No NHL coaches were fired in the first half, which is highly unusual. The reasons? It’s complicated.
Dan Bylsma, Darryl Sutter and Dave Tippett probably didn’t figure to be unemployed this long.
But three of the brightest coaching minds in hockey remain on the outside looking in because, in an astonishing turn of events, no NHL coach has been fired this season.
It’s not to say it won’t happen, but it usually has by now.
“It’s a little unique, but I’m not surprised,” says Neil Glasberg, an agent who represents coaches at PBI Sports and Entertainment. “There is parity in the league. Nobody is that bad.”
Coaching and job security don’t usually go hand-in-hand. Coaches, after all, are hired to be fired. They are the most disposable of hockey commodities.
Last year, Gerard Gallant was fired by Florida on Nov. 17 to start the coaching carousel that saw four more let go by the end of the season. In 2015-16, Todd Richards was canned by Columbus on Oct. 21, the first of three coaches let go in-season.
You have to go all the way back to 1966-67 to find a season without a coaching change, says hockey historian Eric Zweig. Even then, GMcoach Punch Imlach removed himself from the Maple Leafs bench for 10 games to let King Clancy run things, before returning to finish the season.
“If you want a flat-out no one changed places behind the bench at all, that would look to have last happened in 1964-65,” says Zweig.
This year, however, coaches seem to have staying power due to an unusual confluence of events.
Coaches who might have started the season on the hot seat — Jon Cooper in Tampa, Barry Trotz in Washington, Paul Maurice in Winni- peg and Glen Gulutzan in Calgary — have seen their teams respond with seasons that have met or exceeded expectations.
“Parity helps, but coaches have responded,” says former player and GM Brian Lawton, now an analyst on NHL Network. And teams that have underachieved are, by and large, led by coaches who’ve just been hired. Rick Tocchet (Coyotes), Phil Housley (Sabres) and Bob Boughner (Panthers) are in their first years with those teams, so it’s far too early for those franchises to fire a coach, which would be an admission to ownership that a mistake was made.
“Usually the weaker teams make the change, but that’s not really an option,” says Lawton. “They all have new coaches. It starts with the bottom of the league, and most of these guys are pretty new in their jobs.”
Claude Julien was hired during last season as a long-term solution in Montreal, while Guy Boucher is in his second year in Ottawa and just a year removed from a conference final. GM Marc Bergevin is more on the hot seat in Montreal, while Boucher may be saved by financially tight ownership in Ottawa, loathe to pay a second coach in a lost season.
The biggest tire fire is in Edmonton, where GM Peter Chiarelli has seen his plan implode.
He seemed to say last week that firing third-year coach Todd McLellan would be a mistake and do the franchise — which averaged a coach a year from 2010 to 2015 — more harm than good.
Going into the season, oddsmaker Mise-o-jeu had Colorado’s Jared Bednar as the favourite to be the first fired, while Bodog had San Jose’s Pete DeBoer. Neither team lived down to those expectations.
“This isn’t going to be a year where no coach gets fired,” says Glasberg. “That’s not going to happen. But the changes, instead of being mid-year, will be at the end of the year.”
A couple of years ago, the Pittsburgh Penguins fired Mike Johnston one year and 28 games into his tenure, and replaced him with Mike Sullivan.
The turnaround in philosophy and game style was instant, sparking two Cup runs in a row. But other coaching changes haven’t been quite so magical. And often, mid-season replacements are simply stop gaps.
“Interim head coaches are generally not that successful,” says Glasberg. “You’ve got 20 personalities to get on board. When people know that somebody is interim, they know no commitment has been made full time.
“You don’t play the same way. It’s more, ‘If I like this guy, I’ll play hard for him. If I don’t I probably won’t.’ ”