I haven't said a lot about Mike Keenan, mainly because I think the Flames issues mainly lie in the roster and at the feet of Darryl Sutter.
Of course, it's not like Keenan had no effect on the club. There were definately things I liked about Iron Mikes first year and there were areas I'd like to see improved next season.
The good
With Nervous Jimmy in charge, the Flames looked like cowed war-crime victims, especially down the stretch. the team certainly played with more panache under Keenan, even though Playfair had the benefit of an arguably superior blueline (Stuart, Phaneuf, Regehr and Hamrlik in top 4, plus Giordano slightly healthier Rhett Warrener) a more effective Miikka Kiprusoff and career seasons from Huselius, Langkow, Lombardi and Tanguay.
I also thought Keenan's ES bench management was above average. Sometimes it was too active, especially at home where he tried to feed Iginla some of the softer competition. That didn't work out as well as one would think, but the theory was sound.
A lot of nay-sayers and Oilers fans are probably looking at Kippers numbers and pointing at Keenan as an explanation, given his reputation for mishandling goaltenders. The truth is, Kippers problems were Kippers own. Keenan stuck with him early in the season even though he was bad-to-dreadful and only pulled when it was sensible (ie, when any other coach would have done the same). In addition, Kiprusoff's numbers improved as the year wore on, which is the opposite trend one would expect with deleterious coaching effects.
The bad
It's hard for me to ignore the fact that the two guys that were predicted last summer to struggle under Keenan were, in fact, run out of town.
Perhaps that's an unfair phrase. There was no obvious public brow beating of either Huselius or Tanguay (aside from, perhaps, Huselius benching during the last few weeks) and both guys got generous amounts of ice time.
However, I can't imagine what else would possess Tanguay to request a trade less than half way through the year. If Sutter's story is true and Tanguay was looking for a way out by December, the explanation that he disliked his role as a checker doesn't hold much water. Because, well, Tanguay mostly played with Iginla up until that point. December was when Keenan moved Huseius and Langkow up to play with Iginla (at Jarome's request) and the trio tore up the SE Division, setting the tone for the rest of the season. That suggests Tanguay was already unhappy by that point.
I've heard it whispered that Keenan doesn't practice special teams. Perhaps that goes a ways to explaining the Flames worse than average PP (16.8%) and PK (81.5%) from last season. He had lousy personnel for the 2nd PP unit and Kipper was inexcusably bad SH for the first couple months, but still...a roster like Calgary's shouldn't struggle with STs to this degree.
Finally, there were certain player deployment and line-up issues that surfaced and re-surfaced during the season, despite their obvious lack of utility. My list of quibbles:
Tanguay on checking unit, Lombardi on the third line, constant presence of players like Godard and Primeau, the "kids line" fiasco, benching of Nilson, Eriksson in the top 4.
Here's how I would have preferred to see things:
Tanguay-Langkow-Iginla
This combination could go power v. power against almost anyone (outside of Detroit's big line) and come out on top.
Huselius-Lombardi-Nolan
A combination of speed, vision and grit. Nolan was fairly dreadful on both the PK and PP last year, but held his own at ES. This puts Lombardi in a position to succeed and creates a 2nd line with good outscoring potential (assuming soft competition).
Nystrom-Conroy-Moss
Conroy baby-sits the kids and doesn't have to worry about taking on the big guns or trying to score every so often. I would give this line the bulk of own-zone draws, leaving the better opportunities to lines one or two above. Likely to end up a bit under-water but probably not to an extreme degree (especially with Tanguay/Iginla doing the heavy lifting). Sub in Yelle or Nilson if Nystrom struggles.
Nilson-Boyd-Yelle
This way, Boyd interns with players that can actually teach him something and every icing call against isn't panic time. This also means the 4th line could play more than 5 minutes a game. Sub-in Nystrom if Nilson and Yelle are needed on line 3.
Godard, Primeau
Should play only if they have to.
The defensive pairings were tougher, thanks to the teams two very obvious "tiers" of defenders. There was Phaneuf/Sarich/Regehr and then the varying suckitude of Aucoin/Hale/Eriksson and eventually Vandermeer. Keenan went with Regehr/Sarich as the shut-down duo, meaning Phaneuf got to baby-sit whoever got the top 4 pass out of the bottom-end. Usually it was Eriksson, sometimes it was Aucoin and Vandermeer got a few chances later on. The result was usually a "chaos pairing" that was frequently dangerous at ES. I would have liked to see less Eriksson throughout the year personally, although Keenan admittedly didn't have a lot of options. I probably would have tried a Phaneuf/Regehr, Sarich/other (Eriksson,Vandermeer,Aucoin) top 4 combination, although I don't know if that would have yielded any better results.
Overall, I think Keenan's first season was a mixed bag: some good and some bad. I ended up relatively satisfied since the club seemed to respond better to him overall, his bench management was good and the implosion that was theorized as probable didn't occur.
