On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- We react to the NHL award annoucements
- Where the Stanley Cup final stands after one game
- The Blackhawks abuse scandal evolves and widens
- It's not soudning great for the Olympics
- Seattle and Buffalo get their coaches
- OUFL fried foods and more...
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>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.
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Hey everyone... some big news to share. I've joined the team over at the Puck Soup podcast, and will be part of the hosting team with old pals Greg Wyshynski and Ryan Lambert.
I'm very excited to be back in the podcasting arena, and to have found a new home where I can sigh wearily about the NHL. I've missed doing Biscuits, and while this show won't be quite the same I think it's going to be a ton of fun. You can hear the three of us run down the biggest stories in hockey each week, then listen to me go awkwardly silent when the discussion shifts to pop culture and I have no idea what Greg and Ryan are talking about. It should be great.
The show runs every week, and I'll be part of most of the episodes going forward. They also have a Patreon which entitled supporters to bonus episodes, including one each month where Greg and I will cover NHL history and/or make fun of Gary Bettman's haircut; you can find out more about that here.
In this week's episode, we cover the Flyers coaching situation, the Hurricanes becoming the Whalers for a night, Tom Wilson's latest impact and lots more.
>> Stream it now:
>> Or, subscribe on iTunes.
Nobody was surprised when reports emerged yesterday afternoon that Dave Hakstol had been fired. We’d all kind of figured it was imminent, and when the Flyers closed out a brutal road trip with an ugly 5-1 loss in Vancouver, well, that was that. You never want to see anybody lose their job, but at some point you have to put a guy out of his misery, right?
So sure, Hakstol getting fired yesterday was no big surprise. But his replacement was, with Joel Quenneville reportedly getting the job. That was, needless to say, a great hire. It’s a franchise-changer. If you were a Flyers fan, you were thrilled and maybe even feeling some optimism for the first time all year.
And then, things got weird.
It started with a more careful reading of the initial reports. The Flyers hadn’t actually fired Hakstol or hired Quenneville; rather, they’d made the decision to do that. That seemed like a distinction without a difference, but as the afternoon wore on, the situation got murky. The Flyers didn’t announce anything, although that was probably just because they were still in the air on the way back to Philadelphia. But then they landed, and still nothing. At one point, there was a lost pair of shoes. It became apparent that if Hakstol had been fired, he didn’t seem to know it.
Then came the denials. First from Quenneville, and eventually from the Flyers themselves. Hakstol was still the coach. And at least as of first thing this morning, he still is. It was, as they say, a fluid situation. Then again, so is a bad stomach flu.
So what the hell just happened?
There are a few possible explanations. The first, and most straightforward, is that the whole story was just wrong. Somebody got bad information. It happens. The Flyers were never going to make a coaching change, at least not yesterday. But that ignores all the other signs that a change was imminent, which doesn’t make the simple explanation feel like the right one.
It’s also possible that the story was right, and that the Flyers had decided to replace Hakstol with Quenneville, only to have something go wrong. Maybe the “something” was the story leaking out early, or maybe it was something else. Or maybe the story was half-right; the Flyers were going to make a coaching change, but Quenneville wasn’t the guy. If so, the story coming out the way it did screws everything up, because anyone they hire now will seem like a step down from a three-time champion. Or maybe they’re just going to make the move today.
Whatever happened, it’s hard to see a way forward for the Flyers that looks good. Even if they hire Quenneville this morning, fans will wonder what happened over the weekend. If they hire anyone else, he’s not Quenneville. And if they stick with Hakstol now, well, good luck to the poor guy.
We’re officially onto the first, full-blown crisis of the Chuck Fletcher era, and he needs to pick a path forward and communicate it clearly. And then we’ll wait and see if this time, it sticks.
The five teams that look like they’re headed towards a summer of keg stands and fountain pool parties.
There are at least six teams who seem like slam-dunk picks for the top five, so somebody’s going to be left out. Let’s find out who …
5. Washington Capitals (20-9-3, +20 true goals differential*) – They needed a shootout to do it, but the Caps picked up their fifth straight win on Saturday, and now hold a six-point lead on top of the Metro. They were a pedestrian 8-7-3 in mid-November but have won 12 of 14 since, giving us an answer to the question “How long does a Stanley Cup hangover last?” It’s “roughly five weeks.”
Meanwhile, this seems to have been the week where some real buzz started building over the ridiculous season that Alexander Ovechkin is having. The 33-year-old is up to 29 goals in 32 games, including two hat tricks this week and another goal on Saturday, and is leading the race for what would be his eighth Rocket Richard Trophy.
That’s led to a couple of water-cooler debates. The first is whether Ovechkin can realistically catch Wayne Gretzky for the all-time goal-scoring lead. He’d need almost 260 more goals to get there, which seems impossible. Then again, what he’s doing right now seems impossible, we can’t rule anything out with this guy. And even if he doesn’t catch Gretzky, there’s a good chance he can get past Jaromir Jagr for third spot, and maybe catch Gordie Howe for second. For a guy who played his entire career in the Dead Puck Era, that’s amazing.
That leads to the next question: Even if he doesn’t catch Gretzky, is Ovechkin still the greatest goal scorer of all-time? On an era-adjusted basis, he’s already passed Gretzky, although he’s still well back of Jagr and especially Howe, who gets a boost based on having done most of his scoring in the conservative 50s and 60s. We’d also have to include guys like Maurice Richard, Phil Esposito and both Hulls in the discussion. But none of them won eight goal-scoring titles.
That “greatest ever” argument is one that people have been making for years now, and the answer has always seemed to come out to a hedge along the lines of, “He might be, especially if he keeps it up.” Well, he isn’t just keeping it up, he’s getting better. Can we just drop the qualifiers and say he’s already the best ever, right now? If he hangs up his skates tomorrow, has Ovechkin already done enough to be considered the best goal-scorer in hockey history?
I kind of think he has. I grew up in awe of Gretzky, and I’ll still occasionally go back and watch old clips of him cutting into the zone and teeing up one of those patented slapshots where the puck seemed to turn on its side in the air and blow past a helpless goalie. But that’s exactly it – Gretzky played in an era where forwards were allowed to cut into the zone with enough time and space to wind up a slapshot and the goalies really were helpless. Even the good ones. Ovechkin is doing it in the era where every goalie is 6’6″ and plays every angle perfectly, and gap control and shot-blocking are basically religion. It’s amazing.
It’s been a rough few weeks for NHL coaches. After going all of 2017-18 without a single coach losing their job until the final day of the season, we’ve already seen four pink slips this year, including two this week. And we’re only a quarter of the way through the schedule.
Typically, NHL teams don’t want to make coaching changes while the season is going on. It’s virtually always a sign that something has gone horribly wrong, and a major change is needed to try to salvage the season. But at the same time, plenty of GMs around the league are under pressure to do exactly that. And that pressure will only mount as other teams make changes and potential candidates get snapped up.
So today, let’s look at 10 types of midseason coach firings, and some examples of each from the last 25 years of NHL history. Maybe they can teach us something about this year’s firings – from the four we’ve already seen and the ones that might still be to come.
And we’ll start with what is, unfortunately, probably the most common kind of midseason coaching change…
The Deck-Chair Reshuffling
The scenario: The season isn’t going well. The team fires its coach and hires a replacement. The season continues to not go well. Maybe it wasn’t the coach, you guys.
Recent examples: The Leafs go from Ron Wilson to Randy Carlyle in 2012. The Senators trying to stop a tailspin by replacing John Paddock with GM Bryan Murray in 2008. The Canadiens firing Alain Vigneault for Michel Therrien in 2000. The Canucks going from Tom Renney to Mike Keenan in 1998, and then again from Keenan to Marc Crawford the year after. The Wild replace Mike Yeo with John Torchetti in 2016. Panthers’ coach/GM Rick Dudley stepping aside for John Torchetti in 2004. The Kings replace Andy Murray with John Torchetti in 2006. Uh, maybe we should just call this one “The John Torchetti”.
Does it work?: Nope. Although in most of these cases, you get the feeling that nothing would have.
Potential 2018-19 cases: We’ll have to wait and see what the new guys can do. But the Kings are already giving off that vibe.
The Too-Little-Too-Late
The scenario: The old coach was bad. The new coach is good, at least for a while, and the team starts playing up to expectations. But the GM waits too long to make the switch, so they miss the playoffs anyway.
Recent examples: The Blues firing Andy Murray for Davis Payne in 2010. The Senators going from Craig Hartsburg to Cory Clouston in 2009. The Islanders making the switch from Jack Capuano to Doug Weight in 2017.
Does it work?: Yes and no. In a way, this has to almost feel like the worst-case scenario for a GM. It’s one thing to make the wrong move. It’s another to make the right one, but realize you pulled the trigger too late for it to make a difference.
Potential 2018-19 cases: None of the firings we’ve seen so far will fall into this category, because at least the four teams acted with enough time left to right the ship. But will we look back at some other team that hasn’t made a move yet and wonder if they should have joined the early-season crowd? Maybe not, but every Flyers fan is angrily clenching their fists right now just in case.
In the Saturday Storylines:
- The Battle of Alberta is back, and the stakes feel kind of high
- The Canucks get a visit from their old friend Nazem Kadri
- A coach whose hot seat may be about to melt
- The Atlantic Division is kind of terrible
- A look back at a forgotten classic playoff series with a game seven OT ending
- And more...
In this week's episode of Biscuits, the Vice Sports hockey podcast:
- Carey Price is back. Are the Canadiens saved?
- Scoring is up and nobody can figure out why. Dave and I have a theory.
- The Flyers are flatlining and change has to be on the way soon.
- Which two active players would combine for the best goalie fight?
- And lots more...
>> Stream it now on Vice Sports
>> Or, subscribe on iTunes.
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The Athletic Hockey Show runs four days a week during the season, and will feature me with Other Sean Gentille on Wednesdays.
Puck Soup is a podcast featuring me and Ryan Lambert. We release one free episode each week during the season, plus mailbags and other bonus episodes for Patreon subscribers.
"Biscuits" was the Vice Sports hockey podcast, hosted by DGB and Dave Lozo. It ran for two seasons; the final episode was in July, 2018. You can find the archives below:
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