If you’re a hardcore empath, congratulations — the 2022-23 NHL season has been fruitful. You haven’t yet had to watch a head coach lose his job.
There’s some reason to believe that’ll stick for the first time since 2017-18, the last regular season that came and went without a midseason firing. In 2021-22, we saw seven midseason and five by this date. In the 56-game 2021 season, three overall. In 2019-20, eight midseason and six by this date. In 2018-19, seven and five.
So no, this isn’t without precedence — but it’s still weird. Chalk it up to a few different things; first of all, new coaches get longer runways, and we’ve got plenty of those. Some franchises are less apt, even as revenues continue to bounce back, to cut checks for multiple coaches. Some are underachieving but have the right guy in place. Others, working from the growing shadow of Connor Bedard, are juuuust fine with stacking Ls. A handful of teams are actually good.
Whatever the reason for the lack of action may be, it’s been interesting to watch. Will it hold up, though? If it doesn’t — if we see another pair of February changes, as we did last year — the names will come from this list.
Don’t bother bringing it up
Mike Sullivan, Penguins. That’s not to say things are going perfectly in Pittsburgh, either. Before a win in Arizona, the Penguins had earned two of their last 12 possible points. The bottom six is bad, the defense has a Brian Dumoulin problem, the roster is old and cap space is basically non-existent. Sullivan, though, isn’t going anywhere — and he shouldn’t be. Fenway Sports Group, the team’s new-ish ownership group, views him as an asset, and he’s signed through 2027. In other words, the more reactionary factions of the Penguins’ fan base should find better ways to spend their time.
Craig Berube, Blues. His situation — with a Stanley Cup on his resume and a playoff push/flawed roster/streaky season at hand — isn’t dissimilar to Sullivan’s. At points this season (during either of the Blues’ major lulls, say) it’d be fair to look from the outside and wonder. At the moment, though, the players are responding to Berube and staying afloat without Ryan O’Reilly, Vladimir Tarasenko and Torey Krug, getting recent road wins over Toronto, New Jersey and Minnesota.
Back from the brink
Dave Hakstol, Kraken. It’s amazing what some added pop at the top of the lineup (Andrei Burakovsky, Matty Beniers) and intermittently competent goaltending (Martin Jones going 4-0-0 and .921 save percentage in January) can do. Hakstol was at the top of every preseason “first coach fired” board, including The Athletic‘s. Seattle has been an undeniable step forward in Year 2, though, with the Kraken holding down third place in the Pacific Division with games in hand on both Edmonton and Calgary. Now, if their actual goals percentage of 59.4 (second in the NHL) dips a little closer to their expected (51.47), the standings could get interesting — but Hakstol is safe.
DJ Smith, Senators. For a stretch in November, Smith seemed to be in trouble. Since American Thanksgiving, although the Sens have gone 12-6-2, outscored opponents in all situations 62-56 and, recent 8-4 trainwreck against Seattle aside, trended upward in their five-on-five-play (51.28 expected goals percentage , 15th in the league). Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stützle, Drake Batherson and Alex DeBrincat are all at or near a point per game, with Stützle looking particularly outstanding of late. They’re a few points out of fourth place in the Atlantic Division. What more could anyone realistically expect? Pierre Dorion has put his weight behind Smith on multiple occasions. Money — if Artem Zub’s 18.4 million extension is any indication — isn’t an issue. Smith certainly seems like the guy.
Gerard Gallant, Rangers. After Ottawa began to right the ship, the “he’s first” speculation centered on Gallant. On Dec. 4, the Rangers were 11-10-5, fifth in the Metropolitan Division and 10th in the Eastern Conference. Since then, they’ve banked 24 of 30 points and taken solid control of the first wild-card spot. Moving up in the Metro is certainly in play, as well, especially if Igor Shesterkin tosses up another .927 month, as he did in December. Now, are things perfect at the Garden? Nope. Gallant bears some amount of blame for the ongoing Alexis Lafrenière mess, and his lineup decisions can be confusing, but playoff teams don’t change coaches mid-stream… though with James Dolan, anything is possible.
Peter Laviolette, Capitals. On Dec. 3, the Caps had gone 6-9-4 in their previous 19 games. Given Laviolette’s lack of a contract beyond this season, and the overall sense that Washington is trying to make the most of Alex Ovechkin’s remaining years, it was fair to wonder. Now, though, the Caps are back in playoff position, Tom Wilson and Nicklas Backstrom are returning to the lineup and Laviolette’s team is on a 13-2-2 roll.
Safe jobs, terrible teams
Andre Tourigny, Coyotes. Bad as the Coyotes are, they should be worse. On balance, Karel Vejmelka is the main reason for that, but he’s shown signs of wear since the beginning of December. In his last 15 starts, while facing an average of 33 shots per game, Vejmelka has gone 5-8-2 with an .889 save percentage. In his last four starts, Vejmelka is at .857 and 0-4-0. That all puts Arizona at 29th in the league…and falling. They’re not out of the Connor Bedard sweepstakes just yet. Regardless, there’s no reason for them to move on from Tourigny midseason. Young players with his record of success should give him another crack at the job, and he’s also lost his share of games. If you’re in the Coyotes’ front office, what’s not to like about that?
Luke Richardson, Blackhawks. It’d be a miscarriage of justice to move on from Richardson now or in the offseason. Chicago’s roster is almost unfathomably bad; that was true in October, and it’s true now. The fact that anyone on the roster wants to come to work each day is a testament to the coach.
John Tortorella, Flyers. No point in spending much time on this one. Financially, it wouldn’t make sense — Philly’s ownership is already paying Alain Vigneault through next season. It doesn’t make practical sense, either. The fanbase likes him, which might be reason enough — really, what else is there to like about the organization in its current form? He’s also, for better or worse, stopped the wheels from coming off; the Flyers are 6-4-0 in their last 10. Comcast Spectacor has major problems, and Tortorella isn’t one of them.
Brad Larsen, Blue Jackets. One look at Columbus’ injury list this season should take Larsen out of consideration. Now, have the results been horrible? Yes. Should Columbus be OK with punting on a year of prime Johnny Gaudreau? No. We’ll see whether Larsen fits the bill for the Blue Jackets moving forward, but this season, more than anything else, he’s been the victim of unrealistic expectations and horrendous injury luck. No sense in punishing him midseason, especially as the Blue Jackets continue increasing their Bedard odds. They started Monday with the second-worst points percentage in the league.
If it weren’t Year 1…
Paul Maurice, Panthers. Their regression has been equal parts disappointing and predictable. Florida’s five-on-five numbers are decent, and Matthew Tkachuk has been great, but this season has felt like a series of square pegs getting forced into round holes. You can’t play postseason hockey if you miss the postseason. It’s still early enough, though, and moving on — even after one full season — would cost the Panthers nearly $8 million. Maurice will stick around in the name of patience.
Check back later
John Hynes, Predators. This one is interesting. The Predators started Monday three points out of the wild card but with a better points percentage than the Oilers, who actually hold the second spot. That’s the good news. David Poile, for the last few years, has shown an aversion to both rebuilding and meaningfully changing his roster. Everything about their roster screams “win now” — of their top eight scorers, Filip Forsberg is the youngest. He’s 28 years old. And that gets us into the bad news; Nashville is locked into this group, which has won three of 14 playoff games under Hynes. The question is whether Poile thinks he’s got the right guy for the stretch run, or whether he realizes that there aren’t a ton of other buttons left to push. Hynes’ team, in all situations this season, is 22nd in actual goals percentage and 25th in expected goals.
Danger zone
Dallas Eakins, Ducks. If nothing else, Eakins remains a good quote.
Enjoyed chatting with Anaheim coach Dallas Eakins pregame. Asked him the secret to stopping Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak.
He paused for a moment.
“Possibly hurting them in warmups — would that be the answer?”
— Matt Porter (@mattyports) January 9, 2023
The main strikes against Eakins haven’t changed. He’s in the last year of his deal, his current boss — Pat Verbeek — isn’t the guy who hired him, and the results have been abysmal. Anaheim is 89-125-36 under Eakins overall and 12-25-4 this season. They’ve somehow only won four games in regulation. They’re 32nd in goals per game, 31st in goals against per game, 32nd in actual goals percentage and 32nd in expected goals percentage. It’s fair to wonder what kind of long-term effect that sort of losing will have on Trevor Zegras, Troy Terry, Jamie Drysdale and Mason McTavish. (McTavish, to his and Eakins’ credit, has turned it on, as of late).
At some point, a change is going to be necessary. The Bedard calculus looms large here, though — as does Anaheim’s cost-benefit analysis of paying two coaches at once, even if it’s only for half a season. Still, it’s rare to see coaches finish out schedules with so much going against them.
Bruce Boudreau, Canucks. What’s left to say about the Canucks’ season that they haven’t said themselves? Jim Rutherford has taken some time off from publicly slagging his coach while simultaneously refusing to fire him, but Boudreau has picked up the slack.
“As soon as something bad happens, the adversity, we cannot handle,” Boudreau said after a 6-2 loss to the Islanders on Jan. 3. “And then that’s it.” In the week since, they’ve had the dreaded “team meeting,” a win over the Avs and, of course, a 7-4 loss to Winnipeg that featured a Kyle Connor hat trick. Go back, if you can, and try to remember the five most ridiculous things to come out of Vancouver this season. Save space for this one, though. It’s barely been a week.
JT Miller: “I’d like to say my lack of production is a compliment to me not cheating the game and playing the right way.”
— Taj (@taj1944) January 2, 2023
So why is Boudreau still around? “Money” would seem to be the obvious answer, on both ends of the equation. If the ol’ in-season departure hasn’t gone down yet, maybe it won’t at all. It should, though; they’re making the rest of us uncomfortable.
(Top photo of Bruce Boudreau: Derek Cain / Getty Images)
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