Unless the team is in an unthinkable slump or it seems as though the coach has lost control of the locker room, coaching changes should only happen during the offseason. Owners and general managers need to understand that coaches are dealing with professional athletes; everyone is essentially trying hard if not for the team then for themselves to ensure they get paid. Coaching in the NHL is different than any other sport. It’s not about designing plays. It’s about the big picture – playing a style, implementing a system. Those things don’t develop overnight. So when you fire a coach midseason, you’re basically saying you made a huge mistake and you want to cut your losses for the season. You’re basically throwing your season away. I always wonder when coaches get fired if the owners or GMs have forgotten why they hired that particular coach in the first place. And if they haven’t forgotten, has the coach really failed to do what you expected him to do or is it that the coach’s plan wasn’t what was expected?
All that being said, Tom Renney, head coach of the New York Rangers since the start of the 2003-2004 season, was fired Monday. I don’t have much sympathy for the Rangers. They’ve struggled lately and it has everything to do with the irresponsible free agent signings they’ve made. The Rangers, are like the Dallas Cowboys of the NHL. They throw money at under achieving, veteran players, with no regard for team chemistry. It’s almost an impossible situation to coach in.
Perhaps it was the fact that Sean Avery made his bones as a New York Ranger. Or maybe it was the comments Tom Renney made during the ’07 playoff series between the Sabres and Rangers. But somewhere along the line I started to hate Tom Renney – just as I did for Ken Hitchcock when he was with the Dallas Stars and then later with the Philadelphia Flyers – just as I did for Bryan Murray with the Ottawa Senators. I loved hating those teams and more specifically those coaches. More than that though, I was always tickled pink to see them fail especially at the hands of the Sabres. But I never wanted to see any of them get canned.
I hate how there doesn’t seem to be any loyalties between organizations and coaches anymore. Why is it that when a team is successful, the players and the management that brought in the players are praised. But when players under perform or when the talent level is low, the coaches are always blamed for the teams lack of success. The NHL is a league where rosters change dramatically from year to year. It seems that one bad year is enough to get just about any coach in the league fired.
You can’t tell me that the Penguins are better off without Michel Therrien, who led them to the Stanley Cup finals last year. Or that the Canadians and Devils don’t regret firing Claude Julien who has won with every team he’s coached and currently is the bench-boss for one of the leagues most prolific teams, the Boston Bruins.
All the coaching changes going on around the league only benefit the Sabres in the long term. It’s tough to say what will happen with teams immediately after a coaching change, but when it comes to player development, there will be a significant adjustment period when new coaches implement their new system. That’s just a fact.
As for Renney, I’m sad to see him go. Likewise the Sens and Flyer’s just aren’t the same after Hitch and Murray vacated their former positions. If nothing else, the personalities those guys brought to their teams was unique and worth the price of admission.