The Number-One Rule of NHL General Managers: Blame The Coach

There are numerous ways for a hockey team to fail, which is not surprising, considering that most of them fail most of the time. For contrasting and convincing portraits of failure, consider the St. Louis Blues and Phoenix Coyotes, two NHL teams that fired their coaches yesterday.

Bob Francis, who put in five years as head coach in Phoenix, was a leftover from a previous regime. He was on the job before Wayne Gretzky came aboard as managing partner, and long before Mike Barnett was handpicked as Gretzky’s general manager. But the team was winning under Francis, so they could not find an excuse to fire him until now.

Phoenix is about to miss the playoffs, which will leave the Coyotes with two playoff appearances in the last five seasons. Considering what he had to work with, those results should have earned Francis a raise.

After losing their top centerman, Mike Johnson, to a season-ending injury, this year's Coyotes are exactly where many of us expected them to be. You can't blame the coach, not unless the coach makes trades and negotiates contracts.

It should be noted that the day before Francis lost his job, the Coyotes put veteran winger Brian Savage on waivers, hoping against hope that a rival might relieve them of a near-invisible forward who makes $3.75-million per year. Fat chance.

Was there anyone outside the Coyotes’ offices who did not laugh when Savage was handed a $14-million deal in 2002? Or when they made a big free agent splash by handing Tony Amonte a four-year, $24-million contract, only to trade him for next to nothing a few months later?

In throwing Francis overboard, Gretzky and Barnett carefully avoided any mention of their laughable trading record. No talk of the how center Michal Handzus and goaltender Robert Esche were sent to Philadelphia to get their “goalie of the future,” Brian Boucher. Is there a team anywhere that would make the same deal today? And why trade a small, speedy forward who can score (Daniel Briere) for a big, slow guy who can’t (Chris Gratton)?

If anyone can spot a method to the Coyotes’ madness, call Bob Francis. He’s probably wondering about it himself.

The St. Louis Blues, on the other hand, are quite sure of what they want: a blockbuster, star-laden team that can knock off Detroit, Colorado and Dallas. But like the New York Rangers, they have been spending more to win less. Of course, coach Joel Quenneville takes the blame.

In 2000, the Blues won the President’s Trophy with the best regular season record in the NHL. They could have kept that team together. Instead, they started chasing free agents, making big trades, loading up on stars and blowing lots of money. And they’ve been moving backwards ever since.

St. Louis can be unstoppable on many nights, and for stretches of several weeks at a time. But stars like Doug Weight and Keith Tkachuk appear unwilling to show up for every game. And for all their free-spending ways, the Blues always rummage through the bargain bin to find goalies. The latest number-one, Chris Osgood, is performing no better than anyone outside St. Louis expected. Add a series of key injuries on defense, and the Blues’ slide to the fringes of the playoff race is not as surprising as it first appears.

Considering the big names on the job – Tkachuk, Weight, Chris Pronger – the coach must bear some responsibility. But Joel Quenville did not assemble this uninspired mess.

Watching general manager Larry Pleau explain the coaching change yesterday, while dodging accountability for his own shoddy work, one was reminded of the mantra that defines the relationship between all NHL general managers and their coaches: I win, we tie, you lose.