Maple Leafs firing Randy Carlyle just another step in Brendan Shanahan's big makeover
“Finally,” you might say.
Finally, the Toronto Maple Leafs fired Randy Carlyle. Finally, they came to their senses, saw he was a bad coach and did what they should have done long ago. Finally, they’re headed in a new direction.
But Tuesday wasn’t an ending or a beginning as much as it was part of a work in progress. The Leafs have been evolving since they hired Brendan Shanahan as their president in April, and this was just the latest step.
The Leafs announced assistant coaches Peter Horachek and Steve Spott would run the bench on Wednesday night against the Washington Capitals. General manager Dave Nonis said the Leafs still needed to discuss the coaching situation for the rest of the season.
First, the Leafs need to decide on the head coach. If they name an interim, then they need to decide on another assistant.
But while the Leafs do want to discuss all options – including long-term coaching candidates like Peter DeBoer, recently fired by the New Jersey Devils – they probably will name Horacek the interim. They probably will have more options this summer.
Mike Babcock is in the last year of his contract with the Detroit Red Wings and would be at the top of the list. But there is no guarantee he will be available, and the Leafs know it. They would not be waiting for him alone. There could be more top coaches on the market by then.
This season is important. The Leafs held a wild-card spot when they fired Carlyle, and part of the reason they made the move was that they felt it gave them a better chance to make the playoffs. But the long term is more important. They don’t want to compete for a playoff spot year after year; they want to compete for the Stanley Cup one day.
The Leafs know process matters more than results for lasting success. They know they need to possess the puck more. They know they need to develop players. They know they need the right coaches and personnel – and they’re evaluating everyone and everything.
It all comes back to that. It has since Shanahan was hired.
Shanahan could have cleaned house when he got to Toronto. Instead, he kept Nonis, and they not only kept Carlyle, they extended his contract. It’s fair to ask why they did that when they ended up firing Carlyle after only half a season.
Well, again, here’s why they did that: The contract extension didn’t matter. It was only money to Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. Whether it was to give Carlyle credibility or to placate him or both, that didn’t matter, either.
The bottom line was that the Leafs didn’t like their options at the time. They didn’t want anybody-but-Carlyle; they wanted the right coach for years to come. They would have made a change if they could have hired Lindy Ruff or Alain Vigneault, but Ruff and Vigneault were available the summer of 2013, not the summer of 2014. They liked Peter Laviolette and Barry Trotz, but not enough to make a long-term commitment to either.
The Leafs put Carlyle in a bind – not only firing his assistants, but hiring new ones for him. But they gave him a chance to adjust at the same time. They surrounded him with people who would disagree with him and confront him with new ideas. Note that Nonis’ assistants ended up getting fired, too, and the Leafs hired assistant GM Kyle Dubas and created an analytics department. This is also Nonis’ chance to adjust.
For a while, the Leafs saw small signs of progress. They didn’t panic in mid-November after back-to-back losses to the Buffalo Sabres and the Nashville Predators by a combined score of 15-4. They didn’t fire Carlyle when critics were howling for his head (again).
Carlyle talked about playing “the right way,” and the team set a goal of allowing 25 shots or fewer per game. The Leafs allowed 28 shots or fewer over the next three games, beginning a 10-1-1 run.
But as that run went on, the Leafs started allowing way too many shots again. Soon, they were in a 2-7-0 funk. Worse, they had reverted to bad habits – chipping the puck out instead of breaking it out, leaning on goaltending, getting outplayed. The Leafs allowed 35.9 shots per game last season, most in the NHL, and now they’re allowing 34.4, second-most in the league.
Carlyle knew what needed to be done, but he couldn’t get the players to execute the X’s and O’s consistently. He went back to his old ways when the pressure was on. In other words, he abandoned the process to chase results.
The Leafs also didn’t like how Carlyle used some players. The Leafs got rid of enforcers to become more of a four-line team, but Carlyle didn’t use his fourth line enough, as if he still had Colton Orr or Frazer McLaren. The Leafs acquired Roman Polak to play a role, but not the role of No. 1 defenseman.
Nonis, who played a large role in building this roster, repeatedly told reporters in a news conference that the Leafs had the personnel to perform better. He cited both a recent win (4-3 at Boston in a shootout) and a recent loss (3-1 at Minnesota). The Leafs allowed 28 shots to the Bruins and 29 to the Wild, before allowing 40 to the Jets in a listless 5-1 loss in Winnipeg on Saturday night.
“That’s kind of been the pattern of our group of late,” Nonis said. “You’ve seen it. It’s been too much of a roller coaster. It’s not that they’re not capable, because they are. It’s not that they haven’t done it, because they have.”
But let’s see what happens now that Carlyle is out of the equation. Do the Leafs play the right way more consistently? Do younger players like Nazem Kadri and Jake Gardiner play greater roles, and do they develop better because of it? Do more moves need to be made?
Firing Carlyle allows the Leafs to evaluate everyone under a different coach now. It removes an excuse. It very well might improve the Leafs and expose just how much more work needs to be done to make this team a Cup contender.
The truth is, the Leafs need a new coach – the right coach – and better personnel. There is still a long way to go before the Leafs can even think about winning their first Cup since 1967, finally.
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