The Dayton Gems announced Saturday that left wing Brandon Naurato will be joining the Gems on the road Saturday night as Dayton takes on Fort Wayne at 7:35 p.m.
Naurato was placed on waivers by Fort Wayne on Thursday. Dayton and Naurato came to an agreement early Saturday morning.
Comments
Marko,
Sims is here because
#1 He has "earned" the right to turn this around based on his previous track record with the Komets
#2 Mid season coaching changes rarely work. Yes we can all site the cases where they have but more often than not they provide a quick spark but then settle back down to nothing and you wind up paying two guys for a lost season
#3 There aren't alot of qualified coaches playing golf right now looking for work.
Sims didn't get stupid overnight. He can coach.
But he got lazy and made a huge mistake thinking his IHL system would work in this league. Does that mistake result in him losing his job? I don't think we will know until the end of the season. Good coaches are allowed the luxury of a losing season now and then. The Komets have to decide if next year they bring Sims back with a new roster and allow him to rebuild this team or if they go in another direction.
Or... they could decide to pull the chute and relieve him sooner. My guess is he finishes out the year.
I sit behind the bench, and have NEVER heard a word from Sims. I wish he would be a little vocal with his team...
Thanks for the answers and those do make sense. I hope he can prove that the last 4 cups he won here were in part because of his coaching..and not in spite of him as I have read from a couple posters. Come on Sims, prove yourself and do something...anything to get things back on track. He does appear to be a softer spoken coach with the guys. I dont like a coach that acts as if he is having a coronary though either. Go Komets!
To add to the Sims discussion, the K's could hamstring themselves by firing a coach who has won 3 straight championships, regardless of how you feel about the quality of the IHL2... Good coaching prospects may shy away from signing a contract to coach in Ft Wayne if they believe no matter how well they do, if they have a tough stretch they'll get canned...
Most of the coaching is done at practice. If you watch some of the greats like Scotty Bowman they didn't say much during games. You had the feeling they were making many mental notes and translating them to practice points.
Besides in a team with a bunch of veterans who have "been there and done that" he shouldn't have to say too much.
But it comes back to the fact that he needs to adapt his system. It may not happen this year. Do you give him one more summer and one more year to fix his mistake? Is a coach allowed to have a bad year and keep his job?
Tommy Lasorda did. Mike Ditka did, Lindy Ruff (who has never won a championship) did. Jeff Fisher in Tennessee has had THREE winning seasons in his 15 or so years as head coach of the titans.
If Sims this offseason presents management with a plan to adjust and adapt then I can make an argument for bringing him back again. But if they do bring him back they need to CLEAN OUT this roster. I don't want to see more than 3 guys back and I am not even sure that many. Give Sims a true fresh start. Players do tune out coaches after awhile. So if the coach is good you keep giving him new players.
This will be an interesting off season to be sure.
Sims vs Bowman?????? Too much Kool-Aid ????????
Mightbite it is a valid comparison based on the the varied levels they coached in. Granted Bowman had very little in the way of bad years.
I don't have time to research but can we say that there probably aren't many minor league hockey coaches who won 3 championships in a row at any level. Question is, does 3 championships earn you one bad year? That is what the Komets have to decide.
You forgot Phil Jackson, Curly Lambeau and John Wooden.
Unfortunately Al can't coach heart and desire. Don Cherry goes on TV every week and says we can't boo the Leafs because they are trying hard. Can the Komet fans say that the effort is there?
You can fire one coach not 19 players, but if those players are not working hard the next coach will probably have the same problem after the honeymoon.
Snuff, Bowman will go down as the best ever, but he learned in a tough environment. Remember the expansion from 6 to 12 teams in the NHL. He coached St. Louis and they made the Stanley Cup final the first two years I think. In those years it was original six against expansion. I think he still made his teams competitive.
Mike no doubt. Bowman made every team he coached competitive. Comparing Sims to Bowman is trying to compare Star Trek to Spaceballs but I was hard pressed to think of a succesful coach who had a string of good seasons and allowed to keep his job after a losing year. Tommy Lasorda was a good example.
In 1985 the Dodgers won 95 games. The two years that followed saw them win only 73 and people began to question whether he lost the team. They made some key changes which changed the culture of the team and in 1988 on the bad legs of Kirk Gibson they won the World Series. Had the Dodgers bent to the pressure who knows what would have happened.
I DO hold Sims resposible for the start of this season for the reasons I have stated before. I can make a case for firing him but I can also make a case for giving him another year.
There is another question of course... will he WANT to come back?