Why is the NHL's Coaching Carousel Spinning Like Never Before?
Tampa Bay Lightning bench boss Jon Cooper is the NHL's longest-tenured coach, leading the team since 2013. Meanwhile, Sheldon Keefe is one of 19 coaching changes since the end of last season.
Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports
The Toronto Maple Leafs’ firing of coach Sheldon Keefe Thursday was the latest movement in the never-ending coaching carousel that is the NHL coaching business.
Keefe was six months away from celebrating his fifth year behind Toronto’s bench, but if you take a macro look at the coaching picture, you see why the spin of the carousel has accelerated into a frenzy. There have been 19 coaching changes since the end of last season.
It's even prompted a veteran NHL coach to comment on the turnover in the profession.
"It’s insanity," longtime coach and current Stars bench boss Peter DeBoer told The Athletic on Thursday. “We coach in an age where everyone talks about the modern athlete, building relationships in order to coach them. How do you do that with that kind of turnover? It’s like going on a date and getting married and divorced before the appetizers show up. I don’t get it. But that’s the world we live in.’’
DeBoer is not wrong.
Indeed, when it comes to the top 10 longest-tenured coaches in the NHL, you have to sit back in awe of how frequently the ax comes out for these guys.
Other than a handful of exceptions to the rule, six of the 10 most-tenured coaches were hired in 2021 or 2022.
Three of the four most-tenured coaches – Pittsburgh’s Mike Sullivan, Tampa Bay’s Jon Cooper, and Colorado’s Jared Bednar – have Stanley Cup wins on their resumes. The other most-tenured coach, Carolina’s Rod Brind’Amour, is also a proven winner and one of the most accomplished regular-season coaches in charge of a clear Cup contender this year.
That’s really the only job insurance a coach can get these days. Don’t think for a second that current Cup-winning coaches Bruce Cassidy and Peter Laviolette couldn’t quickly find another job if they were dismissed or chose to move on. Proven winners don’t get bypassed in the constant search to assemble the right management-coaching team. And teams hope lightning strikes more than once when they hire them.
That Cup pedigree is also great to have if you earned it as a player. Brind’Amour in Carolina, Martin St-Louis in Montreal, Patrick Roy with the New York Islanders and Rick Tocchet in Vancouver all benefit professionally from the championships they’ve won as players.
Even Laviolette, who is now on his sixth NHL team, is not seen as a journeyman of his profession but rather as a Cup champion in 2005-06 who can do it again with the right roster. That's partially why he was the right choice to fill the needs of a high-expectations team like the Rangers.
Coaches might have an easier go of it if the NHL’s salary cap didn’t adversely impact a team’s ability to make big roster moves, but here we are. NHL GMs have little choice but to shake things up the easiest way they can – by changing coaches. It’s something tacit they can take to the public and say, “See, we’re totally accountable here!”
In some cases, teams might’ve done better to hold onto coaches and ride things out, but as we’re seeing, the temptation to cut the cord with their coach is too great to not indulge.
DeBoer is absolutely right when he talked about building relationships with players, but in the short-term-attention-span Modern Era, doing away with patience and instead spinning the coaching carousel again and starting over from scratch is the preferable strategy to employ.
It’s come to the point where even coaches in their second year with a particular team must start looking over their shoulders. Just look at Bruce Boudreau with the Canucks last season, Lane Lambert with the Islanders this year and even David Quinn with the rebuilding San Jose Sharks, who were relieved of their duties during or after their second campaign.
Of course, after a certain period, coaches’ styles no longer have the impact they may have once had. The game passes them by, and they either move on of their own volition, or teams finally stop calling. If this wasn’t true, Mike Keenan likely would've been coaching in the NHL for longer, and John Tortorella and Darryl Sutter would have jobs for life.
The itchy-trigger-finger-syndrome affecting NHL GMs won't be cured when it comes to coaches. It’s a mostly thankless job that leads to failure more often than not, and if you can’t operate in the cutthroat environment that is the coaching profession – keeping your real estate agent on 24/7 standby as you jump from one sinking lily pad to another – you’re probably not cut out for the gig.
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