Luis Diaz

Luis Diaz's remarkable performances for Liverpool this term have been quickly rewarded with a fan chant. The former FC Porto man has proven to be a perfect ...

He likens it to being the pilot of a plane and if the cockpit door is open and the passengers — the players — are looking in an seeing the pilots freaking out during a time of turbulence, well, that’s not great. The game is younger, faster and the mistakes are aplenty, so do you have a team that believes in the game plan produced by the coaching staff that will allow them to ride out those mistakes and to take advantage of the mistakes made by an opponent on a regular basis? And the second part is that you hope you’re coaching in the NHL because you have good instincts and a good hockey mind.” Rick Tocchet was on the bench as part of Mike Sullivan’s staff during back-to-back Cup runs in Pittsburgh in 2016 and 2017 before taking on the head coaching job in Arizona. Like Tortorella and Julien, Tocchet is expected to garner significant interest from the teams looking to fill vacant head coaching positions this off-season. It took a long time for the Panthers to make changes to a power-play unit that was dynamite (tied for fourth overall during the regular season) during the regular season and yet the impotence of the Panthers’ power play in the playoffs was a key factor in the team’s early exit, registering just one man-advantage goal on 31 opportunities in 10 games. During the regular season you can take the long view on progress or you can take a long view on goals, whether it’s in terms of players in and out of the lineup, line combinations, defensive pairings, ice time. A little twist of fate for the purposes of this discussion: it was Pittsburgh head coach Dan Bylsma who earned Jack Adams honors in 2011 while it was Bylsma and the Pittsburgh Penguins who won the Cup in 2009. The key in the playoffs is understanding that patience is more a luxury and that by their very nature every playoff series is shot through with a sense of urgency. It is not often that a team wins on the road to force a Game 7 and then is an underdog at home in it. The Houston Astros look to rebound from Friday's 6-1 loss to the Seattle Mariners tonight in Seattle. Houston is 10 games up on the Mariners in the division, so losing games to them is unexpected and shouldn't happen all that frequently. We'll be ready to go and I'm confident that he's going to be ready and show everybody what he's got and the type of hunger he has right now." In fact, not only was Tortorella the last Jack Adams winner to also have his name inscribed on the Cup in the same year, but he is one of only three coaches to achieve that rare daily double since the Jack Adams was first handed out in 1974, the others being Fred Shero in 1974 and Scotty Bowman in 1977. I am fading that opinion and looking to back the over thinking that Miami is going to be able to build on what we saw on Friday night.