Not surprisingly, the Washington Capitals front office finally moved to staunch the bleeding in this lost season, firing head coach Bruce "Butch" Cassidy. Cassidy, as I had speculated earlier this week, was replaced by assistant coach and former NHL goalie, Glen Hanlon. For a copy of the official announcement, click here.
The players simply tuned him out.
Here's one question right off the bat: just how much better can we expect the Caps to play with Hanlon behind the bench instead of Cassidy? My guess: not much at all. The real problem in Washington is a suspect defense, and there really isn't any reason to believe Hanlon is going to be able to coax more production out of a squad that simply has no depth beyond Sergei Gonchar and Brendan Witt.
Even worse, Witt suffered an unspecified "upper body injury" in the game against Colorado on Monday night. He will probably miss Thursday's game against Boston, though he hopes to return for Saturday's game against the Red Wings.
And if the Caps don't have a realistic chance to be that much better, where does the blame fall next? If you said General Manager George McPhee, you were right. As poor a communicator as Cassidy was behind the bench, it should be clear by now that he didn't exactly have a lot to work with this season. That inability to develop talent to replace departing veterans has to lay squarely at the feet of McPhee.
Yes, there are a number of young players currently with the club who may develop into solid contributors (Alexander Semin, Boyd Gordon, Brian Sutherby, and Steve Eminger), but they certainly weren't anywhere near ready to take on that larger role this season, and McPhee has to be held accountable for that failure.
Seven seasons is simply far too long for a minor league system to fail to develop at least one reliable everyday player.
Further, it was McPhee who hired Cassidy. Why? At the end of the frustrating 2001-02 season where the Caps failed to make the playoffs in the wake of the Jaromir Jagr acquisition (what a coach killer), both McPhee and Ted Leonsis initially gave public votes of confidence to then-head coach Ron Wilson. But after meeting individually with the players after the season, McPhee came to the conclusion that Wilson had lost the attention and respect of the players.
Of course, over the past season and a quarter, it was Cassidy who consistently alienated his players, culminating with his now infamous crack about how some of the team was letting concerns about their families interfere with their performance on the ice. Say what you will about the salty Wilson, but even he had enough sense in his head to avoid a slip-up like that one.
So what's next for the Capitals? This is a team that's clearly in transition. The team's nucleus simply isn't talented enough to compensate for their obvious shortcomings. The best course of action here would most likely be to determine which pieces could fetch the most value in trade (Jagr, once the Rangers decide they want to pay him, Robert Lang, and Peter Bondra), and hang onto them until the trade deadline next Spring when they'll be able to fetch as much young and cheap talent as possible.
UPDATE: Tom Benjamin says I'm screaming for McPhee's scalp because Cassidy isn't high enough up the food chain to satisfy my bloodlust. Fair enough, but on top of McPhee's failure to develop any home grown talent of consequence, in the seven seasons (including this one) the Caps have failed to make the playoffs twice, going on three times. Of the four times the Caps did make the playoffs, they advanced out of the first round only once, and not since 1998. Something tells me Tom wouldn't tolerate that sort of performance in Vancouver.
Keep in mind that the Caps have spent six of these seven seasons in the NHL's Southeast Division, the weakest in the league over that stretch. By all rights, we should have been looking at at least two more division titles over that time frame.
It’s a safe bet that Jagr will probably play like he’s in the Stanley Cup finals on Thursday night. Maybe he eventually goes to New York, maybe he doesn’t. But he’s going to let management know that they should have acted much, much sooner.
Cassidy is gone now – but why did it take so long? Blaming coaches is a disease in the NHL generally caused by GM’s who don’t want to take responsibility for their own bad player acquisitions. But in this case, the coach had it coming for a long time. And everyone knew it but Ted Leonsis.
I meant Ted’s satisfaction, not yours. I like George McPhee, but I think you are probably right. It won’t work anyway. As I understand the situation, it was Ted’s decision to acquire Jagr and Lang. That was the catastrophic error. They eat up so much payroll McPhee had no flexibility when things were obviously not working out. It was a huge risk. It blew up. Even though Ted made the mistake it always costs the GM his job.
If the GM did recommended it he should be fired. If the GM opposed it, the working relationship is probably ruined. Every time Leonsis looks at McPhee he’ll be reminded of a $75 million mistake.
It happened in Vancouver that way I think. Quinn didn’t want Gretzky. McCaw insisted but Pat managed to sour the deal. Quinn didn’t want Messier. McCaw really, really insisted. Quinn got Messier and it was a disaster.
Who gets fired?
Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Cassidy Canned
According to Sportsnet, Bruce Cassidy has been canned as coach of the Washington Capitals. Is anyone surprised? I didn’t think so. Former Canuck goaltender Glen Hanlon takes over on an interim basis. Update: Eric McErlain provides some evidence backing…
I suspect the reason NHL coaches are fired so frequently (in comparison to the other leagues) is that there’s simply too many franchises and not enough talent. There aren’t enough players to develop a quality minor-league system for many clubs
I seriously doubt that the acquisition of Roberty Lang was Leonsis call. In any event, I follow the Caps very closely and had never heard that rumor. In any event getting Lang by itself was not a mistake. they had no scoring centers and he filled that need. He’s put up the numbers over the past two years to justify his acquisition, so that was actually a good move by McPhee. The Jagr acquisition is another story. Yes, it was Leonsis’ move, but good lord, McPhee still had over $40 million in payroll left over to built a team and he still failed. You cannot say that he was constrained salary-wise. It was McPhee that failed to take advantage of the huge payrolls Leonsis was giving him, it was McPhee that made no significant blueline acquisitions (including driving away Klee and Johanssen) in his time here, and its been him who has failed to draft anyone that has had any impact at the NHL level. He has simply failed as a GM.
I seriously doubt that the acquisition of Roberty Lang was Leonsis call. In any event, I follow the Caps very closely and had never heard that rumor. In any event getting Lang by itself was not a mistake.
It was the direction that was wrong, not the specifics. The Caps were a mature team that stalled at a little above average. I think the correct way to proceed from there is to tread water while you wait for young players to develop.
Teams that decide they can go from where Washington was to elite status by opening a wallet always seem to fail. Once you spend the money on Jagr and nothing gets better, what are the options? Spend more money and get Lang. When that doesn’t work, the fans are disgusted, the rink doesn’t fill, and the financial losses pile up.
The only option is to cut payroll, but you don’t have the flexibility. You can’t unload the big ones so you ship out the guys you can ship out. That’s the way you end up without a defence.