What We Learned: How the coaching carousel revolves around bad GMing
Hard not to see the pattern developing.
Less than a week ago, the Boston Bruins fired Jim Montgomery after two-plus years of him being the winningest coach in the NHL by a decent margin, having posted 120 wins in 184 games. The playoff performances weren't good enough, nor was the start this season, and you could see the logic in turfing the 2023 Jack Adams winner even if you didn't agree with it.
The St. Louis Blues gave Drew Bannister his walking papers and hired Montgomery after less than a week of unemployment. Bannister obviously didn't have the track record Montgomery did, winning just 39 of 76 games — and only 22 games without the word "interim" in his job title — but I don't think there are too many people who believe Bannister was really put in a position to succeed given the state of the roster and how things had been trending even before he was hired. The Blues might have had designs on a playoff spot this season, but that was always unlikely given the division they're in, and the fact that they received elite goaltending last season (about 42 goals saved above expected, which is a ludicrous number) and still missed the playoffs by six points. However, this is such an obvious and enormous upgrade that they basically had to act before someone beat them to it.
So that's two coaching changes in a week, and I can't say the Blues are making quite the same miscalculation as Boston did. Not that Joe Sacco is a bad choice or anything, but he's not a clear upgrade over Montgomery like Montgomery is over Bannister. It does make you wonder, however, what the Blues see for their own future — they've already taken the unconventional approach of announcing a GM change for a couple of years down the line — because one of the rumoured issues that prevented Montgomery from getting an extension in Boston was, according to Elliotte Friedman, a philosophical difference regarding where the Bruins were headed. If Montgomery was on the side of "we're not good enough to compete with the top teams and should rebuild to some degree," and Bruins' management didn't like that idea, then perhaps the Blues will be more receptive, and Montgomery's background as a college coach who develops young players could be of great use. Given that Montgomery's contract is for five years, it's safe to say the team and their new coach see a long road ahead of them.
(Certainly, Boston has more recent regular-season success to point to, and of course through two games since the coaching change they are undefeated. But the question remains whether they upgraded behind the bench with this decision, and what the ultimate end point is for this team. Will they finish top-three in the division? Will they make the playoffs for more reason than just "the rest of the East kinda sucks?" Will a first-round exit be acceptable? And what does it say about Don Sweeney that the last two coaches he fired were out of work for a combined 11 days?)
Anyway, that's two coaching changes in five days, and it feels like more are in the offing. As I write this, Mike Sullivan still has his job in Pittsburgh despite the Penguins being last in the East and third-worst in the league by points percentage. The goal, ostensibly, was to compete for a playoff spot for as long as Sidney Crosby was under contract but now a course correction seems not only wise but necessary. They've lost their last two games by a combined score of 10-2, and don't have a regulation win since Nov. 8. They stink, and it really is as simple as that.
And in Detroit, Derek Lalonde's days feel numbered as well. They likewise have just one regulation win in the last eight games, with just 16 goals for and 27 against. For a team that was reportedly getting impatient with the rebuild, they seem to be moving backwards, and like the Bruins, their only saving grace in terms of appearing to compete for a playoff spot is that in their own division, neither Ottawa nor Buffalo (which do not seem to be considering coaching changes right now) can string more than a few wins together before turning back into the Sens and Sabres we've known for years.
What's the common denominator here? Coaches taking blame for not being able to fix self-evidently broken rosters. Even if you were high on the Bruins coming into the season — as many were, including me — you had to see their capacity to win consistently as "requiring strong performances from Jeremy Swayman" (oops) and "probably limited in terms of postseason success." If you were high on the Penguins, you probably saw it as "requiring someone other than Crosby to play well" (also oops). If you were high on the Blues or Red Wings, I dunno what to tell ya.
But that's two coaching changes and two more that seem likely predicated on GMs miscalculating — perhaps willfully, in some or all cases — the quality of the rosters they've built. Everyone in hockey needs to be put in a position to succeed, whether it's the skilled 22-year-old winger who's being used in a shutdown role because the middle-six doesn't have room for him, the aging center who doesn't quite have it anymore, the overpaid defenseman who just got signed this summer, or the coach whose roster is too thin to be viable. There are ways for those people to maximize their chances for success, but at the end of the day you can only get so much blood from a stone. A coaching change in this situation is the last refuge for a GM in this position and it's an unfortunate trend. Again, coaches need to try to make the best of these admittedly bad situations and if they can't then the GM isn't going to fire himself. But soon enough, those executives will either need to look in the mirror and admit it's time for a new direction, or someone else will do the firing for them.
What We Learned
Anaheim Ducks: John Gibson would accept a trade to the Oilers, which is notable because he has trade protection. Don't know how much of an upgrade he would be, but if the Ducks can get anything for him, that's great.
Boston Bruins: I wonder how much wanting to play 1-0 and 2-1 games works in the modern NHL, especially come playoff time.
Buffalo Sabres: Wins are wins. But also, ask the Sabres how much a bunch of November wins have actually mattered for them in the past decade.
Calgary Flames: I almost wrote today about how the Flames are outperforming middling-or-worse numbers but I think everyone's on the same page with their long-term outlook. Nice to win, though. Really boosts those veteran trade values.
Carolina Hurricanes: Not the best run of goaltending health lately. Hate to see this.
Chicago: This is a worst-case scenario.
Colorado Avalanche: Original prognosis was 12-16 months and now it's been 18. Tough, but at some point you gotta wonder whether this is gonna happen at all.
Columbus Blue Jackets: This has not been handled well at all, you'd have to say.
Dallas Stars: Boy we've been saying this a lot lately, huh?
Detroit Red Wings: Wow, a "two-game point streak" coming to an end is a really nice way of saying "winning one game out of three."
Edmonton Oilers: The great news about something like this is that all it takes is like two guys deciding to score at their normal rate.
Los Angeles Kings: They just needed this one. Hasn't gone great for them lately.
Minnesota Wild: Much like the Alex Ovechkin injury, you just hope Kirill Kaprizov can come back ASAP. He's been awesome this season.
Montreal Canadiens: Let's maybe change that, whaddaya say?
Nashville Predators: It's crazy that we all looked at the three first-round picks they have for this June and figured they'd be used to load up at the deadline. Now, it looks like they might keep them, in part because it could be rebuild/retool time.
New Jersey Devils: Could? Yes. Should? Watch a Pens game and get back to me.
New York Islanders: At this point they gotta take any win they can get.
New York Rangers: The second question here is one you can ask about the last three years. They've been outshot 10 times in 18 games, and legit contenders don't usually have a minus-36 shot difference in late November. They'll still win a lot more than they lose, but…
Ottawa Senators: Ya don't say!!! The idea of trading one of the "core" guys is interesting but if they're taking Brady Tkachuk off the table straightaway, then I don't know how much they're moving the needle by getting rid of like Josh Norris or whatever.
Philadelphia Flyers: I mean, isn't that the whole idea?
Pittsburgh Penguins: Really feels like the clock is ticking now.
San Jose Sharks: Love to see the thread here. If Macklin Celebrini can be even 75 percent of the player Joe Thornton was, he's a Hall of Famer. Awesome.
Seattle Kraken: The need for these guys goes from bad to worse. Not the brightest future there.
St. Louis Blues: Yeah this all checks out. Sometimes the surface-level reading is the correct one.
Tampa Bay Lightning: It happensIt happens. I dunno what else to tell ya.
Toronto Maple Leafs: Personally, I love to go to Germany regarding a mysterious upper-body injury and then say I'll be back Wednesday and don't worry about it. And people love when I do it.
Utah [fill in the blank later]: Tough to beat a team 6-1 and get second billing in your hometown headline.
Vancouver Canucks: Haha.
Vegas Golden Knights: Good team. What else can you say?
Washington Capitals: Let's get him back sometime this week. Forget this "month-plus" stuff.
Winnipeg Jets: Brutal news.
Play of the Weekend
It's funny in a way that we all kinda went into the season going "I hope Ovechkin can get the milestone goal while the team around him crumbles" but really we should have been saying it about Crosby. Anyway, congrats on 600. It's an insane accomplishment given the era, injuries, and games lost to lockout and pandemic.
https://x.com/nhl/status/1860494398296862967?s=46&t=Rq5j-kPBScASGCEcJXfXbw
Gold Star Award
You really gotta commend the Blues for actually being willing to pull the trigger on hiring one of the best coaches in the league. That's winner mindset and a lot of teams wouldn't have done the same, as evidenced by the fact that none did. Really smart move. Probably.
Minus of the Weekend
Juraj Slafkovsky was a minus-4 with no shots on goal on Saturday night. If you wanna get into a big reason why the Habs still look bad this year, it's the fact that he has one goal in 17 games.
Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Week
User "scout20" is keeping a close watch:
Shane Pinto, Drake Batherson for Mason McTavish & Troy Terry?
