The coaching carousel in the NHL is spinning to a new tune. No, check that. Forget the tune. It’s really spinning out of control and 3 specific phenomena have occurred.
#1 – NO NHL HEAD COACHING EXPERIENCE REQUIRED
Thanks to Bruce Boudreau, minor league and junior coaches are finally getting their chances. John Anderson in Atlanta, Peter DeBoer in Florida, Craig Hartsburg in Ottawa. Todd McLellan has no head-coaching experience at the NHL level and he takes over San Jose. While Hartsburg has been a head coach in the NHL, that experience is not what got him hired. It’s his success in Junior hockey, especially on the World stage.
Boudreau can’t take all the credit though. Michel Therrien’s success in Pitt, John Steven’s in Philly and Randy Carlyle in Anaheim last season - have all influenced this trend as well.
#2 – BIG NAMES ARE OUT IN THE COLD
Although the carousel hasn’t stopped spinning, the “Boudreau factor” has led to a list of bench bosses with Stanley Cups on their resumes who are still out of work. Joel Quenneville, Bob Hartley, Marc Crawford and John Tortorella head the class. For the first 3, maybe it’s just something in the Denver water, since they all coached the Avalanche at one time. Quenneville assisted Crawford when the Aves won in 1996 and Hartley was behind the bench when Ray Bourque won with the Aves in 2001. Torterella won with Tampa in 2004. Right now, there aren’t enough vacancies to go around. Some, if not all of these guys will be watching when the season starts.
#3 – THE “CHOSEN” ARE CASHING IN
While money may have been the issue for certain franchises when some of the aforementioned coaches went through the interview process, it certainly wasn’t an issue everywhere. Ron Wilson landed a 4 year deal in Toronto at $1.75m per year. Mike Babcock got 3 years at $1.5m, and Barry Melrose is reportedly set to knock down $6m spread over 3 years in Tampa Bay. Here’s what I have to say about these salaries: “Yah baby, yah!!!!!!
It’s about time coaches started making what a 5th or 6th defenseman makes. More power to them. They deserve every penny. Our sport still lags behind other sports in coaches’ compensations but at least now we are moving in the right direction.
After all…this money doesn’t even count against the Cap. And it is ALL about the Cap….isn’t it?
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