Are The Leafs Crazy For Hiring A Coach Before A GM?
June 10th, 2008 by Steve
Nope. Not even close. Crazy you say? Then I guess the NHL Stanley Cup Finalist Pittsburgh Penguins are crazy. I guess the San Jose Sharks, whom Wilson was recently turfed by have no idea how to run their franchise. Tom Hicks has let his “mis” management take the Dallas Stars to the Western Conference finals this past season. The Colorado Avalanche certainly suffer for all THEIR silly management techniques, and while I don’t think anyone is looking to Charles Wang for pointers on how to run a team, the Islanders weren’t the first, or apparently the last team to make the same “mistake”. Every team I’ve mentioned has put an NHL head coach in place before bringing in a different GM.
The Sharks actually hired Ron Wilson during a mid-season shake up of their coaching in 2002-03, before hiring their current GM Doug Wilson on May 13th of 2003 after firing Dean Lombardi.
Dallas decided to part ways with Doug Armstrong as GM this season before promoting his assistant Les Jackson alongside new guy Brett Hull. But the Stars didn’t touch Dave Tippet as head coach… he’s still behind the bench.
Colorado brought in Francois Giguere as GM on May 24th of 2006, but they hired Joel Quennville in 2004. Eventually Quennville left the team this off season, only to be replaced by Tony Granato - who actually was an assistant under Quennville, and was head coach of the team from 2002 till 2004. Giguere has never really brought in his own man as coach - and Colorado hasn’t exactly nosedived.
Vancouver fired Dave Nonis earlier this summer, before replacing him with ex player agent Mike Gillis. They didn’t touch Alain Vigneault in the process.
The Pittsburgh Penguins replaced Ed Olczyk as head coach with Michel Terrien on December 15th of 2005. They didn’t bring in Ray Shero as GM until December of 2006 - a year later. That doesn’t seem to have hurt their development.
While Charles Wang is considered nuts in many circles, some might consider blaming his ex-GM Mike Milbury for many of the Isles mistakes. He brought in Neil Smith as GM and Ted Nolan as head coach upon making his way up the ladder to run Wang’s sports operations as executive VP. Smith was almost immediately fired and replaced by then back up goaltender Garth Snow. Snow didn’t do a thing to replace Nolan at the time of his hiring. The Isles are still rebuilding and nobody is laughing about the Snow/Nolan duo anymore.
Frankly all the babbling over the Leafs doing things “backwards” is the media frothing at the mouth over nothing. Many successful franchises have hired GM’s before coaches, while many have hired coaches before GM’s. It doesn’t really MATTER who is hired when, so much as whether they work well together or not. Frankly their jobs shouldn’t over lap. The coaches should coach, the GM’s should deal with building the team. Most problems arise when they meddle in the wrong realms. The more you read about how “backwards” Leafs management is - remind yourself that Pittsburgh, Colorado, San Jose, and Dallas must all be fairly backwards too… unless the media don’t really know what they’re talking about.
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7 Responses to “Are The Leafs Crazy For Hiring A Coach Before A GM?”
By LeaferSutherland on Jun 10, 2008
While your examples may be true, I would be more interested in knowing which teams chose to hire a coach first, when both jobs were vacant at the same time.
By Steve on Jun 11, 2008
Unfortunately that doesn’t describe the Leafs situation either. The GM post is not vacant - it is occupied by Cliff Fletcher, though on an interim basis.
The fact that a GM is typically hired “first” only matters to people in the sense that GM’s typically wish to hire their “own” coach. Perhaps the Leafs just shot themselves in the foot by attaching the “temporary” tag to Cliff Fletcher in the first place.
Either way, it’s not particularly relevant to my point that hiring a coach before you hire a GM is not something that NEVER happens.
No team in the NHL has both positions “vacant” for any length of time at the same time. It just isn’t something that happens. Coaching vacancies occur in the off season, and can take more time to fill… GM on the other hand is almost never vacant for an extended period of time.
By scotty on Jun 11, 2008
This whole idea of having a GM hire their “own” coach can backfire too if you just create a two-headed monster that lacks objectivity. I would think that having a GM and coach who are free to disagree with each other and discuss their opinions openly in a non-threatening manner would be more beneficial than a “yes-man” coach that bows to the GM at every turn. It can really be looked at in two ways: 1) when a GM hires the coach, it is probably harder to fire him if he needs firing and 2) if he didn’t hire the coach, he may fire him too soon just to get his own buddy coach in there that he played peewee hockey with or whatever. I also agree with you that the Toronto media just needs someting to talk about so they criticize every move made by the Leafs (granted, they are due for criticism just like any organization, but sometimes, like this time, it’s just talk).
By eyebleaf on Jun 11, 2008
The GM post is not vacant - it is occupied by Cliff Fletcher, though on an interim basis.
that’s the key.
IT’S NOT FREAKING VACANT
By LeaferSutherland on Jun 11, 2008
The fact that Fletch is the man temporarily, is semantics. There is a search committee currently looking for a new GM (supposedly), so therefor the job is vacant.
By Steve on Jun 11, 2008
If you think the difference between “vacant” and “searching for a replacement” is pure semantics, I would ask why the Leafs bothered to sign Cliff Fletcher to an 18 month contract.
It’s not like they enjoy giving money away - as attested by their high ticket prices.
Obviously they realized that hiring Cliff permanently was an unlikely proposition given his age, but they also realized hiring someone might take some time. Fletcher is the “interim” GM in name only. The “interim” tag could be removed, and instead replaced with the fact that he was only signed to a 1.5 year deal.
By LeaferSutherland on Jun 12, 2008
By their own admissions, we are now left with plan C.
All I am saying is that a scenario where Hull and Jackson may have been taken on in Dallas while having the the chance to decide head coach Tippet’s fate, is far different than what is happening here.
About the only scenario where I can find any sort of comparison, is what the Leafs chose to do last season. Claim they wanted to add an Advisor to guide GM JFJ through the season. And of course, never acquiring one.
Liking both Ron Wilson and Cliff Fletcher and what they bring to the table is far different than being optimistic about the Leaf’s plans. For 2 years straight now, they have yet to deliver on anything they have promised their fans.