It’s been a tough week for coaches in the NHL. Larry Robinson resigned as head coach of the New Jersey Devils due to stress, the Penguins fired Ed Olczyk and Wayne Gretzky took a leave of absence from his duties in Phoenix in order to be with his dying mother.
The Devils have Lou Lamoriello temporarily coaching the team he manages which should lead to nothing changing for the Devils as they continue to struggle. At this point, I don’t see the Devils making any sort of run at a top spot in the East unless Martin Brodeur starts getting really hot in net. That may happen during the Olympics as Brodeur will play for Team Canada and if he does well there it will certainly carry on once the NHL season resumes play following the Olympic Games but the Devils don’t have much of anything else going on for them.
The Penguins have hired former Habs head coach Michel Therrien to take over for Ed Olczyk behind the bench and behind a bunch of guys who quite frankly are playing horribly and have been all season. That’s not breaking news of any sort but that’s all that can be said, this team sucks. However, don’t take my complete word for it, as I live in Los Angeles and therefore have no interest in keepin up with crappy East coast hockey.
So, to help me *and* inform you of what is really going on in Pittsburgh, here’s Inside Pulse’s own Mark Neeley with his take on the Penguins shaky season and the decision to fire Ed Olczyk:
As a long time diehard fan, pretty much most of my life for that
matter of the Pittsburgh Penguins, I would like to add my insight on
the recent firing of Eddie Olzyk.
The bottom line is that the players let Ed down. Olczyk was a guy
that Mario personally brought in to coach the Pens last season. They
had a pretty awful year last year, playing with mainly young players
like Ryan Malone, Rico Fata, Konstantin Koltsov and Sebastien Caron.
That team was one who you can look at and know why they had a bad
season? But this season’s team is a totally different story…
In the offseason, Olczyk made a series of trades/signigns along with
team owner and captain Mario Lemiuex to bring in veteran guys. They
got forwards like Mark Recchi, Ziggy Palffy and John Leclaire and the
first round draft pick, rookie phenom Sidney Crosby. They got better
defensive guys like Sergei Gonchar. They got veteran goaltender
Jocelyn T-Bo from Chicago. Every last one of them has been a
dissapointment. These are former all-stars who aren’t producing, and
playing like a lazy, relentless, undisciplined team. The only one
playing up to his anticipation is Sidney Crosby, who has the most
points on the team, and is already an Assitant Captain his rookie
year, one of the immediate team decisions made by the new coach when
Olczyk was fired. In fact, not longer before the firing was set into
motion by GM Craig Patrick, Crosby had mentioned in an interview that
it was “time for a coaching change.”
Unfortunately, when a team is losing and isn’t getting better, the
obvious thing to do is look at the coach, and so Pen’s GM Craig
Patrick did, and fired Olczyk and his staff of coaches. His team was
the biggest dissapointment of the season, a team who looked like a
play-off calibur team coming in, and who is one of the laughing stocks
of the season. NHL analysis Barry Melrose even went as far as saying
the Penguins are the “worst team in the league.” Personally I
wouldn’t go that for when you have teams like Columbus, but they are
certainly down at the bottom of the league.
Patrick did the logical thing then, and brought up the coach from the
Pen’s American Hockey League affiliate, the Wilkes-Barre Scranton
Penguins, who are the best team in the AHL. Despite to many beliefs,
the Pens aren’t going to get any better, at least not this season
anyway. Give them a few years when the younger guys like Eric
Christensen, Ryan Whitney, and Marc-Andre Fluery develop.
Mark Neeley
At this point the Pens are a bottom 5 team in the league during what was supposed to be the breakthrough season for them. This was what the Penguins wanted, this is what Mario wanted, an even playing field for the entire league to play on. Salary cap, balanced finances, opening up the game for more scoring, cutting down on obstruction. These are things that the Penguins and other teams who were in the same position desperately wanted and now they’ve fallen flat on their faces sporting an 8-18-7 record….basically, they’re record is 8-25. That’s two wins more than the worst team in the league.
Meanwhile, on the Olympic front, Team USA was selected and Jeremy Roenick was not amongst the players selected after he made sure to announce that he “better” be on the tean. Well, he’s not and he pretty much blasted the people in charge by saying he’s been blackballed from the start. That may be a stretch but the fact is if that Keith Tkachuk has 15 points in 10 games after missing the first two months of the season and Roenick has 13 points in 21 games then there’s not much of a controversy over who isn’t playing at their potential. I’ve watched Roenick a lot this season and he’s been getting better, a lot better. Fans here in Los Angeles root for him and for Luc Robitaille, they’re two guys who are older than most of the other Kings players and two guys who are easy to cheer on because they enjoy playing and they’re damn good. But this season has been a struggle for both of them and that’s been due to the year off and injuries. After having a great game against Vancouver on Monday, Roenick broke his finger and will now be out 4 to 6 weeks. Robitaille has been a healthy scratch for 3 straight games, the longest tenure he’s had on the bench during his 19 year career that didn’t involve him being injured. Before the season, the plan between them was to play on the same line and get Luc 30 goals. Robitaille is currently at 5 and Roenick is out of the lineup.
So, Team USA has it’s roster (which I’ll delve into in another column) and once again, Team USA is sporting an old bunch with lackluster scoring ability. If you like one-timers then this is your team. If you want skill and about a handful of game breaking players then you have to look up north. Not to say that Roenick would have made much of a difference but after looking at the final selections which include guys like Doug Weight and Bill Guerin (who aren’t doing all that well themselves) then it wouldn’t have hurt to throw J.R. into the bunch.
What’s going on with Edmonton? After their win over Vancouver the Oilers are now tied for first in the Northwest after what seemed like nothing but talk about how Peca and Pronger weren’t fitting in and now the OIlers are running neck and neck with Calgary and Vancouver. Peca scored a shorthanded goal against the Canucks and Pronger scored to tie the game at 5-5. The best moment of the game, mainly due to the odd circumstance, was Edmonton goalie Ty Conklin trying to clear the puck from his crease and up the middle only to have the puck hit Brendan Morrison, who was skating in, and end up in the net and giving the Canucks an easy goal.
With Edmonton now tied for first in the NW Division, all 5 real Canadian teams are in the thick of things while the Leafs are barely hanging on to the 8th spot in the East. The Leafs are missing some guys like Lindros but the main reason these guys are struggling is a rather shaky defense and the lack of production on Mats Sundin’s part. Sundin needs to pick things up as at this point a guy like Jason Allison looks like the first line center, which hasn’t been the case for him in about 3 years.
Finally, thank you to Mark Neeley for contributing and make sure to stop by and read up on Mark Neeley’s recaps of Friday Night Smackdown! and TNA Impact! over in the wrestling section of Inside Pulse.
There won’t be a medal for team U.S.A. by the way…..just for the record.
