NHL Head Coaches & the Obstacles They Face

The biggest obstacle is the leap. Most of the coaches in the AHL have made stops previously in other developmental leagues, so they have experience in those leagues. However, they are young, often in their early 40s, and suddenly asked to compete against coaches with decades of NHL experience. It leaves these coaches with their heads spinning.

Assistant/Associate Coach: Good Cop to Bad Cop

These coaches are often the most prepared for the NHL. They are the ones who have been behind the bench and know the systems, the players, and everything that makes a pro team work. The big problem is that they often go from the “good cop” to the “bad cop” or from being the player-friendly coach to the one who must hold the team accountable. That adjustment usually results in losing the locker room and losing it fast.

Lane Lambert’s tenure with the New York Islanders was a prime example of that. He was poised to become a great head coach after spending years behind the New York Islanders and a Barry Trotz bench. Then he became the head coach, but things unraveled halfway through his second season and he was fired. The Seattle Kraken are pushing their luck by hiring him but they aren’t hiring from within — Lambert was behind the Toronto Maple Leafs’ bench last season — so it gives him more experience with multiple organizations.

This season, the Dallas Stars and Vancouver Canucks are also running this risk by hiring Glen Gulutzan and Adam Foote, two internal hires who were assistants. The cases for them, however, are that they’ve been with their respective teams for multiple seasons and were talented enough to be great coaches somewhere else. It’s another reason teams are quick to hire a coach from within despite the risks, as they don’t want to see them be successful somewhere else.

Junior Hockey (CHL): Control

When a coach hoists the Memorial Cup, the question is often asked if they can be great in the NHL. The ability to get the most out of the junior hockey players should result in success at the next level, just like innovation in high school sports should translate to the pros.

High school sports are a fair comparison as the players are in their teenage years and they are trying to develop into NHL-caliber players. They will do whatever it takes to become a top prospect and a great player, giving the coaches a lot of control. The same coaches who can easily get a prospect to buy in have trouble getting a veteran, who knows more and has more empowerment, to do the same.

NCAA: Recruiting vs. Drafting

If an NHL coach (and GM) has 15 first-round selections, they can put together a great team. In a few seasons, that team would be a super squad that, without question, would dominate the competition. The reality is that coaches only have one first-round pick (barring a trade or two), and if they don’t nail that selection, it often costs them and their GMs their jobs.

The above analogy shows the difference between recruiting and drafting. At the college level, coaches can bring in multiple future first-rounders or elite talents to fill out their roster as long as they have the resources to recruit them. In the NHL, there’s an even level playing field as teams must draft well and then develop. This is the same issue that college football, basketball, and other college coaches run into when they join the pro ranks.

University of Denver head coach David Carle is always the hot name when the coaching carousel begins. It makes sense since he’s won multiple national titles and leads one of the best programs in hockey. There’s no telling how he’ll adjust if he joins a team that doesn’t have a star-studded lineup and is in the middle of a rebuild (which is where he’d likely end up if he’s hired by an NHL team).

It’s also worth noting that all the coaches at the amateur ranks have to adjust to losing. Specifically, these coaches are great at the junior or collegiate level and dominate the competition but then go to the NHL and coach a bottom-of-the-league team. The losses pile up and take a toll on coaches who have only known success in their careers. The patient ones who can withstand the hard times end up lasting longer but a few losing seasons can force a coach to return to where they were best.

Retreads: Their Style & Voice Wear Off

The retread type of head coach is the most common hire. This offseason, four of the eight hires coached in the NHL previously, with Rich Tocchet and Mike Sullivan going directly from one team to another. These coaches have the experience and have a specific way of doing things, and it’s why GMs like bringing them in, especially if they won a Cup in a previous stop.

The problem is that these coaches lose their voice after a while, and they have a short shelf life because of it. They can turn a team around for a season or two but in the long run, the teams implode, and another coach must come in to clean up the mess. Moreover, once a coach is at their third stop, they’ve reached their ceiling and they’ve become damaged goods.

It’s also worth noting that the three longest-tenured coaches, Cooper, Bednar, and Rod Brind’Amour, are first-time hires. So, if a team is thinking of the best long-term strategy, hiring a retread is not the way to go.

The Other Type of Hire

Once in a blue moon, a team will hire someone fresh out of the NHL who has retired and then gone straight into coaching. It doesn’t happen often, and when it does, it’s because an owner wants to have the name recognition (Wayne Gretzky with the Phoenix Coyotes, for example). The flaws are obvious. The players have no experience behind a bench, and the adjustments leave them well behind the rest of the league. It’s why the players who end up becoming successful coaches usually spend a few seasons coaching somewhere beforehand.

It’s worth noting that when teams do this, it’s best to look for players who played some positions or roles in the NHL, as they, by nature, are better coaches. Defensemen, for example, tend to be more successful behind the bench as they see the play develop from a distance and know where the puck is heading (or understand the flow of the game). Likewise, second or third-line centers who were asked to do it all, from killing penalties to helping the offense, end up becoming great coaches because they understand every role on the team.