Did the team hire the wrong players? Did they quit on the coach? Or did the coach simply not know what he was doing?
Those questions arise whenever an NHL coach is fired. With today's news that the Pittsburgh Penguins have fired Ed Olczyk, the common assumption will be option number three: Ed wasn't up to the job. The Pens added the game's most phenomenal teenager and a slew of free agent veterans last summer. But so far, they're as bad as they were two years ago, when the lineup was filled with half-formed prospects and fourth-liners.
When Olczyk was hired in 2003, he came to the job with excellent credentials as an NHL player and broadcaster, and everyone said he was a really great guy. He had never coached a hockey game in his life. It turned out to be a serious gap in the resume.
You can't blame the Penguins for trying something different. Before Olczyk, they had gone through four experienced coaches - Rick Kehoe, Ivan Hlinka, Herb Brooks and Kevin Constantine - in five years. Now they go back to another one - Michel Therrien. It's a change of pace: When Therrien coached the Montreal Canadiens a few years ago, nobody ever called him Smilin' Michel or Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky.
"The country club was closed, and it was time for hockey boot camp," wrote an Associated Press reporter, after witnessing the team's first practice under Therrien.
Comments