When Coaches get Fired

What a busy Monday this morning in the NHL today.  The league saw not one, but two coaches relieved of their duties and replaced by two men taking on their first head coaching job in the NHL.  Both Bruce Boudreau in Washington and Paul Maurice in Carolina were fired today but for very different reasons.  For Boudreau, the Caps got off to a roaring start winning their first seven games.  For Maurice, his team has been very close to the bottom of the standings all year and things were not looking up.  This post today will talk about why both these men lost their jobs and what their replacements will need to do to fix the problems.

First in Washington.  I think the Caps pulled the trigger a little too soon.  Boudreau had been an amazing coach for them over the past four seasons; four seasons in which they won their division and captured the Presidents Trophy in 2010.  He will certainly be able to get another job in the near future.   He turned this team around and it looked like their success would continue when they started the season with seven wins, but their recent 3-7-1 stretch has showed he couldn't motivate his players any longer.  The blame cannot be laid entirely on the coach; the Caps star players have been nearly non-existent all year.  I would have liked to see either Mike Green or Alex Semin moved before letting Boudreau go as shaking up the roster could have motivated the players to start playing like they were before. 

However, that did not happen and now Dale Hunter is in charge.  He has coached some really good teams with the London Knights but the area I think he will be most helpful to Washington with will be getting the stars to play like stars.  Alex Ovechkin needs to step up his play and Hunter, who has coached John Tavaras, Patrick Kane, Corey Perry, Rick Nash and Washington's own star defenceman, John Carlson.  Those players all became OHL stars and NHL stars because of Hunter's player development skills and he needs to do the same with Alex Ovechkin, Alex Semin and Mike Green if this team is going to be successful again.  The responsibility now lies on the players to succeed or it can be guaranteed that a big roster shake up will be issued.  I think it is safe to say that the only safe players on that team are Nick Backstrom, Karl Alzner, John Carlson and Michael Neuvrith.  Ovechkin likely won't get moved because of his huge contract but everyone else on the team should expect changing addresses if they don't pick up their play soon.  The Caps are hoping Hunter will motivate them again.

Now to Maurice in Carolina.  Carolina has played very bad all season.  The only thing that seems to be going right for them right now is that young star Jeff Skinner continues to impress.  Everyone else, not so much.  A coaching change, unlike in Washington, was sort of expected here.  This is a team that may already be looking to the future with young prospects like Ryan Murphy and Chris Terry hopefully ready to make the jump to pro next season.  Along with the firing of Maurice, I expect them to make a trade very soon to acquire some younger skill and depth.  Players like Alexei Ponikarovsky and Tomas Kaberle are easily expendable, especially Kaberle who was a healthy scratch in their last game against Ottawa on Sunday.  Their new coach Kirk Muller has experience as an assistant in Montreal for five years, so he is slightly familiar with the workings of an NHL coach.  He will provide an exciting and fresh perspective to the Hurricanes, similar to Tom Renney in Edmonton and so hopefully for Hurricanes fans, as the team gets younger, they will play better. This team is in rebuilding mode now and Muller's fresh perspective will be very helpful during that process. 

It will be interesting to see if the Capitals and Hurricanes can turn around their team under new coaches.  I can see Washington improving their play but it is harder to see Carolina improving after their play so far this year.  Both new coaches will provide a fresh and new environment for their players which the team owners hope will motivate their players to success.  Only time will tell how the new coaches will do, but watching them take the reins will be exciting for everyone.

Last night I had more images to my website, jbenny.com including pictures of Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk from when I went to the Red Wings game on Saturday.  I also added some pictures from the OHL including some of Dougie Hamilton, Matt Peumpel and Ryan Strome who were all invited to the Team Canada World Juniors camp next week.  I am going to continue to update my site with articles and photos so I hope you check it out.  As always please comment below, I would love to hear your thoughts on this blog and I can be found on twitter via @jbenny15. Thanks for reading.