During games? You're damn right they can. The coaches are there to keep everyone pulling the same way. Like a manager at an office. You're not doing people's work for them, but you're setting up the environment where they are empowered to take ownership.
Look at any super successful coach, let's just say in Detroit history to keep it easy.
Bowman, Babcock, Campbell, Leyland.
Each of these guys had a different way of doing it, but they had their players ready to run through a wall for them. In Bowman's case, he had the cache to sit Sergei Fedorov down and bust him down to playing defense. He worked with Yzerman and got him to buy into being a two-way player. Babcock was a shithead far too often, but read what Tatar said. He f***in hated Babcock, but he was a better player for being challenged by him. Campbell embodies the grit, grind, bite kneecaps identity that his whole team now embodies. Jim Leyland would go to bat for his guys and chew them out if they were bitching about things that didn't mean anything.
A coach is supposed to set the stage and the team is meant to take that tone and run with it.