Grinding an ax with coaches
Teams quick to make change behind bench
The Carolina Hurricanes decided Friday, some seven weeks since their season ended, that Peter Laviolette will be back behind their bench for the 2008-09 season.
So, what's the news value in that? These days, it borders on the shocking, because NHL coaching has become a shakier career choice than working as a night watchman at an all-night South Central LA convenience store.
Early last week, Ron Wilson was given the heave-ho, only days after his Sharks were bounced by the Stars in the Western Conference semifinals. Shortly before Wilson was turfed, the Maple Leafs dismissed Paul Maurice, and the Avalanche decided to follow suit and bid adieu to Joel Quenneville.
Oh, and let's not forget, the Thrashers, Senators, and Panthers are still in the hunt for the future ex-coach they will hire to run their benches come October. As we count this morning, there are no fewer than a half-dozen NHL coaching vacancies, but remember, it's best to check boston.com for all the up-to-the-minute firings.
As noted in the chart below, of the 30 bench bosses who began the 2005-06 season - the first out of the lockout - only 11 are scheduled to return to that same bench this October. Note the emphasis on scheduled. Until Friday, Laviolette, whose Hurricanes won the Cup in 2005-06, was considered an iffy returnee, and he hardly stood as the lone coach pondering his career security.
Meanwhile, it remains questionable whether John Tortorella will be back in Tampa, where the sale of the Bolts (still in the works) to a group led by Oren Koules could bring a total overhaul in the front office and behind the bench. (Appropriately, Koules, a Hollywood type, specializes in slasher movies.)
Ted Nolan (Islanders), Alain Vigneault (Vancouver), and Marc Crawford (Los Angeles) all should be back on the job, but all have been rumored for weeks to join the ever-lengthening list of the unemployed.
What's happening here is a function of the game's new-age economics - not the CBA/salary cap, per se, but the way many general managers around the league have elected to pay the players and construct their rosters. In short, the growing trend of long-term contracts, many of them including no-trade and no-move provisions, has left GMs with little in the way of tools or leverage to improve or rearrange their playing stock.
What to do when unable to make a deal, or reach down to the minors or junior ranks for a roster fix? What else but reach for the GM manual, turn to Option No. 1, and toss the coach out with the morning coffee grounds?
As we know, that's nothing new here in Boston, where the coach in October 2007 (Claude Julien) was a new hire, and ditto the coach in October 2006 (Dave Lewis). Not to mention Mike Sullivan in October 2003. The Bruins have been far ahead of the curve on the fire-the-coach front, and in the latest iteration, GM Peter Chiarelli fired Lewis only 82 games after hiring him. Had he not, it's a good bet Chiarelli would have been looking for new work himself this spring.
Don't expect the trend to recede. If anything, given the nature of long-term, lucrative, and secured player deals, the extreme coaching makeovers will only increase. In San Jose, it's ironic that the Sharks, dismissed in Round 2 every season since the end of the lockout (and the arrival of Joe Thornton), might have played their best of any of the postseasons that Wilson governed. But when it was over, and the smoke cleared, Wilson vanished with it, in David Copperfield-like fashion.
Wilson will resurface quickly, possibly in Atlanta, where he has Team USA ties with Thrashers boss Don Waddell. Quenneville should catch on quickly, while Maurice, after two failed seasons in Toronto, may have to wait a while.
It's a good bet that ex-Boston coach Pat Burns, recovered from cancer and most recently a Team Canada assistant at the World Championships, will be back on an NHL bench for the first time since having to step down in New Jersey in the spring of 2004. Sharks GM Doug Wilson will want a sterner approach now in the wake of the Wilson firing, and Burns is nothing if not stern. He also has a comfortable knowledge base and working relationship with Thornton.
All in all, the treadmill of fired coaches is nothing new, it's just set at a higher pace these days. And with GMs controlling that pace, in part as a means to protect their own jobs, the slips and falls aren't about to stop.
Prized possession
His Bruins on vacation after bowing out in seven games against Montreal in Round 1, general manager Peter Chiarelli has watched the rest of the postseason, impressed by the art of puck possession, especially by Pittsburgh and Detroit."It's something I have seen, both in open ice and in close quarters," said Chiarelli, noting that he'd like his squad to improve its puck-moving abilities. "Detroit does it, in large part because of their skilled defensemen. And Pittsburgh, it's hard to get the puck away from them. And overall, obviously, it's a function of skill and coaching."
Cycling the puck down low, said Chiarelli, turned into one of his squad's strengths during the season, but both he and coach Claude Julien sought improvement in the club's ability to maintain possession off the rush, especially when advancing from the neutral zone.
"I see [Pittsburgh and Detroit], and I see it's the next level of puck possession that we'd like to get to," he said. "And you can still do it in the context of playing hard. Just look at the way [Evgeni] Malkin and [Sidney] Crosby play the game - puck on their stick, and they make it tough to get it away from them."
One easy but costly way for the Bruins to improve puck possession: acquire Penguins right winger Marian Hossa when he reaches free agency July 1. Hossa has 8 goals and 15 points in 13 playoff games.
For the record, Chiarelli has nothing to say about making a play for the 29-year-old Slovak.
Another meeting is called to order
Got questions? The Bruins will provide the answers at another Town Meeting, like the one held last summer at the Garden (a launching point for author John Gonzalez to skewer Charlie Jacobs in Boston Magazine).According to Amy Latimer, senior vice president/sales and marketing, the event will be held in August on Causeway Street, with all season ticket-holders invited. Like last year's gathering, which brought upward of 450 fans to the Garden's floor, Chiarelli will be on hand with other front-office aides, vice president Cam Neely most likely included.
Zdeno Chara and Marc Savard represented the players last summer, but Latimer said the year's participants had yet to be chosen.
The Bruins also will hold a party somewhere in the North Station area on June 20, the night they are scheduled to select 16th in the draft, to be held this year in Ottawa. Invitees will be limited to those who hold full season-ticket packages.
Etc.
Willing to pass up a shotIf there were any question about Zdeno Chara's toughness, this should settle it: The towering defenseman considered not having anesthesia when undergoing recent shoulder surgery to repair a torn left labrum. "True story," said his agent, Matt Keator. "That's Z, right there. He cares about his body, like no one I know, and he doesn't want to do anything that could compromise it. He asked if he could go without it, and he would have done it, but the doctors convinced him it was better to have it. He told me he would have done it. He said, 'I want to see what's going on.' " Chara, added Keator, still plans a June trip to Africa for the Right to Play charity group, and still plans to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.
Reference material
Some interesting numbers to ponder, courtesy of Hockey-Reference.com:
Summer plans
It's likely that both Patrice Bergeron and Manny Fernandez will be in the Hub when the Bruins hold their development camp in Wilmington (July 8-12), but they will not join the kids in day-to-day action. "We'll have the ice, and I'm sure Manny and Bergy will use it, but be on their own," said Chiarelli, noting that both players will visit Boston a few times this summer. Fernandez is expected to participate in assistant coach Bob Essensa's goalie camp in Wilmington in September.
An inside tip
Hockey News columnist Mike Brophy clearly has had his fill of Joe Thornton's game in San Jose, which has been pretty much the mirror image of the game that got him dealt out of Boston. Brophy: "A little hint to the coach that replaces [Ron ] Wilson: Somehow convince Thornton that it's in his and his team's best interest that he immediately stop being a perimeter player. It is no longer acceptable to set up on the outside and make saucer passes to his linemates. Go to the freaking net."
Loose pucks
Mea culpa for identifying Blake Wheeler last week as a defenseman. He's a center/wing, and now, after deciding to leave the University of Minnesota, has a tempting offer from the Coyotes, who made him the No. 5 pick in the 2004 draft. If he opts not to take the offer, he'll become an unrestricted free agent June 8. "I think he's a winger," Coyotes GM Don Maloney told the Arizona Republic, "and in our division, to get that size [6 feet 5 inches, 220 pounds], the guy that powers the net, he's an important guy for us." . . . The Bruins have resigned themselves to being unable to sign Russian defenseman Yuri Alexandrov, whom they picked 37th in the 2006 draft. He will go back into this year's draft and the Bruins, said Chiarelli, will not receive a compensatory pick . . . The Bruins have offers out to Aaron Ward and Glen Metropolit, but it's a good bet that they are only one-year offers. Unless they get at least another year, they'll probably opt to see what's out there in the free agent market . . . Anders Myrvold, who came to Boston with Landon Wilson in the Nov. 22, 1996, deal that had the Bruins send the Avs their first-round draft pick in '98, was optimistic about Norway's chances going into a World Championships quarterfinal against Canada. "We have Viking blood," boasted Myrvold. "You know Viking blood? It doesn't exist in Canada." Final score: Canada, 8-2. Norway had a plucky group, including players who have full-time jobs out of hockey, such as carpenters and electricians, even a garage door installer. "If you need anything, just give us a call," said Myrvold. "You can't call the Canadian team; they can only play hockey."
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at dupont@globe.com.
