Quote:
Originally Posted by mikephoen
I disagree with this point. The Penguins fired Therrien in season and hired Bylsma and won the cup that year. A couple years later, after firing Bylsma, they hired Mike Johnson. A year and half into his term, they realized it was a mistake and fired him and hired Sullivan. And again won the cup the same year they'd fired a coach. LA also won the cup the year they fired Murray and hired Darryl. Back in the 90s and early 2000s Lou Lamoriello mowed through a ton of coaches while they won 3 cups with a different coach each time (and others in between the wins).
Stability is definitely an approach that a lot of good teams take, but so is replacing a guy when an upgrade is available, or when things just aren't working out.
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Agreed. I think Bingo's got the causality backwards in that post. Stability doesn't lead to success as much as success leads to stability. Joel Quenneville won a cup 1.5 seasons after being hired by Chicago. Darryl Sutter won a cup the same season he was hired. Mike Sullivan won a cup the same season he was hired. Even looking beyond cup winners: Peter Laviolette has made the playoffs all three years and the team's gone deeper all 3 years so far. Jon Cooper made the finals in year 2 and the east finals in year 3.
I honestly can't find an example of a coach of a bubble team turning them into a contender after years of mediocrity. Nashville kept Barry Trotz for 15 years and never became anything more until they hired Laviolette. Paul Maurice is maybe the best example in first go-around with Carolina, but even then he had the one miracle run behind some hot goaltending, then he missed the playoffs the next year. Maybe Winnipeg becomes a counter-example this year. Ken Hitchcock's first pass with Dallas they were a top team by his first full season and had playoff success by year 2. His time in St. Louis they started as a good team that's a level below contender, and finished a good team that's a level below when he was fired 6 years later.
Point is, teams generally don't have significant year-over-year improvements without some kind of change but they do regularly take a leap forward by replacing the coach. Obviously you can't just hire whoever, but changing nothing is probably going to lead to similar results.