The Vegas Golden Knights shocked the entire hockey world Wednesday morning, as they relieved head coach Gerard Gallant of his duties.
In a season with an unprecedented number of NHL coach firings, the Vegas Golden Knights performed the most shocking firing of them all. They kicked head coach Gerard Gallant to the curb in favor of former San Jose Sharks coach Peter DeBoer. Despite NHL coaches having a shorter lease on life than ever before, Gallant’s firing is still astonishing, given all he has accomplished for the franchise, as well as the fact that the team is just a few points out of first place in the Pacific Division.
Gallant was the first head coach in Golden Knights’ history. He led the team to extraordinary levels of success, especially for an expansion franchise. Under his leadership, the Knights flipped the script for an expansion team and cemented their place in history as the greatest expansion team in any sport.
Prior to their inaugural season, nearly every hockey journalist and media personality predicted the team to be among the NHL’s worst. They did not have any star players on their roster and any decent player was sure to be shipped out at the trade deadline. However, Gallant did not subscribe to this same philosophy. Instead, he maximized the potential of every player on his roster and turning under the radar players into household names.
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William Karlsson emerged out of nowhere and established himself as a star in this league after his breakout season under Gallant. The same occurred for Jonathan Marchessault, who was essentially gifted to the Knights for taking on Reilly Smith‘s contract. Speaking of Smith, he also experienced incredible success in Vegas. Together, the trio formed one of the NHL’s most dynamic first lines.
David Perron took his game to the next level with Gallant at the helm, transforming into a high-end player and a key cog of the St Louis Blues Stanley Cup-winning roster. Erik Haula also had a very successful year in Vegas, taking the next step in his career.
Furthermore, Gallant was able to maximize the performance of defensemen Colin Miller, Nate Schmidt, and Shea Theodore on a Vegas blueline that had no household names entering their inaugural season.
Gallant maximized the potential of a roster full of unknown and under-appreciated players. He got them to maximize their potential and play together as a cohesive unit. He was an excellent motivator, helping bring his locker room together and bond under the ‘Golden Misfits’ moniker. Gallant made history and did the impossible, leading an expansion team all the way to the Stanley Cup Final.
His success continued the following season, as the Knights finished third in the Pacific Division and made the playoffs. The team would have made a much deeper playoff run had it not been for a very controversial penalty call in game seven of the first round. Of course, that penalty awarded the Sharks a five-minute power play, which ultimately helped the Sharks to emerge victoriously.
Though the Golden Knights did not get off to the most torrid start this season, they are still a very good team. The Pacific Division is a dogfight this season and the Knights currently sit just one point out of the playoffs and are three points shy of the division lead. It is a division that will remain competitive throughout the season, as it is home to many talented teams including the Arizona Coyotes, Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, and Vancouver Canucks.
Gallant was not the reason the team was sitting just outside of the playoff picture. He is not the cause of this team’s issues and it is not his fault that the team has not been a juggernaut. The Golden Knights have dealt with their fair share of injuries. Cody Eakin, Cody Glass, Alex Tuch, and Schmidt have all missed chunks of time. Furthermore, the Knights’ defensive depth is not great and the blueline has underperformed, thus making a trade for a defenseman necessary as the deadline approaches.
Nor is Gallant the one to blame for this team’s shortcomings. Instead, it should be the front office’s poor salary cap management that has been the root cause of the team’s underwhelming performance. Due to their lack of cap space, Vegas was forced to trade away talented players such as Haula, Nikita Gusev, and Miller. In addition, the team made some flops in free agency, as the contracts given to Nick Holden and Ryan Reaves have not aged well.
Ultimately, Gallant is not the cause of the Vegas Golden Knights’ performance issues. The front office’s failure to manage the salary cap and deplete the team’s depth has contributed far more to the team’s shortcomings. A head coach can only do so much with what he is given to work with. Gallant could only do so much with the team’s paltry defensive depth, inconsistent goaltending, and forward injuries and lack of depth.