On the NHL's Coaching Carousel

On May 7, 2013, the San Jose Sharks completed a sweep of the Vancouver Canucks. 15 days later Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault was out of a job. On June 7, 2013, the Boston Bruins pulled a surprising 4-0 series victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins and even before then whispers had begun to circulate around the league regarding whether Penguins coach Dan Bylsma would suffer a similar fate. This seems to be a common narrative in the NHL season after season where 29 positions could become vacant after the failure to bring hockey’s Holy Grail back to the home fans. Hell, even when a team struggles in the regular season we start to hear murmurs.

It is tough to find a majority of popular support in the face of adversity where we even seem to turn on those who helped bring success in the past. Joel Quenneville is a prime example where the two years immediately following his Stanley Cup victory, Chicago at large widely suspected that his job was in trouble. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, but if a screw or two are loose we have to take the whole thing apart and try to remember how to put it back together again. I’m sure somewhere in the Windy City there are weekly meetings for Kicking Myself Anonymous.

Now I’m not saying that glaring instances are hard to find where the coach is far and away the problem. Look at the New York Rangers this season, where an almost unbeatable roster on paper and Stanley Cup favourite in the media almost imploded on itself to the point where their struggling top line center was benched, demoted, then scratched in the second round of the playoffs and the franchise goaltender spoke in the past tense of his time in New York during exit interviews. John Tortorella is a good coach with a Cup on his resume, but he wasn’t the right coach for what GM Glen Sather was gradually building his team into. As a result Torts lost the room and, shortly after, his job.

It appears that there is a logical hierarchy to how the job wheel keeps spinning. If the team does poorly, you trim the fat and try to work around your core group of players. When that doesn’t work, assistants and subsequently head coaches get the axe. Once those changes exit the honeymoon stage, then we can replace GMs. The thing is it is quite difficult to really gauge the timeframe where any of this needs to take place because it is almost impossible to judge effectiveness or potential in the span of an 82, or 48, game season.

The landscape in the Edmonton Organization in recent years is just as hostile as winter in Northern Alberta itself. Since their Game 7 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes during the 2006 Stanley Cup Final, we have seen 4 head coaches and 2 General Managers all lose their jobs. Respectively, number 5 may be in place before I publish this and number 3 has been in office for just a hair under 2 months. Maybe it's more difficult to assemble a front office to suit a team with 3 consecutive first round picks than we thought.

So what about Bylsma? Personally I think the jury should still be out on him. In 2009, his first season as an NHL coach, he found himself behind the Penguins bench with 25 games left in the regular season and struggling to lock down a playoff berth. He led this team all the way to the Stanley Cup Final for the 2nd consecutive season but unlike 2008, they would walk away with the grand prize. Since then the Penguins have made it beyond the second round of the playoffs once and, as we just witnessed, haven't won a conference final game. It is amazing to think that this team that has been such a force in the East yet hasn't had much to show for it except for stellar regular season performances, which is why we are left scratching our heads come June. And the jury being out could be enough to see the end of Bylsma's tenure in Pittsburgh.

It is no surprise that his job could be in trouble, especially after publicly giving a vote of confidence to goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury who has had confidence issues in the postseason during the past few years. And Fleury's lack of poise manifested in visible frustration from the skaters on the ice before the torch passed to Tomas Vokoun in the Quarterfinals. Expectations were high heading into the playoffs with how stacked the roster appeared on paper so a failure to compose the team and execute raised some serious red flags.

In defense of Bylsma, however, because of the lockout each and every team had such a short time to assess their tools and put them to proper use. Not only that but he had under a month after the trade deadline to orient the new players into his systems before the shift to postseason mode. Let's put the pitchforks away, take a step back, and look at the big picture of what Bylsma is trying to accomplish and whether he is the right fit for the 20 skaters at his command.

I don't believe Bylsma should be relieved of duty just yet but the real decision is for General Manager Ray Shero to decide the direction of this roster heading forward before looking for a coaching change. He has 18 players under contract for this coming season and just under $8 million left under the cap to fill things out with some big name free agents to think about. However Shero only has 5 players committed past next season. He made it quite clear with this year's trade deadline acquisitions that the Penguins are in "win now" mode so does this mindset extend to next season, one that will see business as usual in terms of full training camps, preseason, and an 82-game spread? Or is Shero looking to retool his team and thinks a shiny new bench boss is the key to pushing his organization past the early playoff exits they have been plagued with in recent years?

The movements Shero makes in this offseason regarding coaching staff not only speak volumes about where the Penguins organization is going but also Shero's sense of job security in the coming months or years.