Do Coaching Changes Really Make a Difference?

Well another great post. I too was thinking BB should go, just for the PP. But when I thought about a replacement, no one pops up other than Ted Nolan. I do think BB gets the most out of the players and Nolan would as well, but neither of them can CHANGE the players.

Didn’t bylsma win the cup his first year? Oh first FULL year? I guess he only coached for less than a third of the season, but that was a really remarkable turnaround, those 25 games.

Here’s a flipside factoid:

Only three coaches in the past 75 years (Adams, Arbour, Sather) have gone on to eventually win a Cup after being with a team as long as Boudreau heading into next post-season. Each of them had progressed further in the playoffs earlier on.

I cut him slack on his first few teams because the D was insufficient but judging from the past two seasons I can’t argue that this team is progressing significantly enough. The December system change didn’t go far enough and seemed to lack sufficient comprehensiveness. Not an easy thing to do mid-season but, then again, maybe such changes were due in the pre-season after the Montreal loss.

The front office must formulate a concept of what’s currently lacking or else there’s a decent chance any changes are just for the sake of it.

I’m probably gonna take a not very popular stance here on BB. I really don’t want to see him go.

I still remember when the Caps were terrible. They were boring, and it was painful to watch them lose 80% of their games. Even though they worked terribly hard, they just weren’t any good, and that took a lot of the fun out of watching.

While I would love to see the Caps hoist a Cup, and I know that that is the ultimate goal, I happen to enjoy watching hockey. And I enjoy watching my team win. To me, enjoying 5 months of regular season winning hockey is actually more important to me than that Cup.

For me, hockey is entertainment, an escape from the humdrum and frustrations of life. The last couple of hockey seasons have been a joy to watch, even if they haven’t had the best of endings, and I really wouldn’t like to see BB fired and take a chance that they would step backwards in their winning ways.

Great work, b.orr4. I’m still in favor of firing BB, but this is certainly something to consider. Between the two stats cited in this FP and the comments, how do we have any hope for next year? If we fire the coach we don’t have a good shot. If we don’t fire the coach we don’t have a good shot.

At the end of the day I see persistent problems that are the coach’s responsibilities and they haven’t been addressed. Maybe next year we won’t win (probably won’t), but a new coach could start breaking bad habits and lay the foundation to go forward. I’m afraid that every year with BB from here on out is going to be spinning our wheels.

Really surprising (tiny sample) stat from this: every team that had 107 points or more and made a coaching change had a better regular season the next year… and lost in the first round.

Coaches have three primary responsibilites in hockey:

Teaching – getting the players to learn what they want them to do, explaining the system so that the players know their responsibilites on the ice and what is expected in situations. Not just teaching the players what their responsibilities are, but what the other players’ responsibilities are, so players know what to expect of their teammates.

Strategy – Managing the game, the situation, the players during a game. Do I need to make a goalie change, who sits tomorrow night in game 2 of a back to back, what are the line combinations, who starts the game, who’s on the power play…

Motivation – Getting the team emotionally and psychologically ready for battle. Ideally you want players who will run through walls, but you can’t have that every game or they burn out by November…

Every coach has to be good at doing these things to some degree, but each coach has their talents in different levels for each of these:

Bruce Boudreau is very strong in the teaching area to be sure. Players come up, they learn, and they contribute. The guy knows how to let each guy know what to do, and let each guy know what is expected of their teammates. His game strategy is not bad… he’s not great since sometimes situations get the better of him, but still and all, for the most part he manages the game pretty well. As far as motivation goes, I don’t know if Bruce is all that good at motivation at the NHL level. It is a lot easier to motivate someone in the AHL, especially if they have a 2-way contract which is probably worth 2-3 times the money at the NHL level. That’s motivation. In the NHL, money isn’t as big a motivator since most everyone is making a good living. I live comfortably enough to have season tickets, yet I don’t even make a third of the NHL minimum salary.

What I’m going to do is offer up my thoughts on who the best and worst Caps coach is in each aspect as well as the best coach in my lifetime in each aspect.

Teaching:
Best Caps coach: Bruce Boudreau (clearly ahead of everyone)
Worst Caps coach: Bryan Murray.
Best I’ve seen: Glen Sather. Everyone on his Oiler teams knew exactly what to do all the time. Of course, having Gretzky, Messier, Kurri, Coffey, Anderson, etc. helped, but he taught them to be Hall of Fame players.

Strategy:
Best Caps coach: Terry Murray/Jim Schoenfeld
Worst Caps coach: Gary Green
Best I’ve Seen: Mike Keenan. If I have to win one game, he’s the guy I want behind the bench. Keenan had a great tactical mind for the game and there are probably less than five people on the planet who know more than Keenan about hockey and how a game should be managed and played. Also right up there are Fred Shero and Scotty Bowman

Motivation:
Best Caps Coach: Ron Wilson
Worst Caps Coach: Bruce Cassidy – maybe the worst coach in terms of motivation that I’ve seen period, Caps or otherwise
Best I’ve Seen: Bob Johnson – It’s a great day for hockey. Yeah he won a Cup with a team of Hall-of-Fame players, but the Penguins were always up for games, and they all loved playing for Johnson.

Cool data collection!
Looks like with a new coach:

55 teams improved their point production
41 fell off on point production
3 ended up with the same number of points

I’d be curious to see the playoff performance in the preceding year (just prior to the coaching change) – Did they even make the playoffs?
If a team with a new coach got knocked out in the first round that could be a significant improvement if they’d failed to make the playoffs in the previous 4 years in a row or something.