I thought for sure that Bob Hartley was going to be named as Craig Hartsburg's replacement today.
Not only does Hartley have a Stanley Cup ring, he would have been a wise choice during this economic downturn. When changing the nameplate on the coach's door, they could have kept the "Hart" on the sign and saved some serious money.
Instead, the Sens opted for little-known Cory Clouston as Hartsburg's successor. For the record, "Cory Clouston" was definitely the most popular search term on Google today -- slightly ahead of "Did the groundhog see his shadow?" and "Brenda Warner's new hair."
I'll admit I don't know anything about Clouston. Twice during his introductory press conference in Ottawa, he was asked how to pronounce his name.
But Clouston comes with glowing reviews from everybody I've spoken with Monday. He definitely appears ready to handle the pressure of coaching in the NHL. We should at least give him the benefit of the doubt, before we try to chase him out of town with our pitchforks and torches (As we seem to do with coaches and goalies here in Ottawa).
So, the Hartsburg Era in Ottawa lasted exactly 48 games, putting him ahead of Roger Neilson and Dave Allison, but slightly behind John Paddock on the all-time games coached list in Ottawa. What happened to Hartsburg? Let's answer three burning questions:
1. Was Craig Hartsburg the wrong choice? I've heard the argument that Hartsburg was just a mild-mannered, junior coach and he was ill-suited to the NHL game. However, down in New Jersey, Brent Sutter was a mild-mannered, junior coach and he seems to be doing just fine with the Devils. In fact, the other two division leaders in the Eastern Conference -- Washington and Boston -- also have even-tempered coaches who never had success at the NHL level before their current stop. I'm not sure that I buy into the theory that Hartsburg isn't an NHL coach. The two answers below give you a better idea of what I think went wrong in Ottawa.
2. Was Hartsburg the victim of a depleted roster? The lack of a puck-moving defenceman definitely hurt Hartsburg this season. Bryan Murray told us back in training camp that he wanted to acquire a puck-moving defenceman. And believe me, he's tried to do that for the past four months. It was absolutely the right thing to let Wade Redden, Andrej Meszaros, Joe Corvo and Tom Preissing walk out of Ottawa. At the time, I don't recall anyone objecting to those moves. But now the Senators are stuck without a transition game and it's completely hurting Jason Spezza, Daniel Alfredsson and Dany Heatley. The Senators are the lowest-scoring team in the NHL right now. Did Ottawa's Big Three forget how to score overnight? I don't think so. Murray will try his best to acquire a puck-moving defenceman to help out his top guns.
3. Was Hartsburg the victim of bad luck? After making the post-season in 11 consecutive seasons, the law of averages says that you are going to miss the playoffs at some point. And sometimes, we don't put enough stock into the “luck factor.” For example, nobody would have predicted the Tampa Bay Rays or the Arizona Cardinals to advance to the World Series and Super Bowl respectively. They just had luck on their side and rode a wave of confidence and momentum. The reverse is true for good teams that have bad seasons. Sometimes, you just can't explain it, but luck is not on your side. I know that's not a popular theory to have in the media industry -- or else we'd all be out of jobs. Can you imagine a Hockeycentral panel where Nick Kypreos just said, "Well, the Senators didn't have luck tonight." And then Doug MacLean piped in with, "Yep. I agree. No luck on their side." That just doesn't make for good television. We want to insinuate that there are locker room chemistry issues. In-fighting with the coaches. Last year, we blamed everything on Ray Emery. Was that really fair? We love scapegoats and finger-pointing. But let me say this: Luck plays a bigger role in sports than we ever want to admit in the media industry. And right now, the Ottawa Senators have absolutely no luck on their side.
