NHL Coaches: Cornered and Crushed

wprager wrote:What I meant is that if Clouston doesn't get re-hired by Ottawa he's not going to be looking for long. And he might not have to move very far, either. Montreal is in almost exactly the same predicament we were in last year, minus the big contracts.

...where he would immediately be nicknamed "Cory Le Clou" LOL

I think that should be his nickname here. It fits.

wprager wrote:I think that should be his nickname here. It fits.

He has already been christened thus by our new forum member Mariposa Belle, a truly dedicated Sens fan who has carried the banner in bloody battles on other, less civilized hockey boards... like the one hosted by a certain Hogtown rag that bills itself as "Canada's National Newspaper"...

Hmm, you'll have to excuse me for not joining you in the chorus singing MB's praises. He still owes me something for calling me an idiot the other day.

wprager wrote:Hmm, you'll have to excuse me for not joining you in the chorus singing MB's praises. He still owes me something for calling me an idiot the other day.

Agreed. That was uncalled for. An apology from MB would be in order...

From an article by Sports Illustrated's Michael Farber, some interesting points about the revolving door in Montreal, and other decisions regarding coaches and their shelf life...

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/michael_farber/03/25/coaching.changes.osgood/index.html?eref=nhlg

Three weeks ago, Guy Carbonneau was an NHL coach who apparently had trouble communicating with his players. He had "lost" the dressing room and tinkered with his lines indiscriminately. Now, with chants of "Carb-o, Carb-o" resonating at the Bell Centre in Montreal on many nights, he has apparently metamorphosed into a cross between Toe Blake and Scotty Bowman.

Like Elvis Presley's untimely death, a firing turned out to be a decent career move.

The Canadiens have languished since general manager Bob Gainey sacked Carbonneau on March 9 and returned behind the bench on an interim basis. Prior to a 6-3 home win on Tuesday over the feckless Atlanta Thrashers, Montreal had not won a game in regulation under Gainey. Maybe lumping his offensive stars together as he did against the Thrashers will prove to be the magic bullet -- Alex Tanguay, playing with Saku Koivu and Alex Kovalev, had a five-point game -- but a three-for-six power play explosion against the worst penalty-killing team in the NHL (scrambling from the start because it can't win a faceoff) seems less an omen than a reflection of the opposition.

If Montreal -- which entered Wednesday's games in eighth place in the Eastern Conference, two points ahead of Florida -- can replicate that performance against Tampa Bay and Buffalo later this week, maybe Gainey has found something. The late-season coaching changes that have been effective involved an overhaul of styles -- Dan Bylsma in Pittsburgh, Cory Clouston in Ottawa, and John Tortorella with the New York Rangers -- but the slumping Canadiens had shown no evidence of doing anything markedly different.

Carbonneau, a finalist for the Jack Adams Award last year, might become a first-rate NHL head coach, but as happens too often, it will be done somewhere other than in the city where he got his first such job. In the eternal search for the Next Great Coach, the Canadiens have discarded Alain Vigneault, Michel Therrien and Claude Julien in the past decade. Vigneault went on to win a coach-of-the-year award for Vancouver, Therrien took Pittsburgh to the Stanley Cup Final in 2008. and Julien has done a superb job this season extracting latent talent from conference-leading Boston.

Like the Montreal Expos did, the Canadiens have stumbled into the business of grooming talent for other organizations. The moral of the story: maybe the Next Great Coach is the coach you already have.

Think of the Buffalo Sabres. Although they have only faint hopes of making the playoffs, president Larry Quinn has said that GM Darcy Regier and coach Lindy Ruff aren't going anywhere. Splendid. They are as steadfast as bacon and eggs, or Minneapolis and St. Paul. Regier and Ruff have been together since 1997-98, the longest-running GM-coach duo in North American professional sports. Given the exigencies of a small-revenue club, Regier has soldiered through tough times, failing to win a Stanley Cup but getting his team to the 1999 final and two conference finals since the lockout. Ruff, who merits consideration for Team Canada's 2010 Olympics staff, continues to goad his team into usually solid play and consistently great effort. To the organization's credit, it found the right two people for its market and never wavered.

There is a Western Conference version of the Sabres in Nashville, a franchise that has plugged along under GM David Poile and coach Barry Trotz since the first day in 1998. Now, the Predators never have won a playoff series -- a pair of first-rounders each against Detroit and San Jose the past four seasons is not evidence of spring success -- but the strapped franchise is on the cusp of going five-for-five. Like Ruff, Trotz is among the most popular NHL coaches as far as players are concerned, and he deserves a look for the Olympics.

Since Trotz coached his first game in October 1998, the New York Islanders have had nine coaches, Mike Keenan has been behind the bench for four different teams, and four men-- Julien, Ron Wilson, Ken Hitchc0ck and Joel Quenneville -- have guided three different teams apiece while 20 men have coached two each. (Thanks to Predators broadcaster Pete Weber for passing on that information.)

The long view, even in the go-go NHL, can often be the best one.

Wow, that's a tough question. Sometimes they are to blame (Hartsburg). But, again, that was also Murray's fault for signing an unproven coach to a 3 year deal. Sometimes it's also the players that don't buy into the system the coach puts forth. They are as much to blame in some cases, for not getting the job done.

Tough one.