Switching coaches seems to pay off
When Kyle Dubas approached Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan about the possibility of firing Mike Babcock in November, the wunderkind general manager famed for bringing new-age thinking to his job was really just pulling the oldest play in the book.
You can’t fire the players, goes the reasoning, but you can fire the coach.
Voila. Babcock was the first of seven head coaches fired so far this season. And the thing about it? At least to this point, it’s worked.
Under Babcock, the Leafs earned 47.8 per cent of the points available. Under his successor, Sheldon Keefe, they’ve earned 66.7 per cent.
“I think he’s been great so far,” Leafs leading scorer Auston Matthews says of Keefe, promoted from the AHL’s Marlies. “He’s really passionate. He exudes confidence in one another out there. We feed off that, so we go out there and try to play hard and try to utilize our abilities … We’ve turned things around quite a bit.”
It’s not just the Leafs. Five of the seven teams that made changes have been better off, at least from a points-percentage standpoint. The two that are worse off are only marginally so.
The Leafs have posted the biggest turnaround of any of them.
“Our team is trending in the right direction,” says forward Jason Spezza. “We have our warts, like everybody else, and we’re trying to work through it.”
From Dubas’s point of view, the switch wasn’t so much about the record as it was about the players.
“I believe Sheldon can get the most out of them,” Dubas told reporters the day after Babcock was replaced. “You’re hopeful that Sheldon can take them to a new level … and that’s what we’re looking forward to.”
Under Keefe, the Leafs have overcome serious injuries to key players, especially on defence, and questionable goaltending to actually rise in the standings. They’re benefiting from organizational depth, to be sure.
“There are categories we’d like to clean up,” says Matthews.
“It’s never easy. I’ve never been through it before — a coaching change in the middle of a season, and the tough stretch we were going through. So far it’s gone really well. Everyone is comfortable with him. It’s a two-way street communicating back and forth. He’s a guy that wants the guys to feel good and play well and play hard. That’s what we try do every night.”
Not every coaching change had to do with on-ice performance. Bill Peters in Calgary and Jim Montgomery in Dallas were fired for off-ice reasons.
Even so, the Flames and Stars have been performing better for their new coaches:
The Flames were getting 50 per cent of possible points under Peters, and are at 60.7 per cent under Geoff Ward.
In Dallas, the Stars were motoring along at 59.6 per cent with Montomery, and have upped their game to 62.5 under interim replacement Rick Bowness.
Just two years ago, no coach was fired during the season. Last season, the St. Louis Blues fired Mike Yeo, hired Craig Berube and went on to win the Stanley Cup. A new recipe for success was born.
“It has to do with the owners, it has to do with people looking and believing they should be in the playoffs, and what happened with St. Louis (resonates) with a lot of owners,” says NHL analyst Brian Lawton. “It has to do with how close the standings are. That’s put more pressure on coaches.
“In my opinion, 24 teams expected to be in the playoffs and there’s 16 spots. And seven coaches have been fired. There might be one more to go.”
The Vegas Golden Knights (up to 62.5 per cent from 55.1) and New Jersey Devils (48.2 per cent from 42.3) are also getting better results under new bench bosses.
Changes haven’t had the desired effect, however, in Nashville (down to 53.8 per cent from 54.8) or San Jose (45.4 per cent from 48.4).
“A lot of experienced guys have been replaced,” says Florida coach Joel Quenneville, fired by the Chicago Blackhawks after 15 games last season and hired by the Panthers in the spring. “That’s part of our business; that’s not the best part about it.
“You try to do what you can do to win. We’re in a win-now business. How you approach winning and motivating players is being scrutinized a little bit here. But I think that the bottom line is, you’ve got to do what you can in today’s world to get the most out of players.”