negative or are other teams taking different(talent) routes to win?

In no way am I saying that Lex is a bad coach...... What I'm saying is with all that talent, not being one of the top teams is nearly impossible.

[muckandgrind]

Hill Murray wouldn't be much less of a team with Scooby Doo behind the bench.
It's very easy with neverending talent.

Forsythe is way more deserving.... The proof of impovement is obvious.

I disagree. The coaches are the reason the players want to go to Hill Murray and the reason why there is that "neverending talent". Without good coaching, any program will fail to succeed. Want proof? Look at the U of Minn. Lucia is slowly but surely destroying which was once a powerful hockey program.

When Lucia was winning he was looked at as the best thing since sliced bread. Is Lucia a negative or are other teams taking different(talent) routes to win?

In no way am I saying that Lex is a bad coach...... What I'm saying is with all that talent, not being one of the top teams is nearly impossible.

Not to derail the topic...but I think it's a multitude of issues surrounding the ineptness at Mariucci. Poor coaching and poor recruiting top my list for the reasons by the Gophers will be the first team in quite some time (maybe ever?) to miss the NCAA Tournament three straight years.

[The New One]

Boy this topic has gotten off the topic. Top 5 coaches of all time?



Larry Ross
George Perpich
Willard Ikola
Tom Saaterdalen
Bill Lechner

Honorable mention:

Bob Gernander
Del Genereau (Duluth Cathedral)
Greg Trebil
Dave Peterson (Minneapolis Southwest)
Cliff Thompson (Eveleth)
Gus Hendrickson

Im sure I am missing alot of others but I like this list