By Jay Gutteridge
Jacques Martin is a rarity in the National Hockey League these days.
The Ottawa Senators’ coach is currently in his sixth full season as bench boss, and Ottawa is one of the league’s best teams. Only Paul Maurice of the Carolina Hurricanes has served longer; he’s currently in his eighth season.
These two men could be perceived as the lucky ones in the NHL — coaches whose employers aren’t as trigger-happy as most of the front-office types in the league.
So far this season, seven coaches have been fired. San Jose, Calgary, Colorado, Atlanta, Columbus, Montreal and the New York Rangers have all made changes behind the bench.
The NHL is not the only league that experiences frequent coaching changes, but it is the only one of the four major North American sports leagues in which there is not a coach on active duty who has spent 10 or more seasons with one team.
In the National Football League, Bill Cowher of the Pittsburgh Steelers has served since 1992.
Major League Baseball’s managing iron man is Bobby Cox of the Atlanta Braves. He’s been with that team since 1990.
Jerry Sloan is the current king of coaching longevity. The coach of the National Basketball Association’s Utah Jazz has hung on to the reins since 1988.
These three coaches have all led their teams to success.
Cowher’s Steelers have made the playoffs in eight of his 11 seasons as head coach, Cox’s Braves won the World Series in 1995 and the Jazz would likely have won an NBA championship were it not for someone named Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.
What’s clear from these facts is that the owners and general managers of these franchises have been rewarded for their patience.
Perhaps some NHL bigwigs could learn a thing or two from their counterparts.
A coach generally has a system that takes time to implement.
The system, however, is only as good as the players who execute it.
Too often, the general managers who put the teams together don’t take enough of the blame.
The Montreal Canadiens and the Calgary Flames are classic examples of organizations where coaches have been made scapegoats in recent years.
The Canadiens are now on their fourth coach in less than 10 years. The preceding three had to deal with lacklustre groups of players due to poor management under Serge Savard and Réjean Houle.
Montreal probably should have stuck with Alain Vigneault as coach — he was once nominated for the coach-of-the-year award — but he was fired shortly after current general manager André Savard was hired in 2000.
Darryl Sutter is the Flames’ third coach since 1997 — unless one counts Al MacNeil, who served as interim coach earlier this season, which would bring the total to four.
The fact that it took so long for the Flames to find a coach in the middle of the season shows that there is weakness at the top of that organization.
General manager Craig Button should have lined up a replacement before firing Greg Gilbert.
Sutter is a solid coach who can elicit success from his teams. Then again, so was his brother Brian, who coached the Flames from 1997 until 2000.
What the Flames really need are some better players to surround last year’s league-leading scorer, Jarome Iginla.
Indeed, coaching consistency is a big factor in the Senators’ recent success.
Ottawa’s situation is similar to that of the Detroit Red Wings in the early to mid 1990s.
Scotty Bowman began coaching the Wings in the 1993-94 season, but he didn’t lead them to the Stanley Cup until 1997. They captured the Cup again in 1998, and once more last season.
Patience paid off for Detroit. Perhaps it will for Ottawa as well.