Paul Maurice is in his second season coaching the Florida Panthers, trying to lead them to their second consecutive Stanley Cup Final appearance. You were recently told that in your current profession, two years seems like an eternity.
This is the life he chose.
“Tough business,” said Maurice. “It could have been a doctor.”
Job security is basically an oxymoron in the world of professional coaching, and the turnover rate currently in the NHL is wild. In the four largest professional sports leagues in the US – Major League Baseball, NBA, NFL and NHL – there are 124 teams, so there are 124 head coaching positions. Only 45% of this current total have been in their current jobs for more than two full seasons.
The NFL has about 60% of its coaches entering Year 3 or more, and the rate is 53% for both MLB managers and NBA coaches.
In the NHL, the revolving door is swinging faster than anywhere else. Toronto’s firing of Sheldon Keefe last week reduced the list of NHL coaches in his current job more than two years ago to just five of 32, or essentially 16%. Spencer Carbery, signed by Washington less than a year ago, is already the 13th longest-tenured in the NHL.
“I have thoughts on that,” Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said of the NHL coaching longevity, or lack thereof. “It’s crazy.”
Tampa Bay’s Jon Cooper, Pittsburgh’s Mike Sullivan, Colorado’s Jared Bednar, Carolina’s Rod Brind’Amour and Montreal’s Martin St. Louis are the five with more than two years in their current position. Adding up all the mid-season changes, the NHL has had 39 different coaches this season, tying the record set two years ago.
“We coach at a time when everyone is talking about the modern athlete, building relationships to coach them,” DeBoer said. “And how do you do that with that kind of turnover? It’s like going on a date and getting married and divorced before the appetizers come out. I don’t understand. But, you know, that’s the world we live in.”
With few exceptions – San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich has coached the Spurs since 1996, there have been more than 280 coaching changes in the NBA, and Miami’s Erik Spoelstra has led the Heat since 2008 – the notion of coaches being recycled from a job for others it is not new.
In the NBA, Doc Rivers took over the Milwaukee Bucks midseason earlier this year, becoming the fifth different head coaching job in his career. Frank Vogel’s one-year stint, which ended with his firing in Phoenix, was the fourth different franchise for him, and four of eight coaches in the NBA conference semifinals – New York’s Tom Thibodeau, Indiana’s Rick Carlisle, Jason Kidd of Dallas and JB Bickerstaff of Cleveland – are on their third stop as head coach.
In the NFL, Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin is now the longest-tenured in his current role following Bill Belichick’s departure from New England. There have been 140 changes since Tomlin was hired in 2007.
Maybe there’s something in the water off Florida’s Gulf Coast that allows trainers to keep their gigs going longer than most. Kevin Cash is in his tenth season as manager of the Tampa Bay Rays; no one in MLB has held their current managerial position longer. And there have been 122 coaching changes in the NHL since Cooper took over in Tampa Bay.
“Ultimately, it comes down to being fortunate enough to have a lot of good players and good teams,” Cash said.
That’s the key in any sport, and it’s something that some in hockey say is missing. Winning takes time. Building a team takes time. But in an era where player salaries continue to rise, patience is in increasingly short supply. Win now or else.
“There really has been an unprecedented number of layoffs,” Lindsay Pennal, executive director of the NHL Coaches Association, said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. There has been a cycle, and if you look at the average tenure of a coach is only 2.2 years, part of where we are today is just related to the cyclical turnover in coaching.
“But I also feel that there are other factors that have contributed to the firing of coaches that are not related to the performance of the coaches and the positive aspects they have brought to the team, whether it is management looking for ways to shift responsibility for poor performance or to maintain the rest of the organization happy.”
Doug Armstrong, whose midseason firing of 2019 Cup winner Craig Berube was his fourth coaching change in 14 years as general manager of the St. Louis Blues, said sometimes “change is inevitable.” This turnover, he wonders, might be too much.
“If you look at the number of changes in the coaching fraternity over the last 36 months, personally I’m not sure that’s healthy,” Armstrong said. “I hope that changes.”
Keefe, New Jersey’s Lindy Ruff, Buffalo’s Don Granato and Seattle’s Dave Hakstol were all fired before new contract extensions even took effect. Keefe’s was arguably the least surprising after the Maple Leafs lost in the first round of the playoffs for the fourth time in the fifth year with him at the helm.
Some of his colleagues who run deeper runs are well-travelled. The New York Rangers are Peter Laviolette’s sixth stop. Dallas is fifth for DeBoer. Florida is the fourth position held by Maurice, who is on pace – including playoff numbers – to join Scotty Bowman as the only ones in the NHL to coach 2,000 games.
Everyone was fired, then hired, then fired, then hired. And so it goes, in the life they chose. Maurice was told a few days ago that he has been on the job longer than most NHL coaches; “Wait a month,” he laughed.
“It’s a difficult profession, for sure,” Maurice said. “And what you find is that there are people who can fall into coaching and end up loving it. … There are 32 such jobs. line of work. The only positive is that if you can get fired enough times, you can make a career out of it. And for every coach who is fired, another is hired.
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AP Sports Writer Stephen Hawkins in Dallas contributed.
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