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Jul 25, 2023

Grading the Recent NHL GM and Head Coach Hires

The NHL's latest general manager and head coaching cycle is underway with some

The NHL's latest general manager and head coaching cycle is underway with some big moves happening across the league.

We have seen some old faces get new jobs, some new names rise to the NHL, and some of the league's top teams make potentially franchise-altering choices.

It is not too early to start the grading process, either. So let's dig into it.

As of Wednesday we have seen six new GM and head coach hirings become official, with some rumored moves that could be on the horizon.

When it comes to the grading we are looking for track record, some sort of a vision and a plan, and what kind of fit each person might be for their new team, as well as the excitement factor that might come with all of it.

After losing to the No. 8 seed Florida Panthers in five games in the Second Round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, you had to know some kind of change was coming to the Toronto Maple Leafs organization.

This is, after all, a franchise that has now just won a single playoff series in this seven-year run with this core.

Changes could be coming to the roster this offseason and there is going to be a new person directing those changes with Brad Treliving replacing Kyle Dubas.

It seemed that Dubas was on track to return as the Maple Leafs' general manager, but things took a dramatic turn at his end-of-the-season press conference. The team parted ways with him and responded by bringing in Treliving following nearly a decade run with the Calgary Flames.

During his time in Calgary he had a couple of really good draft classes that produced players like Matthew Tkachuk, Adam Fox (even if he never signed in Calgary), Rasmus Andersson, Dillon Dube and Andrew Mangiapane.

His trade and free-agent moves at the NHL level have been a bit of a mixed bag, with some very strong moves (acquiring Dougie Hamilton and then getting a nice return for him) and some regrettable decisions. The Tkachuk trade this past offseason looked strong on paper at the time, but badly backfired during the 2022-23 season. Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar bouncing back will help determine how his most consequential move in Calgary will eventually be remembered.

Treliving has a strong reputation and solid track record of building competitive teams. He is not a new, up-and-coming face in the GM game, but they could have done a lot worse on the retread market.

He is also not afraid to make big moves involving big-name players. That could be something to watch with the Maple Leafs' core as they try to shake things up and find more playoff success.

The minute it was announced that Dubas and the Maple Leafs would be parting ways, it seemed inevitable that the Pittsburgh Penguins were going to be interested in him.

It actually seemed inevitable even before that news was announced.

Technically speaking Dubas was hired as the Penguins' President of Hockey Operations and he could still hire a general manager to work alongside him. But at the end of the day, this is going to be Dubas' ship to guide and it was probably the best possible option for the Penguins, all things considered.

Even though he is going to have quite a mess to clean up from the Ron Hextall/Brian Burke era in Pittsburgh, he can not possibly be any worse.

The most encouraging thing about his arrival in Pittsburgh seems to be the fact that he will have a more direct and clearer plan than his predecessors. He knows he has a core of players that are still capable of winning, he knows time is limited with them, and he knows what is expected.

He also excels in a lot of the areas where Hextall and Burke failed, especially when it comes to building a front office and putting the right people into place.

Dubas also brings the type analytical mind and approach that Fenway Sports Group seems to like in its executives, while also having a player and scouting background.

It is also a perfect fit for the Penguins as a hockey team.

For the past 30 years they have been a team that has thrived on big names and big, blockbuster moves, while Dubas' approach to team-building and playing style perfectly aligns with how the Penguins have made a name for themselves.

He was the biggest front office name available. The Penguins got him.

On one hand, the Flames get credit for going with a new face that has not failed somewhere else.

They reportedly interviewed the likes of Marc Bergevin, Stan Bowman and Peter Chiarelli during the search process, all of whom would have been potentially disastrous hires with some ugly baggage. Those are not paths an NHL team should want to go down right now for a variety of reasons.

So positive marks for not doing that.

On the other hand, was an internal promotion the best possible option for turning this team around? Especially with some of the other potential candidates that were out there, including Carolina's Eric Tulsky and Tampa Bay's Mathieu Darche?

Brad Treliving's time in Calgary was not a complete failure and did have its strong moments. Conroy certainly had at least some hand in those decisions. He knows the strengths and weaknesses of the roster, he knows what the team needs, and he should have a first-hand knowledge of what sort of coach the players are going to need after the Darryl Sutter failure.

But anytime you are dealing with a GM that has no track record running a team there is a mystery element to it and Conroy is still very much an unknown in that regard. The Flames are in an interesting position where they missed the playoffs this past season, but still have a roster that should have enough talent to compete.

A lot of their success or failure this seasaon will depend on what they can get out of Jonathan Huberdeau after a brutal debut season in Calgary, and if Jacob Markstrom can bounce back in goal. A lot of the high-end players should already be in place. It will be up to them to perform and Conroy to complement them.

At 60 years of age Cronin is a bit older than you might typically see for a first-time NHL head coach, but he certainly brings an interesting resume with him to Anaheim.

He has 36 years of pro hockey experience as a player and coach, and spent the past five years coaching the Colorado Avalanche's American Hockey League team.

The Ducks are hoping that his experience working with young players can play a pivotal role in helping to improve what was the NHL's worst team during the 2022-23 season and is loaded with young talent.

The Ducks had nine players age 24 or younger appear in at least 20 games this past season, including major contributions from Trevor Zegras and Mason McTavish. With another high pick on the way the Ducks have a pretty strong collection of young talent to build around, and simply need a coach that can bring all of them together and get the most out of them.

That was not happening under former coach Dallas Eakins and it was pretty clear that a change was needed to help get this team trending back in the right direction.

One thing is for sure: Even with the impressive talent on the roster that is probably not going to be a quick turnaround for Cronin and the Ducks. So it would be unfair to grade his debut season on simply wins and losses. He needs time, and a lot of it. A successful debut would be the young Ducks' players taking meaningful steps forward and the team at least inching its way back to respectability.

The initial feel here is they hired a coach whose strengths (player development) tie into the current roster's biggest needs, while also going with a fresh face with potentially new ideas and a new voice.

The Nashville Predators have been alarmingly consistent throughout their entire existence.

Mostly consistent in their results.

Consistent in the names and faces running the whole operation.

Definitely consistent in their style of play.

Barry Trotz is taking over as just the second general manager in franchise history after David Poile ran the team from day one.

Andrew Brunette, meanwhile, will be just the fourth different head coach in the quarter century history of the team.

That is not a lot of change in any way. And while even Trotz is a familiar face (having been the team's first head coach and running the team for 15 years) there does appear to be a dramatic shift in how the organization is going to do business and run things.

Trotz has already talked extensively about what sort of player he wants his scouts to find in the draft, urging them to take home-run swings and try to find players that will bring people out of their seats.

Based on Brunette's brief coaching history, he seems to embrace that sort of player and style as well.

His only head coaching experience in the NHL was a 75-game stint with the Florida Panthers during the 2021-22 season when he took over for Joel Quenneville. He helped lead the Panthers to a Presidents' Trophy as the league's best regular-season team and oversaw a team that averaged more than four goals per game, something that had not been done over an 82-game season since 1995-96.

Despite that, the Panthers still decided to bring in Paul Maurice to be their head coach this season (a move that has clearly worked out well) while Brunette took an assistant coaching position in New Jersey where he helped lead another fast-paced, high-scoring team.

Based on Trotz's words and Brunette's limited track record as a coach the Predators could be heading toward a very different style of play. The only criticism might be that they needed an approach like this a few years ago when they actually had a better roster that might be able to play that style of hockey.

Even though the Washington Capitals still have big-money veterans like Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Evgeny Kuznetsov, T.J. Oshie and John Carlson on the roster, this is very clearly a team going through a transition.

The core is getting older and regressing, but there was a bit of a shift at the trade deadline with the team looking toward the future as the Caps tried to bring in some younger assets and players.

As long as the aforementioned core is still in place and as long as Ovechkin is chasing Wayne Gretzky's all-time goal record, this is never going to be a team that goes into a full-scale rebuild mode. At least not yet.

But it still needs to get younger, faster and more skilled to keep up with the teams in the Eastern Conference that have passed them by in recent years.

Bringing in a young coach might be a good way to help with that transition, especially after Peter Laviolette did not do much to help speed up that process. If anything, he stagnated it while also not helping the team produce short-term results.

Carbery has a history with the Capitals organization having spent several years coached for the organization with the AHL's Hershey Bears (and winning the AHL coach of the year award) and was regarded as one of the rising star coaching candidates in the league.

It is not official yet, but the Blue Jackets are rumored to be hiring former Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Mike Babcock when his current contract with Toronto expires later this month.

It reeks of a desperate move by a desperate team willing to try anything to return itself to relevance.

Not only does Babcock bring extensive baggage for the way he exited Toronto with an army of former players sharing awful stories for how he treated them, he is also a coach whose reputation and resume has been greatly overstated in recent years.

A Babcock-coached team has not won a playoff series since 2013 and only one playoff series since 2010. Basically, as soon as Nicklas Lidstrom and Brian Rafalski retired, so too did his ability to win in the playoffs.

He just seems to be the exact opposite of what most successful teams are looking for in coaching hires while also bringing terrible PR along with him. If he could not find success with star-filled Toronto rosters, what is he going to do with one of the worst teams in the league in Columbus? Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen is taking a big chance on this move if it becomes official. If he is wrong, there is no way he gets to hire the next coach after Babcock.

The two most common names associated with the Rangers at this point are Laviolette and Hynes, and neither does much to move the needle in an exciting way.

This is a delicate time for the Rangers because their roster has the talent to win right now, and the fanbase and organization have Stanley Cup expectations.

But they need the right type of coach to help get them there. Gerard Gallant clearly was not it. Their solution to that seems to be brining in a similar-styled coach as Laviolette and Hynes seem to be at the top of the list.

The biggest key for the Rangers is going to be getting their young talent -- Alexis Lafreniere, Kaapo Kakko, K'Andre Miller, etc. -- to develop into impact players and become the stars the team hoped they would be when they used high first-round picks on them. Gallant was never able to do that, and neither Laviolette or Hynes have much of a track record in helping young players do that.

They are boring candidates. Safe candidates. The Rangers need neither of those things. They need somebody bold that can get the most out of their young, franchise-changing talents.