Quote:
Originally Posted by ComixZone
…Ward was awful as a head coach, and an absolutely moronic hire.
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The trouble is, Ward wasn't hired to be a head coach. He was hired as an assistant, and it turned out that the guy he was assisting was one of the biggest arseholes in hockey.
Giving him the permanent title at the end of the season was a puzzle. But if, as I have occasionally heard, Sutter was not available at that time, it made sense to keep Ward as a stopgap.
One thing I did notice: The extremely condensed schedule, with crazy travel and a woeful shortage of practice days, made monkeys out of a number of other coaches. I'm not putting too much stock in any conclusions drawn from that whole garbage season.