NHL teams reap the rewards of coaching switches
Midseason coaching changes are as much a part of the NHL's culture as playoff beards.
But how teams respond to the first phenomenon has a lot to do with whether they even get to grow the second.
Of the seven teams that made a coaching change during this season, five reached the playoffs.
Four of them reside in the Eastern Conference, with the Pittsburgh Penguins, New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens joining the Carolina Hurricanes among the revived teams in the playoffs. The fifth team, the Chicago Blackhawks, is in the Western Conference.
Television hockey analyst Mike Milbury said every situation is different but that the results for those four teams suggest they made the right moves.
"There are a lot of coaching changes I think that were positive this year, and whether it was luck of the draw or not, what coaching changes do is basically bring an attitude change," Milbury said in a conference call.
Of the four Eastern Conference playoff teams that switched coaches, the Hurricanes were the first to make the change.
Carolina has gone 33-19-5 since Paul Maurice was hired Dec. 3 to replace Peter Laviolette, who guided Carolina to win the Stanley Cup in 2006.
From the standpoint of winning percentage, however, the most successful change was made by the Penguins, who fired Michel Therrien and hired Dan Bylsma on Feb. 15.
Pittsburgh has gone 18-3-4 with Bylsma, who didn't change the Penguins' system so much as the way it's played.
"I think (about) two things: the mentality with which we play (and) how we want the game to be played out and what we want it to look like," Bylsma said.
Pittsburgh center Sidney Crosby said the Penguins like to "go after teams a bit more, give them less time in space."
Milbury said this was not the case of Pittsburgh jettisoning a bad coach in Therrien.
"But everybody seemed to be down and really not enjoying playing the game. (Bylsma) brought in a free-spirited aggressive kind of style," Milbury said, "and it seemed to let the horses out of the barn."
The New York Rangers were desperate when they dismissed coach Tom Renney and brought in John Tortorella on Feb. 23.
Tortorella has a fiery, sometimes harsh style of coaching but his new players responded well enough to stop the Rangers' free fall.
"I talk a lot about our mindset," he said. "I thought our mindset was a strong mindset, of looking at your opponent and going after them and not taking a back step in any facet of our game."
The Rangers went 12-7-2 under Tortorella to clinch a playoff spot in the final week of the season. Several of the players have said they want him back next season.
When the Montreal Canadiens fired Guy Carbonneau last month, the aim was to shake up the team's attitude rather than to make big changes. Montreal is 6-6-4 since general manager Bob Gainey took over the coaching duties March 9, good enough to sputter into the playoffs in the final Eastern Conference spot.
Gainey's move appeared to put pressure on the club, which had high expectations this season.
Gainey made similar move three years earlier. In January 2006, he brought in Carbonneau as an assistant before installing him as head coach that May.
