[LOS ANGELES, CA] -- Imagine being an
NHL general manager. It's a really cool job, you get to sit in a
private box high above the arena, you get to pick the players on your
team, get to yell at agents every so often and from time to time (and
more and more times recently) you get to fire a coach.
Throw in an average salary in excess of half a million dollars per
year, and in these days of economic strife, it's a gig most people
would love.
But with this responsibility comes expectations and one GM of the
chosen 30 in the NHL has quite a dilemma on his hands.
As teams that are in playoff position are regularly whacking coaches
because they don’t like the way they're finishing the season.
"Our guys are trying, but they're not always trying the right way,"
coach/GM in Montreal, Bob Gainey, simply put to the press recently.
Gainey's team is eighth overall and he's only greased the Habs late
season skid after he had to put down good solider Guy Charbonneau when
the drums too fast and loud.
But this one GM, he's in a far worse position.
While not in the bright glare of the 100 year spotlight that consumes
Gainey's every move, this GM's relatively anonymous team has spit the
bit. They've sunk to the depths of the conference are in the midst of
a losing streak that has buried them.
In February, they were as high as sixth in the conference and with an
inspirational leader, very talented youngsters and an above average
(although kooky) netminder, they were one of the success stories of
the league.
But this GM experienced the same woes that most do when the skies
darken around a franchise. His team’s lack of depth and experience was
an albatross around its neck and dragged it down over the past few
weeks. As the talk turned away from seedings and games in late April
and towards who was playing for jobs next season, the logical move was
to release the coach. After all, over three plus seasons, he mentored
the team to a record 25 games below .500, a record worse than Barry
Melrose had after a 16 game encore with the Tampa Bay Lightning. The
coaching ghosts of Robbie Ftorek and Denis Savard are probably
screaming, "If we had to go, so should this guy."
Small problem.
The GM is the Phoenix Coyotes' Don Maloney.
The coach, well, he's 99. It doesn't help that the coach is a partner
in the team and one of the highest paid coaches in the game. But far
more experienced coaches have been shown the door for far less.
But you can’t whack the Great One, can you?
The eternal debate lingers on about the likelihood of a great player
evolving into a great coach. If you explore the coaching talents
behind the bench of the great and almost great teams, their
stewardships are devoid of any household hockey names.
Al Arbour might be at the top of the list with respect to on and off
ice success. Larry Robinson could be considered as he’s won a Cup as a
player, assistant and head coach. But over the last decade, the great
ones who stepped away from the game have chosen a different path.
Mario Lemieux went straight to the Penguins owner’s box, Mark Messier
circles mysteriously around the New York Rangers and Jarri Kurri is
doing the backstroke somewhere north of Helsinki.
But Gretzky battles on, with no inkling of stepping aside from a
record that would have made him sick to his stomach as a player. As
the final days of the season draw closer, the Great One sounds like a
coach who has every expectation of being back for the 2009-’10 season.
It’s just so unusual to see this singular figure so tolerant of
losing.
In the era of salary caps and guaranteed contracts, the Great One's
will, alone, won't empower his team if the effort isn’t there.
So he’s reduced to old school tactics like hard practices and reduced
ice time. After a weak effort against playoff contender Nashville, he
had his team skate backwards for the next two practices. After
surrendering four powerplay goals in a recent loss to Anaheim, Wayne
was exasperated and direct outside his team’s locker room.
"We needed guys giving more of an effort so I just went with the guys
who were playing hard. There's really no secret to it. If you play
hard, you play," probably nonplussed those words came out of his mouth
about a team he managed.
Proponents of keeping Gretzky on as coach point to the fact that he is
an integral part of the team’s marketing efforts. While having him
attached to the franchise certainly accrues benefits unique to this
franchise, the truth is that the Coyotes are among the poorest draws
among the 30 teams and if the team ain’t winning it wouldn’t matter if
Toe Blake and Scotty Bowman took turns behind the bench. One need only
look as far as directly across the street from the Jobing.com (arrgh)
Arena and to see the Arizona Cardinals and their recent success at the
University of Phoenix (double arrgh) Stadium.
They starting winning, the fans starting coming and they didn’t care
that the old man QB Kurt Warner was starting and hipster and
underachiever Matt Leinart was riding the pine. Gretzky’s usefulness
as an icon to help the franchise’s visibility in the Phoenix sports
landscape need not come from his appearance behind the bench
especially on those nights when his demeanor is mostly grounded in
exasperation. He could step aside and give himself a nebulous title of
Executive Vice President or maybe become a VP of Player Personnel; I
doubt there’s a more qualified person in the league to assess ability
than him. Perhaps he could step away from the hockey end of the
franchise and run the business operations like Luc Robitaille does
with the Kings.
So many options for a man who may be most ill suited for his present
role. But the conspiracy theorist in me thinks that there’s one
primary reason he stays on as the head coach.
He’ll sell a hell of a lot of tickets as coach when they move back to
Winnipeg.
B-ETTER DO IT NOW
While we'll talk about the pretenders and contenders for the second
season in a few weeks, there’s one team that’s hit panic mode after a
no turbulence ride for the first 60 games.
The Boston Bruins, once the clear cut favorite to emerge from the
East, well, that cut is getting foggier with every game. They’ve
sputtered in the regular’s season final quarter to such an extent that
its lead in the Eastern Conference that was once thought to be
insurmountable could be jeopardize by the New Jersey Devils and their
returning conquering hero, Martin Brodeur. They failed to make a big
deal that would have re-energized that stale air in the locker room
and the increasing questions about the team’s viability deep into the
playoffs (think Chris Pronger).
Zdeno Chara, my lock for the Norris at the All Star break, has drifted
into mediocrity while wunderkinds like Phil Kessel and David Krejci
have hit the wall that starts to build during the rigors of an 82 game
regular season. Despite a regular season that statistically rivals an
NHL goaltender, people are waiting for Tim Thomas to morph into, well,
Tim Thomas. And as it is in Boston, the media adds to the feeding
frenzy of worry and angst as Game 83 draws closer.
While we don’t see the Bruins ripe for a first round upset picking but
after that who knows. They finished with a flourish last season just
to make the tournament and the roster has minimal playoff success in
its midst, hence the trade for last-time-around-the-park Mark Recchi.
They are as likely to emerge from the East and they are to be the
victim of a second round TKO.
And now for the bad news.
That pesky thing called a "salary cap" is looming large in the
distance beyond the Back Bay. As far as it concerns the Bruins, the
combination of big money free agent deals and career years puts the
B’s in a precarious position. They have a great group of young players
but $43.5 million committed to thirteen players next year with Kessel,
Krejci and both goalies up this summer (Thomas and Manny Fernandez). A
probable drop in the cap could make it very difficult to keep three of
the aforementioned four and fill out the roster. Projecting one summer
out, they have to deal with high scoring Marc Savard, Blake Wheeler
and Milan Lucic and already have $26M committed to 6 players for the
2010-’11 season.
So the Bruins you see on the ice this year may bear little resemblance
to the team, championship or not, that steps to the ice next October.
Dennis
Bernstein, the man behind SCORE! Media and an NHL
Analyst with ESPN Radio, is the Los Angeles
Correspondent for The 4th Period Magazine and a Columnist
for TheFourthPeriod.com.
