I'll be skipping my regular NHL Roundup feature today so I can concentrate on the firing of Bruce Cassidy in Washington. First, if you missed it, here's what I had to say yesterday evening.
ESPN.com's Jim Kelley says the firing was delayed because of a combination of "money and pride." Sports Illustrated's John Dolezar says that ownership's hesitancy to can Cassidy probably cost the team a chance at turning around the season.
Here's the standard straight news account from the Washington Post.
The Post's Jason LaCanfora has a more detailed treatment, including this disturbing anecdote:
After being named coach of the Washington Capitals in 2002, Bruce Cassidy walked into the team's Piney Orchard training facility for his first official address to his new players. Standing in front of the team, he reached into his pocket and, as one player on the squad at the time recounted, pulled out a paper napkin.On it were some hand-written notes Cassidy had jotted down before the session.
"It was bad right from the start," this former Capital said. "He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and started writing stuff on the blackboard. Everyone was just kind of looking at each other. We didn't know what was going on. It looked like he was winging it. He had all summer to prepare for this day and it looked like he didn't know what he was doing. Guys started to worry right away."
That's a story that probably sent a chill down the spine of Caps GM George McPhee. I wonder if Caps owner Ted Leonsis had ever heard it before? To hear more from LaCanfora, click here for a transcript of an online chat he participated in this morning.
The Post's Michael Wilbon weighs in, and says that Mike Keenan should have gotten a call:
Look, there's a work stoppage coming. The team is in last place. The owner is trying to dump salaries, understandably. George McPhee's position, given he hired Cassidy, has to be tenuous. The best coaches in the world aren't going to be begging to come to Washington. But an out-of-work Keenan with nothing to lose but time would at least be interesting, which is more than the Capitals have been able to say about their team in the last few seasons.
Why not take this route, indeed? An interesting question, but moot at this point. Essentially, McPhee has laid out the strategy for the Caps, and it goes something like this.
As ESPN.com's Kelley pointed out not long ago, with the lockout looming, there are now two types of franchises in the NHL: one one hand, we have those who think they have a legitimate shot at one more Stanley Cup. Those teams will load up with as much talent as they possibly can for one more run at a championship.
On the other hand, we have the franchises who are going to finish out of the money, and know it. In an attempt to re-tool for whatever new economic reality arises after the expiration of the current collective bargaining agreement. This is the group the Capitals now find themselves in. The only question now is this: how long to wait before starting the fire sale? Do you unload talent now, hoping to get a good deal before the market gets flooded with talent, or do you gamble, and hold out for the best deal at the deadline?
The Post's cross-town rival, the Washington Times, rarely has the resources to compete head on with the Post, but today they've put together an impressive package on Cassidy. Start reading with David Elfin's piece here. The paper's Eric Fisher looks at the firing in terms of Leonsis' five-year plan to bring the Stanley Cup back to Washington. Elfin has another piece, a profile of Hanlon, here.
Finally, Dan Daly takes a harder look at something that McPhee admitted in yesterday's press conference: that the team never recovered from last season's first round playoff loss to Tampa Bay.
When Daly looks at it, he thinks the collapse demoralized the entire organization, both on and off the ice:
In the locker room after the series-ending loss, Ted Leonsis looked not just depressed (a perfectly understandable reaction) but rejected. Utterly. The reason for the latter was all the empty seats at the game, thousands of them. This, after he had spared no expense to build a winner. What that told him, he said, was that Washington simply wasn't buying what he was selling. And then he spoke these memorable words, words that still hover over the franchise: "The market has spoken." In the days that followed, Leonsis regained his senses and backtracked a bit. No, he assured the fans, he wasn't going to blow up the team. But a certain amount of damage had been already done. If the owner is even thinking about packing it in, well, there can't help but be a trickle-down effect within the organization.
And trickle down it did -- to the players, the fans, and the sponsors. The result is a team that's in as worse shape from top to bottom as any in the NHL. The effort to right the ship started yesterday. Whether or not it will be enough to turn around the franchise is another question entirely.
Oh, Wilbon. How characteristic of you to work in a reference to St. Michael Jordan in one of your rare and ill-advised hockey columns. Kornheiser is no better, but at least tends to admit that he doesn’t know hockey. Mike Keenan is wildly overrated and overpriced (and well done by La Canfora to mention it in his chat), has always clashed with both players and management, and won *once* ten years ago with a team that was led by Messier more than it was by him. And in the inevitable comparison to the NBA, (I don’t particularly follow the NBA because it sucks, so correct me if I’m wrong) what exactly do the Memphis Grizzlies and the Caps have in common? Anything?
(On the other hand, being coached by Keenan might provoke Jagr to retire, thus saving the Caps millions. Wilbon, you genius!)
Bring the cup “back” to Washington? How touching to a Habs fan, dear boy.
I can’t help but draw comparisons between Cassidy’s rough ride and that of Steve Ludzik, current Lightning coach John Tortorella’s predecessor in Tampa Bay. Ludzik had great success coaching in the minors, and was coming off an IHL championship with the Detroit Vipers, owned by the same group that had just bought the Lightning. He didn’t have a whole lot to work with in Tampa Bay, but it seemed to me that he developed a malaise for the job after the first year. He never found an effective way to communicate with the players, and even reading his post-game comments (especially toward the end), you could sense he had run out of ideas. (Ludzik is now an assistant for Florida, brought on board by Rick Dudley, who also recruited him while with the Lightning.)
Don Hay went through some similar stuff a few years ago: He had a great coaching career in juniors and the minors, got the head coaching job in Phoenix and had early success, then things quickly went south and he got fired. He got a second chance with Calgary shortly thereafter, and again was shown the door when things went sour.
I wonder if the jump from the minors to a first-time NHL head coaching job is too big a leap. The more typical path is to build some success in the lower levels, then gain NHL experience either scouting or as an assistant/associate coach, and then get a shot at head coaching. It seems to me the immersion in the big league teaches a future coach a lot that way.