Sacking the coach ineffective, easy way out

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 3/1/2015 (1511 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sandwiched between entitled players and twitchy GMs trying to keep egomaniacal owners happy, today's NHL coach is in many cases predestined to fail.

Hired to, "Just win, baby." Fired because it didn't happen, despite obvious and impossible obstacles to overcome. Too often, organizations fail their coach, regardless of the message delivered, in what has become ritual scapegoating within the NHL.

The NHL's model — where coaches make less money and enjoy less security than most everyone on their roster, but for a few fourth-liners — is broken.

NHL coaches have become disposable. There's usually a list of veteran retreads hanging around TV studios waiting for their next opportunity. There are assistant coaches all over the league capable of running a bench, not to mention the up-and-comers in the AHL.

The supply outstrips the demand and with the state of pay for coaches in the NHL, it's always easiest for a team to clip its largely inexpensive and easily dispensed bench boss.

The NBA has a $10-million coach, the NFL has a number making more than $8 million and in MLB, the new number for top-end hires is $5 million. In the NHL, the top salary for a coach is $2.75 million.

Many players, with monstrous contracts containing no-movement clauses, are fixtures. Coaches have become cheap drapes. Easy to take down and replace despite the fact the new ones will still be hiding the same mess the old ones tried to cover.

Never mind Randy Carlyle's winning record, Stanley Cup resumé and sterling reputation among his peers. Forget the roster and all its flaws.

The results turned in by Carlyle's Leafs don't satisfy the Toronto marketplace. The refrains have become time worn: It's the coach's fault. He's lost the room. He doesn't have a system. They haven't won a Stanley Cup since 1967.

Pick an issue with the Leafs and it was Carlyle's fault back in November following an ugly 9-2 loss to the Nashville Predators and the next morining seemingly everyone in Toronto save GM Dave Nonis wanted the coach sacked.

Nonis resisted the pack mentality and stuck with Carlyle. The Leafs won 10 of their next 12 games and arrived in Winnipeg early this morning still holding on to Carlyle. And a playoff spot.

Nonis trusted his long-term experience with Carlyle and fought off external pressure. Such sturdiness from a GM's perch has been a rarity this season.

Dallas Eakins, Pete DeBoer and Paul MacLean have all been fired this season by organizations with either no plan or the lack of strength to support one.

The Oilers hired Eakins to be part of building a winning program in Edmonton, but fired him after little more than one season. GM Craig MacTavish stood in front of the media following the firing and claimed to have "blood all over his hands," for his role in assembling a terrible lineup.

MacTavish hired a rookie head coach to work with a young team but panicked when the growing pains became too much.

Everything that transpired in Edmonton was predictable, from a meddling owner to a GM submitting to pressure and casting aside his top lieutenant. Edmonton isn't a coaching-change away from improvement. MacTavish knows this and firing Eakins was disingenuous. Oilers fans should have been insulted at the flimsy ruse.

DeBoer's roster in New Jersey was terrible and old. GM Lou Lamoriello would have been better justified in firing himself and his entire management group for the awful work they've done.

In Ottawa, a young team with no leadership from within predictably struggled and cost MacLean his job.

The coaching changes were all made in December and to date have had no discernible impact.

The benefit of more time won't show these moves to have been franchise-shaping.

 

These decisions weren't about coaching or what was best for an organization. They were about saving face and pandering.

Certainly there are coaching changes that work; the firing of Claude Noel and hiring of Paul Maurice has had a transformative effect on the Jets.

The change wasn't about Noel's hockey acumen. It was about his inability to get the group of players in Winnipeg to buy his program and execute it on the ice. Maurice has the ear of these Jets. In the end, by his own admission, Noel did not.

Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff could have done more from the beginning to support Noel and help him reach the room. That didn't happen, and Cheveldayoff had to fire Noel when he did.

Lessons were learned by the Jets over the handling of their first coach and Maurice is on far firmer footing than Noel ever enjoyed. Much of that is the gravitas Maurice brings to the job. A four-year contract also issued a statement.

Maurice has the heft of the organization behind him. He's become a cornerstone and the players know and respect this.

The difference from team to team is talent and commitment — talented players willing to commit to what a coach presents them. Mike Babcock in Detroit, Joel Quenneville in Chicago and Daryl Sutter in Los Angeles are examples of coaches who have found a way to get players to consistently execute the message over a long period.

These coaches are foundation pieces in their organizations. Players know they aren't going anywhere unless they choose to leave. Veterans, rookies and free agents all conform to the message and make it their own.

Babcock was asked last season about having players such as Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg who were willing to forgo statistics in favour of team play and winning games.

The coach cut off the question.

"They don't just do it. You have to make them," Babcock stated.

He's right. But making players play the right way doesn't just come down to the coach. It comes down to the organization supporting its coach. Firing a coach is often the easy way out. It satisfies media and fans — until their next craving for blood.

Players want to win. But winning in today's NHL isn't easy. Players can't take the easy way out and expect to win.

Neither can organizations.

gary.lawless@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @garylawless