Former Russian national team head coach Vladimir Plyushchev assessed Avangard head coach Guy Boucher’s performance during the Gagarin Cup semifinal series against Lokomotiv (3-4).
“Honestly, I didn’t expect that as soon as Avangard ran into problems, their head coach Guy Boucher would just vanish. The meltdown started already in the fifth game, which Yaroslavl won cleanly. And what Boucher did throughout the entire third period of Game Six with the score at 3-1 is a complete mystery!”
“What exactly did he do?”
“In the third period, Omsk simply dumped the puck out of their zone every time. Fine, maybe with a little lob or a bank off the boards to clear half the zone — but no, they kept icing the puck constantly. That was the coaching plan.”
“Omsk, to put it mildly, was not inferior to its opponent in skill. They had no right to resort to such primitive and risky play. But their leader, unfortunately, mentally sank. The 60th minute of that game was pure nonsense. The coach was on his own, the team was on its own.”
“Blowing a 3-1 lead with 33 seconds left and a trip to the final — that’s sabotage. What’s more, the coach didn’t even take a 30-second timeout or put out the defensive unit during that stretch,” Plyushchev told Russia-Hockey.
