The worst ever coach for your team?

[pt_mck]

Sens - Dave Allison

1995-96 Ottawa Senators NHL Head‡ Games 25 Wins 2 Losses 22 Ties 1 0 0.100 Out of Playoffs

 

[pox]

Dallas Eakins

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

Tough call between Dave Lewis & Jeff Blashill....tie goes to Blashill as worst ever.

I'm guessing before your time but Harry Neale beats them both. He never had a winning percentage above .500 in his 6 seasons as an NHL coach and was so bad he was fired midway through his first season with the Wings. He's by far the worst Wings coach I've actually watched.

Granted the roster wasn't great but the next season with much of the same roster they won 34 games (with 10 ties) under Demers and made it to the Conference finals where they lost to Oilers dynasty.

 

[Blueblood2]

Bryan Trottier......how could such a great hockey player be such a bad coach!!

 

[Paperbagofglory]

Dallas Eakins

George Burnett was a very close second if anyone remembers that abortion of a season.

 

[Cherpak]

Bryan Trottier......how could such a great hockey player be such a bad coach!!

Thats easy. Most great players regardless of sport they play usually make the worst coaches. Why? Because they can't teach others what they had come naturally. They have a difficult time understanding that most others just don't "get it' the way they did. Your best coaches are usually the guys that were grinders 3rd/4th liners that knew they didn't have the ability to get by on talent alone. They had to think the game differently in order to stay in the NHL.

 

[Paperbagofglory]

Thats easy. Most great players regardless of sport they play usually make the worst coaches. Why? Because they can't teach others what they had come naturally. They have a difficult time understanding that most others just don't "get it' the way they did. Your best coaches are usually the guys that were grinders 3rd/4th liners that knew they didn't have the ability to get by on talent alone. They had to think the game differently in order to stay in the NHL.

Whats more shocking to be is how poor of a coach Gretzky was when he saw the ice so hell and had amazing hockey IQ. Yes talented players usually don't make good coaches, but Gretzky was one that i thought could actually break through that stereotype. Disappointing for sure.

 

[Voight]

Dirk Graham* 1998–1999 59 16 35 8 40 .339

had no business being a HC just 3 years after retiring, but Dollar Bill was too cheap to hire someone good.

 

[Cherpak]

Whats more shocking to be is how poor of a coach Gretzky was when he saw the ice so hell and had amazing hockey IQ. Yes talented players usually don't make good coaches, but Gretzky was one that i thought could actually break through that stereotype. Disappointing for sure.

Gretzky is a great example. There is a reason you don't see most greats turn to coaching, most I believe realize what I pointed out and never explore it. I'll give Gretz credit for trying but as you stated, it was an abject failure.

Maybe he should have done what Mario did and become an owner that hoisted 2 more cups.

 

[SmellOfVictory]

You get two choices: Barry Trotz or Peter Laviolette. Haven't had another coach haha.

Both pretty good coaches!

For the Flames (this isn't "ever" because I've only been watching for about 13 years): Brent Sutter. Just killed offensive creativity, and didn't understand any method of zone entry that didn't start with "dump" and end in "chase".

 

[M2Beezy]

Willie D AINEC

 

[Glove Malfunction]

Dave Lewis. Yeah, it was bad.

 

[jgatie]

Bruins - Dave Lewis.

Got the most intimidating defenseman in the league as a FA, and has him play like a ***** cat. He literally pulled Chara's fangs and would not allow him to fight, or even be physical.

No surprise that the first preseason game under Claude, Chara got in a fight, then his next bout he famously pounded Koci into hamburger.

Besides that, Lewis was just a bad coach.

 

[Sniper99]

George Burnett was a very close second if anyone remembers that abortion of a season.

I keep reading Eakins in here. I was just going to say George Burnett and you beat me to it. I think people forget how awful he was.

 

[BoltSTH]

Melrose. 15 games was 14 too many for the Bolts.

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

Christ. I'm a pens fan ... the list is long and not distinguished lol

I don't see how the answer is anyone other than Eddie Olczyk. I'm shocked his name hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet.

 

[Limekiller]

Al Sims knew he wasn't gonna be around long so he never gave a ****.

Yep. For the Sharks it's Al Sims. The team was really bad that year, but hockey was so new to the area, the fans were really polite still. Sims goes in the media and tells everyone that the fans weren't booing the team enough, and they should boo them more. Yep, the HC literally told the fans of the team he coached that they should boo them more.

 

[SladeWilson23]

John MacLean

 

[moog35]

Willie D AINEC

Classic new fan response

Willie D is bad but hes not even close to Laforge

Tom Renney was also pretty bad for the Canucks. He wasn't ready to be a head coach yet

 

[AlphaCatalyst]

Fun fact

You could have one picture per post in this thread of all his games and not even need an entire page.

 

[GordieHowsUrBreath]

I don't see how the answer is anyone other than Eddie Olczyk. I'm shocked his name hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet.

can't believe it took until page 5 for eddie to be mentioned, i was about to post it but figured it would be on page 1

 

[Stealth JD]

St. Louis has had a long, distinguished list of head coaches. Many HOF'ers and several clunkers. They're like the anti-Steelers, in that they've had 25 coaches in their 50-year existence. The guys in red below are probably the top candidates:

# | Name | Years | Reg Season Games | W | L | T/OT | PTS | Win%
1| Lynn Patrick| 1967| 16| 4| 10| 2| 10 |0.313
2| Scotty Bowman| 1967–1970| 210| 97| 79| 40| 234| 0.557
3| Al Arbour| 1970–1971| 50| 21| 15| 14| 56| 0.56
—| Scotty Bowman| 1971| 28| 13| 10| 5 |31| 0.553
4| Sid Abel| 1971| 10| 3| 6| 1 |7| 0.35
5| Bill McCreary, Sr.| 1971| 24| 6| 14| 4| 16| 0.333
—| Al Arbour| 1971–1972 |57| 21| 25| 11| 53| 0.447|
6| Jean-Guy Talbot| 1972–1974| 120| 52| 53| 15| 119| 0.496
7| Lou Angotti | 1974| 32| 6 |20| 6| 18| 0.281
—| Lynn Patrick| 1974| 2| 1| 0| 1| 3| 0.75
8| Garry Young| 1974–1975 |98| 41| 41| 16| 98| 0.5
—| Lynn Patrick| 1975–1976| 8| 3| 5| 0| 6| 0.375
9| Leo Boivin| 1976 |43| 17| 17| 9| 43| 0.5
10| Emile Francis| 1976–1977| 80| 32| 39| 9| 73| 0.456
—| Leo Boivin| 1977–1978| 80| 20| 47| 13| 53| 0.331
11| Barclay Plager| 1978–1979| 104| 25| 64| 15| 65| 0.31
12| Red Berenson| 1979–1982| 204| 100| 72| 32| 232| 0.569
—| Emile Francis| 1982–1982| 44| 14| 25| 5| 33| 0.375
—| Barclay Plager| 1982–1983| 48| 15| 21| 12| 42| 0.438
13| Jacques Demers| 1983–1986| 240| 106| 106| 28| 240| 0.5
14| Jacques Martin | 1986–1988| 160| 66| 71| 23| 155| 0.484
15| Brian Sutter| 1988–1992| 320| 153| 124| 43| 349| 0.545
16| Bob Plager| 1992| 11| 4| 6| 1| 9| 0.409
17| Bob Berry| 1992–1994 |157| 73| 63| 21| 167| 0.532
18| Mike Keenan| 1994–1996 |163| 75| 66| 22| 172| 0.528
19| Jim Roberts| 1996–1997 |9 |3 |3| 3| 9| 0.5
20| Joel Quenneville |1997–2004| 593| 307| 191| 95| 709| 0.598
21| Mike Kitchen | 2004–2006| 131| 38| 70| 23| 99| 0.378
22| Andy Murray| 2006–2010| 258| 118| 102| 38| 274| 0.531
23| Davis Payne| 2010–2011| 137| 67| 55| 15| 149| 0.544
24| Ken Hitchcock| 2011–2017| 363| 224| 103| 36| 484| 0.667
25| Mike Yeo| 2017| 6| 5| 1| 0| 10| 0.833

I omitted the guys from the mid-to-late 70's because those teams stunk...and while he may not be the worst - Mike Keenan: **** that guy.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

I didn't think he was a solid assistant coach at all. In fact, the power play went ker plunk the year he took over and was usually below average to bad every year he was there, after being like second the year before he was hired as an assistant and then top 10 in the first year he wasn't an assistant. The year he was the head coach in the AHL, the year before the horrific head coaching stint. Even the inflated stats post lockout year when Brian Gionta scored 24 PP goals alone, we were still in the bottom half of the league on the PP, if I recall correctly.

I was about to say that he was never a teammate of Langenbrunner's, but then I remembered that he was actually was teammate's with Langenbrunner for a brief time in Dallas in the final 2 years of his career.

I always think back to Pierre's joke of a head coaching stint, every time I have to suffer through his BRUTAL commentary and hyping of every head coach and horrible players (like Dan Girardi tonight) and any coach. I've heard him constantly talk up how great Jeff Blashill and AV are, during broadcasts where he's calling the Red Wings or the Rangers. And he'll point out the smallest most ridiculous freak incidents and chalk to them up to ''See that, Eddie and Doc? That's coaching right there''.

Big surprise that the worst head coach in the history of hockey thinks other bad head coaches (and bad players) are good.

AV has some serious issues (particularly with his personnel decisions) but calling him a bad head coach is ignorant.

 

[Allie Kitsune]

First one that comes to mind for me is Edzo.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

Thats easy. Most great players regardless of sport they play usually make the worst coaches. Why? Because they can't teach others what they had come naturally. They have a difficult time understanding that most others just don't "get it' the way they did. Your best coaches are usually the guys that were grinders 3rd/4th liners that knew they didn't have the ability to get by on talent alone. They had to think the game differently in order to stay in the NHL.

What about Larry Robinson? I'm not sure if he was ever considered a great HC but he won a cup and I believe the next season he was HC when they went to game 7 of the SCF against the Avs.