Coaches and GMs on the hot seat

The exact moment Hartley realized that the little
photo of a tank Brian Burke left on his desk
wasn't meant as a reminder to keep on rolling.

We’re now into month two of the NHL season, and patience is running out in various cities around the league. With several teams struggling and the playoff races already tightening, some franchises will be looking to make major changes very soon.

We’ve already had one coach fired, and there’s little doubt that more will be on the way – probably joined by a GM or two. But who?

Based on my conversation with sources around the league, here are some of the coaches and GMs who find themselves on the hot seat as we head into the season’s second month.

Ron Rolston, Buffalo Sabres – Is rumored to have angered Buffalo management through his failure to do things “The Sabres Way”, such as that time a small child asked him for an autograph and he politely declined instead of repeatedly hitting him in the head.

Dallas Eakins, Edmonton Oilers – Is gradually running out of ways to change the subject every time Kevin Lowe corners him in his office and starts asking him to remind him which Cup-winning Oilers team they were teammates on.

Paul MacLean, Ottawa Senators – Was briefly worried when he recently walked into his office and found a pink slip on his desk, only to realize it was just a $5 bill from the stack of Monopoly money Eugene Melnyk now uses to pay everyone.

George McPhee, Washington Capitals – Even though it’s worked for years, can’t help but worry that owner Ted Leonsis will eventually figure out that there really isn’t an NHL bylaw that says that all GMs must actually have the initials “GM”.

Greg Sherman, Colorado Avalanche – Was absolutely shocked to see his name on this list, since even he had forgotten that he’s still technically the GM in Colorado.

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A history of great (and awful) starts to NHL seasons

Four weeks into the NHL season, several teams are off to great starts. The Sharks and Avalanche have been virtually unbeatable, and the Lightning, Ducks, and Maple Leafs have also had an impressive opening month. At the other end of the spectrum, teams like the Sabres, Flyers, and Oilers are off to the kind of starts that can torpedo a team’s playoff hopes before the calendar even flips over to November.

Nothing has been as extreme as what happened last year, when the Blackhawks made it to the second half of the lockout-shortened season before suffering a regulation loss. They shattered the NHL record with their 21-0-3 start, coasted to the Presidents’ Trophy, and went on to win the Stanley Cup.

Of course, not every early-season streak — good or bad — will lead to such a predictable ending. So let’s see if we can learn anything about what to expect by looking back at five of the greatest starts in NHL history, along with five of the worst.

1984-85 Edmonton Oilers

How they started: 12-0-3

The Oilers were the defending champs entering the season, having finally ended the New York Islanders' run of four straight Cups. If the rest of the league had any hopes of an Edmonton letdown, they were doused quickly by a 15-game unbeaten streak.

How they finished: The Oilers finished with 109 points, which was actually second in the league to Philadelphia’s 113. But they ran the table with relative ease in the playoffs, cruising through the Campbell Conference before beating the Flyers in five to win their second consecutive Cup.

By the way, this team featured a 208-point season from Wayne Gretzky, 71 goals by Jari Kurri, and 37 goals and 121 points from Paul Coffey, who was a defenseman. The '80s were a crazy, fun decade.

1943-44 New York Rangers

How they started: 0-14-1

The Rangers lost their first 11 games and didn’t get a win until mid-December. That actually kicked off a stretch of four wins in five games, perhaps affording some small degree of hope heading into the new year. That was immediately followed by another seven consecutive losses. The 1943-44 Rangers were horrible.

How they finished: The Rangers didn’t get much better. Their record stood at a pathetic 6-39-5 through 50 games, which was especially problematic given that back then the season was only 50 games long. Their 17 points were easily the low point in franchise history, and earned the 1943-44 Rangers a permanent spot on just about every “all-time worst teams in pro sports history” list.

The season’s rock bottom came in a 15-0 loss to the Red Wings on January 23, 1944, which still stands as the biggest blowout in the history of the league. That kicked off a 21-game winless streak to end the season. Yes, the Rangers actually finished the season even worse than they started it. They were that bad.

For all their historic futility, New York’s nightmare season does come with a significant asterisk: the roster had been decimated by World War II, with 10 Rangers leaving to join the armed forces.

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Weekend wrapup: Devils, Wild and Sharks

Giving the Devils Their Due

The Devils entered the weekend with little reason for optimism. Ten games into the season, they had only one win and had averaged just two goals per game. And with Cory Schneider hurt and Martin Brodeur struggling badly, a team that had been able to fall back on excellent goaltending for almost two decades was suddenly faced with a glaring weakness in the crease.

To make matters worse, New Jersey couldn’t even throw in the towel and go into tank mode for a high first-round pick in the 2014 draft, because it won’t have one — the Devils lost that choice as part of their punishment for the 2010 Ilya Kovalchuk contract fiasco. The league’s decision mandated that New Jersey could forfeit any first-round pick from the last four years and, for reasons that nobody seems to fully understand, chose not to do so when they owned the 29th-overall pick in 2012. After watching the Devils struggle through the season’s first few weeks, it was hard not to wonder if that decision could wind up costing them the first-overall pick in next year’s draft.

Well, not so fast. For one night, at least, the Devils had something to celebrate, going into Boston and beating the Bruins with an impressive third-period comeback. Trailing 3-2 with just over a minute to play, the Devils stunned the Bruins with a pair of quick goals. Both came on the power play, courtesy of a Torey Krug high stick and our old friend the worst rule in hockey. That snapped a five-game Bruins win streak and bumped Boston back down to a tie for third in the Atlantic.

And as far as those hopeless Devils … don’t look now, but thanks to the general ineptitude of the Metropolitan Division, they’re still very much in the playoff hunt. While they’ve won only two games on the year, their four losses in overtime and shootouts leads the league, and those four loser points give them a total of eight. That’s still pretty bad, but it’s enough to move them ahead of the Flyers and Rangers and to within just three points of a playoff spot.

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Grantland grab bag: An (almost) all-goalie edition

In the grab bag: We check in with Canadian goalies, the scariest name in hockey, why we all hate Mike Smith fantasy owners, and a video breakdown of Chris Terreri coming agonizingly close to scoring a goal.

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Grantland: What's fair market value for a starting goaltender?

After weeks of rumors that they were on the verge of a major deal for a marquee goaltender, the Edmonton Oilers finally pulled the trigger on the season's first trade Monday, agreeing to send … a fourth-liner to the Sharks.

OK, so that may have been a little bit anticlimactic. But at least it was a reminder that we're entering the part of the season when GMs start making moves. And this year, the early rumor mill has had a running theme: goaltending. That's not terribly unusual, as the position is a point of focus for most teams, but this year's chatter seems especially intense. At some point this season, the thinking goes, we're going to see some blockbuster goalie deals.

So it's probably a good time to assess the trade market — what's the established worth of a decent NHL goaltender? As it turns out, that's not an easy question to answer.

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