OILERS BRING HITCHCOCK HOME
Veteran coach charged with turning around season after McLellan sacked
Wilf Brooks made sure to put “Welcome Home Hitch” on the giant sign outside his United Cycle, where the third-winningest NHL coach of all-time used to sharpen beer-leaguer’s skates.
So the circle of hockey life is complete for Ken Hitchcock.
Edmonton Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli used his lifeline to call one friend Monday and let another closer friend, coach Todd McLellan, go after 266 games over 3¼ seasons. It was a much easier call to Hitchcock than it was to McLellan in San Jose Tuesday at the team’s downtown hotel, but Chiarelli felt it had to be done.
NHL stands for “not here long,” as former coach George Kingston jokingly opined, yet McLellan got longer than many guys; but the Oilers were spinning their wheels at 9-10-1 and the ditch was beckoning after a 1-6 run.
“Todd and I had a brief meeting … I wouldn’t say it was emotional, but these meetings are hard. Todd is a really good man, a very good friend and a very good coach and will be again in this league. I’m not absolving myself of any responsibility with regards to the team’s current performance,” said Chiarelli, who wouldn’t fire Claude Julien in Boston when the Bruins were struggling and was let go instead in 2015.
Chiarelli is playing the only card he can right now.
“There’s still a lot of runway left in this season and we felt a new voice would be helpful. Obviously we’re in a rough patch here and leading into American Thanksgiving (Thursday), it’s a bit of a template for making the playoffs.”
Since 2011, 78 per cent of the teams in a playoff spot by U.S. Thanksgiving stay there.
The Oilers went into the game Tuesday three points out of third in the Pacific, but they had only beaten Montreal during their seven-game slide. Parity in the league is why four coaches have been fired this month. Teams can’t stand four- or five-game losing streaks or coaches are in trouble.
“That’s the way it’s trending, unfortunate as it is. You look for edges and (a coach replacement) is one of them,” said Chiarelli, whose job is very much in jeopardy.
The team hadn’t tuned out McLellan, who has never been fired before, but Chiarelli saw some disquieting team things, especially in the 6-3 loss to Vegas.
“Things I hadn’t seen since last year and I wanted to nip them in the bud,” said Chiarelli. “The D -zone coverage and compete (level). There were broad swings within games. It wasn’t an indictment on Todd, but when I saw them my antenna went up.”
Chiarelli thinks the team is good enough to make the postseason even though they appear average after Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, who could finish in the top 10 in league scoring, with only Ryan NugentHopkins as viable support
“There’s obviously areas to improve, but I feel when we get all our players back, those ones injured (Tobias Rieder, Andrej Sekera) and ones who may be in the minors (Jesse Puljujarvi and Kailer Yamamoto), I feel we’re good enough, yes,” Chiarelli said.
Chiarelli said there was no disconnect with how McLellan was handling Puljujarvi and Yamamoto. It had no bearing on the coaching change.
“It’s a real balance … we’re in a win-now environment in Edmonton and rightly so,” said Chiarelli. “You have young players who have to be taught the ropes, baptism by fire. I wasn’t frustrated. It was a collaborative effort to try and get them into the lineup and I decided they needed ice elsewhere (in the minors).”
He started thinking of a coaching change Monday morning after the desultory loss to Vegas. Hitchcock, who was supposed to be retired, might not have been interested in the L.A. Kings job when John Stevens was fired or Chicago when Joel Quenneville was let go, but he’s wanted to coach the Oilers since he was learning everything about hockey from legendary coach Clare Drake at the University of Alberta.
Hitchcock was fired in Dallas, Philadelphia, Columbus and St. Louis, so he can feel for McLellan, but once Chiarelli called Monday, the coaching juices started flowing again and he was all in. He said his skates are too big after losing 80 pounds, but joked: “I can always buy a pair at United.”
Ken Hitchcock wasted no time in walking into the Edmonton Oilers dressing room and delivering his thesis statement.
“I told the players today that I can get them to a place they can’t get to themselves,” said the new head coach. “But they have to buy in and it’s not going to be comfortable at times.”
If there is a paragraph that better describes the 66-year-old career coach, we’re still looking for it. He pushes his teams hard, demanding their best, and more often than not they deliver it.
And, no, it’s seldom comfortable. In fact, forcing a player out of his comfort zone is what Hitchcock does best, mostly because any players who don’t step out of their comfort zones don’t get to play.
He takes some getting used to, though. Hitchcock’s hard-line, zero-tolerance approach doesn’t always agree with everyone, but this is a dictatorship, not a democracy, so the players will need to buckle up and get used to it.
“We don’t have time to horse around,” said the Edmonton native, who inherited a team that lost six of its last seven and sat 12th in the West with American Thanksgiving just two days away.
“We don’t have time to go through the Get To Know You phase. We have to get going. I want to be able to tell them everything I’m about, good and bad.
“I want them to be 100 per cent prepared for what they can expect from me so we don’t have to go through the dance. I want to be really clear with the players: This is what I expect, this is what you can expect from me. I’m going to be consistent, this is how I’m going to act so there are no surprises.
“We started that today and I thought the guys really responded well to it. By the time we play Friday, I’m going to try and eliminate as many surprises as I can.”
Having grown up in Edmonton, this job has always been a goal of Hitchcock’s, but whenever the team was looking for a new coach (seven times since Craig MacTavish left in 2009) he was always gainfully employed somewhere else.
The stars finally lined up this time, with Hitchcock nearing the end of his career and the Oilers nearing the end of their rope.
“I know what’s wrong, but it’s not going to get fixed overnight,” said the third-winningest coach in NHL history (823-506-88-119). “I’ve been through this before and I’m going to help it along. It’s not going to change overnight but we can start taking some steps.”
There is, of course, going to be a greater emphasis placed on smart, defensively sound hockey, but Hitchcock believes the bigger problem here is emotional rather than structural.
He sees a team that is losing hope and doesn’t know what to do about it.
“I think frustration sets in and emotion goes out and then you just start playing by yourself. You go quiet on the ice with each other and then it looks like you’re not trying, but it’s exactly the opposite. I think I can clear the deck that way.”
The Oilers aren’t good enough to win on skill alone, but Hitchcock believes they can do it with willpower, commitment and unity. And fewer turnovers.
“If we expect to win hockey games, we’re not going to do it on talent, we’re going to have to develop an atmosphere where we’re 100 per cent locked in playing for each other and not with each other. And there’s a big difference in those two words. We’ve got to get to that atmosphere as quickly as we can.”
The season isn’t lost, but it will be soon if the Oilers don’t snap out of their funk and start winning. They need somebody who can turn things around in a hurry, which is one of the reasons they decided on Hitchcock.
“He knows how to inject system, structure and execution in a short period of time,” said general manager Peter Chiarelli, who worked with Hitchcock at the 2014 Olympics. “He’s well-respected, a task master. He’s got a lot to his portfolio. I felt he was the right person for the job.
“He can instil something in short order and execute it and direct it.”
While the finished product might still be a ways away, Hitchcock hopes to see a noticeable difference faster than you might think.
“I went through this in St. Louis and we turned it around in eight or nine days and started to really play for each other and I think I can help this group turn it around. I think there are some good kids in there and some good people. I think we can make this go.”