High-profile coaches on thin ice after just a few games
With Bruins winless in 3 starts, Julien might be first to go — and he’s not alone
Next question.
That was how head coach Claude Julien responded when he was asked following Monday’s 6-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning if he thinks his job is in jeopardy. Indeed, one week into the season is a bit premature to be wondering about if a coach is going to get fired. And yet, Julien cannot be surprised that questions are already being asked.
Even before the season started, Julien was on the hot seat after the Bruins fired general manager Peter Chiarelli and then significantly changed the roster. That Boston has stumbled out of the gate 0-3-0 has only further increased the temperature.
Not all of this is Julien’s fault, though.
Julien did not trade Milan Lucic and Dougie Hamilton in the summer and then fail to replace them with capable alternatives. He is not the reason goaltender Tuukka Rask — the bedrock for how the Bruins play — has allowed 14 goals in three games. And yet, with the team in transition, it is likely going to be Julien who gets blamed for how Boston is playing.
And he is not alone. Though the season is still young, there are plenty of coaches on thin ice.
Here are five whose jobs could be in jeopardy:
TODD RICHARDS, COLUMBUS
What’s that old saying again? Show me a good goaltender and I’ll show you a good head coach. Well, the flip side is also true. Sergei Bobrovsky, who has a 4.66 goals-against average and a .850 save percentage, is a big reason Columbus is 0-3-0 to start the season. While off-season acquisition Brandon Saad has two goals in three games, the 2013 Vezina Trophy-winning Bobrovsky has allowed 12 goals in that same span. One day after coughing up a third period to the Rangers — he gave up three goals in the final three minutes — Bobrovsky was pulled after allowing four goals on 22 shots in back-to-back games.
MIKE JOHNSTON, PITTSBURGH
Don’t blame Phil Kessel. The ex-Leafs sniper has been called a coach killer in the past, but so far he is not to blame. In fact, Kessel has scored the only goal — and only point — in two games for the Penguins, but like his time in Toronto, he is not getting much in the way of help. Pittsburgh headed into Tuesday night’s game against Montreal having been outscored 5-1. Sidney Crosby has no shots in two games. And while it is a terribly small sample size, how soon before fingers get pointed toward Mike Johnston, especially after the Penguins lost in the first round of last year’s playoffs.
DARRYL SUTTER, LOS ANGELES
Every coach has a shelf life. It does not matter how many Stanley Cups he has won or how many years he has spent in a city, everyone from Mike Babcock to Barry Trotz eventually reaches an expiry date. Could that time be coming for two-time Cup winner Darryl Sutter? Again, it’s premature. And yet, after missing the playoffs last year, there are indications that the team will not wait around hoping it gets hot in the second-half of the season. “You can’t have highs and lows in your season if you want to be a playoff team,” Sutter told reporters, following losses to the Sharks and Coyotes to start the season.
BRUCE BOUDREAU, ANAHEIM
You don’t see Carolina’s Bill Peters or Florida’s Gerard Gallant on this list. That is because the coaches who tend to be on the hot seat are in markets where expectations are high. In Boudreau’s case, they are sky-high. The Ducks were just about everyone’s pick to win the Stanley Cup, so starting out 0-1-1 is far from ideal. Like Ken Hitchcock in St. Louis, Boudreau entered this season on somewhat shaky ground, because of the Ducks’ playoff record. It is not that they did not go deep. But rather, in the past two years, Anaheim has lost to the team that went on to win the Stanley Cup.
LINDY RUFF, DALLAS
Dallas entered Tuesday night’s game against Edmonton with a 1-1-0 record to start the season, but keep an eye on Lindy Ruff. With so much offensive firepower — Jamie Benn led the league in scoring, Tyler Seguin finished in the top 10 and Patrick Sharp was acquired in the off-season — the Stars are expected to rebound after missing the playoffs last year. Ruff clearly knows this. So when the losses do come, they seem magnified, which explains why Ruff was fuming after a 6-3 loss to Colorado on Saturday, calling the players’ effort, “embarrassing, worse than disappointing.” A few days later, there were reports that he was planning to scratch 2013 firstrounder Valeri Nichushkin from Tuesday night’s lineup.