Nashville general manager David Poile showed remarkable support and patience giving Barry Trotz time to become the most senior coach in the NHL with his 16-year run as the Predators first and only NHL bench boss. But once Poile made the decision to make a coaching change, he wasn’t patient at all.
Not only did he make a quick decision, he made what looks like a safe one, going with the trend by hiring a man with plenty of NHL head coaching experience. Peter Laviolette, the new man behind Nashville’s bench has made stops with the New York Islanders, won a Stanley Cup in Carolina and recently coached the Philadelphia Flyers.
It is interesting how trends in coaching hires evolve and then grab hold. It doesn’t happen overnight and it is established by the success of the first few hires.
In the Spring four years ago, Craig MacTavish joined me as an in-studio guest for my radio show. Personable and enlightening, as always, he also lamented how difficult it had been to get an NHL coaching job. “I always thought it would be tough getting my third coaching job, not my second” he mentioned to me during a break. But, that was the trend back then in the NHL and it always seems to follow the varying cycles. “Recycled” NHL coaches were out and hiring the hot young AHL or NHL assistant coach was in. Those were the guys getting the jobs that MacTavish and many other former NHL head coaches were also interested in.
It might have started with Vancouver hiring Alain Vigneault in 2006 and Todd McLellan being named head coach of San Jose in 2008. Their success seemed to set the table for the subsequent hirings of a slew of new blood, including (deep breath): Scott Arniel in Columbus, Glen Gulutzan in Dallas, Kevin Dineen in Florida, Kirk Muller in Carolina, Mike Yeo in Minnesota, Peter DeBoer in New Jersey, Jack Capuano in Long Island, Paul MacLean in Ottawa, Davis Payne in St. Louis, Todd McLellan in San Jose, Guy Boucher in Tampa Bay, Dale Hunter in Washington and Claude Noel in Winnipeg. (Exhale.)
Clearly, with a trend like that in full swing, guys like MacTavish, Paul Maurice and Ken Hitchcock (to name a few), saw time go by without an NHL head coaching opportunity coming their way.
But trends are fleeting, and things changed in the first half of the 2011-2012 season. In relatively quick succession St. Louis, Anaheim and Los Angeles made in-season coaching decisions. Ken Hitchcock got that opportunity with the St. Louis Blues and promptly turned the team’s fortunes around. Bruce Boudreau was out of work for a matter of a few hours after being fired in Washington and then hired in Anaheim.
Nowhere was a new coaching hiring more criticized and panned then when the Los Angeles Kings turned to the “recycled” Darryl Sutter around Christmastime. Sutter topped the success of both Hitchcock and Boudreau by leading the Los Angeles Kings to their first ever Stanley Cup championship.
This seemed to open the eyes of NHL general managers and a noticeable shift in the coach hiring trend continued, even if fan opinion didn’t necessarily follow. Marc Bergevin’s appointment as general manager of the Montreal Canadiens was met with great enthusiasm; his choice of the “recycled” Michel Therrien wasn’t. The critical outrage surpassed the eye rolling of the Darryl Sutter hire in Los Angeles a few months earlier. Like Sutter, Therrien has more than met expectations as he coaches the only Canadian-based NHL team in this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs.
The logjam now broken, now the ex-NHL head coaches had had their phones ringing with offers. Enter Todd Richards in Columbus, Ted Nolan in Buffalo, Randy Carlyle in Toronto, Lindy Ruff in Dallas, Paul Maurice in Winnipeg, Alain Vigneault in New York and Bob Hartley in Calgary. Even though it was short and not so sweet, even John Tortorella’s brief venture in Vancouver fit the bill.
What was “out” three years ago when I chatted with MacTavish is now “in” again in the NHL. MacTavish ended up more than landing on his feet, moving back to Edmonton to become their General Manager. In their bucking the current trend recently in Edmonton with coaches like Ralph Krueger and Dallas Eakins, I am sure there are days that McTavish wonders if an ex-NHL coach in the same predicament he was in three years ago might not be a better fit for his Edmonton Oilers now.