Coach Darryl Sutter has won two Stanley Cups and compiled a.603 winning percentage in 266 games with his current club, the Los Angeles Kings. A veteran of 1127 games behind the bench as an NHL head coach, Sutter would seem somewhat secure in his job. The Kings have gotten off to a slow start this season but one can only wonder how long it will take before fans and media begin clamoring for him to be fired if the stumbling continues.
In Columbus, bench boss Todd Richards has led the Blue Jackets for 250 games and attained a very respectful .541 winning percentage but the team has been a post-season failure. In the one playoff appearance the team made under his guidance, they were eliminated in the 1st round in six games. In the two other campaigns, they have failed to qualify for the post-season tournament, despite an admirable effort in an injury-plagued 2014-15 season. Now, there are rumors circulating that if Columbus doesn’t win its next contest, Richards will be out as a coach. This is being said in spite of team management’s failure to upgrade their most glaring weakness; defense.
Coaching in the NHL just doesn’t seem to offer very much job security but is it really fair. Each season in recent years, there have been good teams that have fallen just short of making the playoffs. At the conclusion of the 2014-15 campaign, there were eight teams which missed the playoffs but had winning records. Five of those eight squads had 90 points or better.
Does it make sense to have the playoffs in/out threshold as the primary line of demarcation? Is it right or fair for an NHL coach to have his employment determined by this factor? Or in some cases, such as Bruce Boudreau, coach of Anaheim, should they be retained if they fail to produce a Stanley Cup winner? The Ducks are also off to a slow start so we aren’t surprised to hear similar potential firing rumors. What does this all say about the culture of the NHL, parity, potential expansion opportunities, and the “what have you done for us lately” mentality?
At the start of this current season, there were seven head coaches who were in new jobs. Three were first-timers in the NHL; Jeff Blashill in Detroit, Dave Hakstol in Philadelphia and John Hynes in New Jersey. Three more had been fired somewhere previously (Dan Bylsma, Peter Deboer, and Todd McLellan) with only Mike Babcock changing teams (Toronto to Detroit) by his own choice.
This means that 23 NHL head coaches were carry-overs from the previous season. They combined for a total of 4282 games with their current clubs, an average tenure of 2.27 years. Should that be the norm, the bench mark, that a coach should expect to get fired after two and a quarter seasons? Would you continue your line of employment if you knew that you would be job searching in your third year on the job?
Many amateur sociologists say that the things that happen in pro sports are a reflection of our society. I would think evidence could easily be found to support this notion. If this axiom is true, then what does this say about our society? Does it mean that winning is the only thing? Does it mean that anything short of excellence is failure? Can we conclude that results only matter if you get 15 seconds to hoist a trophy?
After a long, successful career in business management roles, my conclusion is that human capital is seen as expendable. After all, when a resource is deemed to be no longer valuable, it is discarded. Whether it be an outdated computer, a broken desk, or a filing cabinet that no longer is relevant, these items are set out with the junk. But people are not inanimate objects with a limited shelf life.
A few decades ago, businesses began changing their “Personnel Department” name tags to “Human Resources”. We were told that this was being done across this country and around the world because “humans” are the most important “resource”. It sounds good in theory but how has all that played out in reality? It is my hypothesis that as “the numbers” began to gain greater prominence in business operations with their ever-increasing importance, we see the same in sports. Analytics can be a valuable tool to assist with decision-making. We have gotten to a point where we chase after the numbers and have somehow lost the dignity of the person.
Pro sports is entertainment but it has also become big business. These coaches are human beings who have families and lives away from the rink. Sure they know what they are getting into long before they reach the NHL level. Multiple stops along the way in their chosen career dot the landscape for each and every coach.
When we look at the list of recycled coaches, it appears that there is an endless supply of potential coaching candidates to step into a vacancy. So who will be the first “fall guy” in 2015-16. My bet is it will be Todd Richards in Columbus.
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