Recycling the same coaches

[tucker3434]

Montgomery is a talented coach. Great college career. He got Dallas through a round then took eventual cup champ STL to 7 in the 2nd. Got fired for off ice issues wary in his second season when Dallas was pacing for the playoffs. I assume his probationary period since then has gone smoothly. I can see why he’s worth another look.

I still don’t really get why Cassidy was fired to begin with. I thought the Bruins were due for a big bounce in 22-23, but again, they did fine with Montgomery.

Bowness went to a SCF just a few years ago. Had up and down results since. But another guy didn’t exactly bottom out before exiting. Dallas doesn’t look like much more than a first round exit team regardless of who is behind the bench.

Torts is the one guy I can’t really figure out. Won a cup almost 20 years ago. Other than that, never had a ton of success. The Flyers don’t look like they’re that close. That combined with his abrasive style could send that situation sideways. I like having Torts around the game. I just wouldn’t want him coaching my team.

So I think GM’s went 3 for 4 with those retreads.

 

[Section 104]

Montgomery is a talented coach. Great college career. He got Dallas through a round then took eventual cup champ STL to 7 in the 2nd. Got fired for off ice issues wary in his second season when Dallas was pacing for the playoffs. I assume his probationary period since then has gone smoothly. I can see why he’s worth another look.

I still don’t really get why Cassidy was fired to begin with. I thought the Bruins were due for a big bounce in 22-23, but again, they did fine with Montgomery.

Bowness went to a SCF just a few years ago. Had up and down results since. But another guy didn’t exactly bottom out before exiting. Dallas doesn’t look like much more than a first round exit team regardless of who is behind the bench.

Torts is the one guy I can’t really figure out. Won a cup almost 20 years ago. Other than that, never had a ton of success. The Flyers don’t look like they’re that close. That combined with his abrasive style could send that situation sideways. I like having Torts around the game. I just wouldn’t want him coaching my team.

So I think GM’s went 3 for 4 with those retreads.

I don’t care much for Tortoella but he did get the Rangers to the Conference Finals and first place finish in 2011-12. It’s amazing how infrequently the Rangers, who have always spent a lot of money on players since the WHA began in 1972, have finished first. There is a 48 year gap between 1942 and 1990 for Rangers finishing in first, as commemoratEd by the banners hanging in The World’s Most Famous Arena. Only 4 times since and two of those were in 1992 and 1994. It’s another recycled coach, Alan Vigneault, who repeated what Torts did.
What little success Columbus has had in their 20+ year history happened under Tortorella.

people in management study risk aversion…or to those who watched Monty Hall and “Let’s Make a Deal” if you have won a brand new refrigerator, do you trade It for what’s behind door number three? Could be a new car or it could be a year’s supply of chewing gum. A new guy could be the next Scotty Bowman or Jon Cooper. Or he could be a disaster like Bryan Trottier. Home run or strike out. An experience/recycled coach has more known about him and while he will improve a team, you probabky don’t have the next genius (or disaster).

 

[TF1970]

Yeah this depends on the coach in terms of stupid recycling. I wouldn’t consider Cassidy, Trotz or Montgomery as such. That being said, someone is eventually going to hire Mike Vellucci as HC and look really smart for doing so.

 

[StreetHawk]

I don’t care much for Tortoella but he did get the Rangers to the Conference Finals and first place finish in 2011-12. It’s amazing how infrequently the Rangers, who have always spent a lot of money on players since the WHA began in 1972, have finished first. There is a 48 year gap between 1942 and 1990 for Rangers finishing in first, as commemoratEd by the banners hanging in The World’s Most Famous Arena. Only 4 times since and two of those were in 1992 and 1994. It’s another recycled coach, Alan Vigneault, who repeated what Torts did.
What little success Columbus has had in their 20+ year history happened under Tortorella.

people in management study risk aversion…or to those who watched Monty Hall and “Let’s Make a Deal” if you have won a brand new refrigerator, do you trade It for what’s behind door number three? Could be a new car or it could be a year’s supply of chewing gum. A new guy could be the next Scotty Bowman or Jon Cooper. Or he could be a disaster like Bryan Trottier. Home run or strike out. An experience/recycled coach has more known about him and while he will improve a team, you probabky don’t have the next genius (or disaster).

GM's, all depend on where they are:

Yzerman he is in for a long haul rebuild, so he can afford to roll the dice on a new HC.

Other GMs, their jobs are on the line so they are rolling with known commodities. Seen the likes of Quinn, Hakstol, Green, Eakins, etc. struggle on their first NHL stint. Don't have the luxury of time to let them figure it out.
Fletcher in PHI under the gun, so he's going with a known commodity.
McCrimmon in LV, the owner wants results now. You going to put that on a new NHL HC?
Chevy in Win, he wanted Trotz, but he's taking time off. Chevy has to fix the locker room roster. If not, even that extension he got probably won't save him as the honeymoon period is over in Winnipeg and the fans probably feel that their window from 2018 to now is closing on them.
Sweeney in Boston, I didn't think Boston was good enough given how strong the East was. Montgomery is still a relatively new NHL HC. Lasted just over a season in Dallas before having to step away to deal with his personal issues.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

Please please please kill this narrative. This has gotta be a meme or running joke at this point right?

List of coaches who were on their first run/are about to have their first run

Marty St. Louis
Andre Tourigny
Don Granato
Derek King ----> Luke Richardson
Brad Larsen
Jay Woodcroft
Dean Evason
DJ Smith
Sheldon Keefe
Derek Lalonde
Lane Lambert
Rod The Bod
Jon Cooper
Jared Bednar


Doesn't even factor in some of the recently fired coaches too like David Quinn, Andrew Brunette, Jeremy Colliton, Dominik Ducharme and Jeff Blashill who to be frank, all sucked.

And plenty of these "recycled coaches" are excellent at their jobs like Cassidy, Boudreau, Laviolette, Sutter, and Sullivan. This is also Montgomery's second run as an NHL head coach. His first gig wasn't even 5 years ago.

So please, for the love of baby Jesus, stop posting this thread every 10 minutes.

You make a good point. I think there was much more recycling of coaches in the past (Montreal in particular is next level recycling) but it seems to be changing.

Probably in no small part to the success of Jon Cooper in Tampa.

 

[Ezekial]

Even being an okay NHL head coach is really hard. The HFBoards poster can't fathom what their job even is, so they have no idea the trials and tribulations that come with it. Really bad coaches don't get rehired.

Pro league coaching is a very niche profession, it takes time to build a reputation as a coach and it takes time to ruin that reputation. Coaches can also go to situations and excel the second time. Bill Belichek was 36-44 as the Browns head coach and was fired after 4 seasons.

 

[CTHabsfan]

When new coaches are hired, people complain about their lack of experience.

 

[Fire Sweeney]

The problem is recycling mediocre coaches like Paul Maurice and Barry Trotz. Why would you hire a coach who has missed the playoffs 13 times ...

 

[bleedgreen]

Going off the board with someone who has little to no NHL experience occasionally works but its unlikely that it works more often than someone experienced.

If you know someone’s style fits your team it makes sense to hire them.

 

[bleedgreen]

The problem is recycling mediocre coaches like Paul Maurice and Barry Trotz. Why would you hire a coach who has missed the playoffs 13 times ...

Maurice coached the Whalers and the Canes for years when they had little talent, no money for talent and no free agents would sign in either place if they had the money. He was mostly well thought of as a coach during those years and everyone knew it wasn’t his fault. Blaming him blindly twenty years later for it seems uneducated about his past.

 

[Rob]

its a sum of many things

old boys club
false believe in na superiority
money
fear
locality
control

etc. etc.

The funny thing is, as much as it is "home grown, old boys club league"
NHL always ends up copying what we Europeans create,
most famously the Red Machine,

What ever innovation we make, you copy.

So i suppose...you guys know that Europe is actually better at coaching
and better at many things, so if you'd brought in European head coach,
more would follow and you would have to admit European superiority.

Good point about the lack of European coaches. No team seems willing to take that "risk".

 

[Umingmak]

The problem is recycling mediocre coaches like Paul Maurice and Barry Trotz. Why would you hire a coach who has missed the playoffs 13 times ...

Did you seriously just call Barry Trotz mediocre?

 

[Nasti]

Having the experience to manage egos is something no one is talking about.

 

[Eyeseeing]

As opposed to hiring people who aren’t qualified or what am I missing here?
Coaches have shelf life, similar to players.
We recycle ( trade ) players constantly so why not coaches unless we simply want to show the world how open minded and what great people we are.

 

[Bowski]

its a sum of many things

old boys club
false believe in na superiority
money
fear
locality
control

etc. etc.

The funny thing is, as much as it is "home grown, old boys club league"
NHL always ends up copying what we Europeans create,
most famously the Red Machine,

What ever innovation we make, you copy.

So i suppose...you guys know that Europe is actually better at coaching
and better at many things, so if you'd brought in European head coach,
more would follow and you would have to admit European superiority.

Thank you for your contribution to the "Red Machine".

 

[EpochLink]

Gillis made some enemies along the way.

Brian Burke was not a Gillis fan, ironically Jim Rutherford was not a Gillis mark either and he is the president of the Canucks now lol.

 

[Nasti]

Brian Burke was not a Gillis fan, ironically Jim Rutherford was not a Gillis mark either and he is the president of the Canucks now lol.

Dean Lombardi wasn’t a fan either.

 

[ClydeLee]

I think the NHLs love of ex players who were pros is a big weird element too. There seems to still be, and I know at some point I've seen stats that NHL had more ex league players in HC & GM roles.

Plenty of great iconic NFL or NBA coaches weren't that way yet when it comes to the NHL it seems high.. might be high in baseball too idk. Though I feel like it's actually rising in the NFL and NBA than it used to be with more ex players being pushed and pushed as coaches or GMs. But the NHL has been there for ages.

People say other sports are similar in the recycling of coaches but I do not see as many NFL or NBA guys who get that 4th or even as often 3rd HC chances. Especially at GM, in the NFL it's basically constantly 1 and done. And Head scouts go into being GMs, but the NHL never seems to think going from head scout to GM is acceptable somehow. There seems to be odd ticks in each sports league hires but the NHL has flaws in it's patterns for sure.

 

[TheMule93]

GMs are risk averse.

 

[glovesave_35]

NFL is the worst out of the major sports
1: perform well as an assistant
2: get head coaching job
3: perform like garbage in role and get fired
4: get assistant coach job

And repeat cycle

Is that really worse than the NHL? At least in the NFL you usually either have to bust down a level to a coordinator or take a year off before getting another gig.

The NHL seems to be the biggest offender to me just based on how many fired or "not retained" coaches get hired as head coaches elsewhere immediately.

NHL has 4 new hires who were HC last year. The NFL has none as far as I can tell.

 

[Ezekial]

Is that really worse than the NHL? At least in the NFL you usually either have to bust down a level to a coordinator or take a year off before getting another gig.

The NHL seems to be the biggest offender to me just based on how many fired or "not retained" coaches get hired as head coaches elsewhere immediately.

NHL has 4 new hires who were HC last year. The NFL has none as far as I can tell.

Yea but Lovie Smith, Josh McDaniels, Todd Bowles and Doug Pederson were all NFL HCs before. Edit: also Dennis Allen who went 8-28 as the Raiders HC and I forgot about

The NFL has been progressing to younger/new HC hires lately, but they have had their fair share of recycled retreads.

I see your point tho, generally they step away from head coaching for at least a season before being hired again.

 

[glovesave_35]

Yea but Lovie Smith, Josh McDaniels, Todd Bowles and Doug Pederson were all NFL HCs before. Edit: also Dennis Allen who went 8-28 as the Raiders HC and I forgot about

The NFL has been progressing to younger/new HC hires lately, but they have had their fair share of recycled retreads.

I see your point tho, generally they step away from head coaching for at least a season before being hired again.

There will always be coaches who get third ot even fourth chances. And I think that coaching, like any job, is not a static thing. Learning from mistakes and putting together a new plan is part of the human experience. But, it seems like quite often that learning part doesn't happen and someone gets hired based on flimsy things like "tons of experience", "been around the game his whole life", etc.

 

[JianYang]

Going off the board with someone who has little to no NHL experience occasionally works but its unlikely that it works more often than someone experienced.

If you know someone’s style fits your team it makes sense to hire them.

If there are recycled coaches out there who have a pedigree, I think it makes total sense to see them hired somewhere else. Recent hired like Tortorella, Cassidy, Boudreau, and eventually trotz have that pedigree, and they should not be left out simply because they have been recycled.

There is the odd hire that leaves you scratching your head, but generally the nhl coach's lifespan with one organization is almost a full year shorter than the NFL, so there will be more likelihood of a strong recycled pool of coaches, such as we have seen this off season.

 

[ClydeLee]

Yea but Lovie Smith, Josh McDaniels, Todd Bowles and Doug Pederson were all NFL HCs before. Edit: also Dennis Allen who went 8-28 as the Raiders HC and I forgot about

The NFL has been progressing to younger/new HC hires lately, but they have had their fair share of recycled retreads.

I see your point tho, generally they step away from head coaching for at least a season before being hired again.

Lovie is the only 3rd HC hire there. Those are all 2nd HC chances. Besides Bowles being an interim for 3 games.

These NHL Hires, Torts is his 5th HC job. Maurice, his 5th HC job. Deboer, his 5th HC job.

That level of rehire rarely ever happens in the NFL. When a coach gets a 3rd hire people are like, woah this is an old has been, even if its a guy who went to super bowls. And fans freak out. The level of NHL accepted recycling is way over the top, at least from the NFL, and I think NBA. I know MLB has plenty of old baseball managers in their 70s on their 5th jobs from time to time.

 

[Satoru Gojo]

For every Jon Cooper there is a Dallas Eakins a Phil Housley, Bob Boughner etc.....

Jared Bednar. Jon Cooper.

In other words not super recent both of those guy's are long tenured NHL coaches at this point