Carolina Hurricanes Finally Blame The Coach

Hired in November of 1995, Paul Maurice was the NHL coach with the longest tenure at his current position. He is current no more. The Carolina Hurricanes fired Maurice and two assistants today, a few hours after a 2-1 overtime loss to the Vancouver Canucks.

The Hurricanes don't look any worse now than they did last season. But it seems management could no longer resist the lure of the "eject" button.

Peter Laviolette, axed last spring by the New York Islanders, takes over the job. His assistants are Kevin McCarthy, who worked with Maurice, and recently retired Hurricanes' forward Jeff Daniels.

Maurice took over the team when they were still the Hartford Whalers, moving to Carolina with the franchise in 1997. His legacy is the Hurricanes' unlikely trip to the 2002 Stanley Cup Final. After finishing the regular season in 8th place, Carolina knocked off New Jersey, Montreal and Toronto before falling to Detroit in a five-game championship series.

But the decline was equally sudden and sharp. The team squandered the excitement generated by its unexpected playoff success when it sank to last place in the entire NHL last season.

This year's Hurricanes have a record of 8-12-8-2, leaving them in 13th place out of 15 Eastern Conference teams.

There was much optimism that a reinforced defense (Bob Boughner, Danny Markov) and a couple of exciting new forwards (Eric Staal, Radim Vrbata) would lead a Carolina revival this season. It obviously hasn't happened.

The team has fared reasonably well on defense. Kevin Weekes, a veteran backup goalie, has been very good as the number-one man. But the Hurricanes can't score at all. Their average of 1.87 goals-per-game is the lowest in the league.

Key veterans like Jeff O'Neill (2 goals), Rod Brind'amour (2 goals), Bret Hedican (1 goal) and Ron Francis (minus-12) have underachieved. Younger players like Erik Cole and Jaroslav Svoboda have never lived up to the potential they showed during the great 2002 playoff run.

Time to find out if the coach was the problem.