NHL's Three Head Coaches Who Are On The Hottest Seats

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The NHL season is about a quarter of the way through, so there is plenty of runway left on the schedule. But we have seen enough of every team that we can start to draw some conclusions.

Some teams, like the Carolina Hurricanes, Washington Capitals, Florida Panthers and Calgary Flames have barely lost and are exceeding the loftiest of preseason expectations.

Others, like the Arizona Coyotes, Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators have really struggled and look to be playing out the string already.

Some of the teams that are not meeting expectations might find changes are imminent. One of the ways a team can try to shake things up early in the season is to change their coaching staff. A trade is another strategy but deals can be difficult to make at this time of the year as too many teams are too close to the salary cap.

We have already seen the Chicago Blackhawks change coaches as Jeremy Colliton was fired after an abysmal 1-9-2 start to the season. Since Derek King took over on an interim basis, the team responded and have gone on a 6-2-0 run under their new coach. Their season looked over by halloween but they have a little hope now if they can continue this trend under King.

We have seen coaching changes midseason work wonders for some teams recently. The Canadiens reached the Stanley Cup Final last season after firing Claude Julien and replacing him with Dominique Ducharme.

Craig Berube took over the St. Louis Blues job after Mike Yeo had them off to a rough start to the 2018-19 season. Of course, the team rebounded to win the Stanley Cup that year. The Pittsburgh Penguins have twice fired coaches midseason and won the Stanley Cup in the same year in the Sidney Crosby era.

Which team will be the next to pin their hopes on a new voice behind the bench? These three teams have their coaches on the hottest seats in the NHL.

Dominique Ducharme

The Montreal Canadiens had a magical playoff run under Dominque Ducharme last season. He was a midseason replacement for Claude Julien and though the team couldn’t find its footing under him in the regular season, going 15-16-7 during Ducharme’s tenure, there is no questioning a Stanley Cup Finals run.

However, that 15-16-7 run last season combined with the team’s 5-14-2 start to this season and Ducharme has a regular season record of 20-30-9. That’s not good.

The one thing that might save Ducharm’es job this season is the team is already paying Julien through this year. If they fired Ducharme, they would have to hire a new coach who would be the third person getting paid a head coaches salary by the team for the 2021-22 season. That’s not ideal and though the Canadiens aren’t a budget team by any means, paying three people head coaches salaries at the same time is a bad look.

That might save Ducharme for now. One thing is for certain, the team’s performance is not saving his job. The Canadiens have made a habit of allowing five or more goals on a regular basis and they are one of the lowest scoring teams in the league as well.

Coaches are supposed to have an answer for a team when its special teams struggle, but the Canadiens currently sit 27th on the power play and 29th on the penalty kill. It’s bad, and if not for Julien already cashing cheques from the Canadiens, Ducharme would be gone already. If this awful start lasts much longer, the team will have no choice but to move on from the Ducharme era.

Rick Bowness

The Dallas Stars had high expectations heading into the 2021-22 season. They just missed the postseason last year and this season they would have star centre Tyler Seguin for more than three games.

They also added Ryan Suter to a blue line that already featured Miro Heiskanen and John Klingberg. They have a good mix up front of youth (Jason Robertson, Roope Hintz, Denis Gurianov) and veterans (Jamie Benn, Alexander Radulov, Seguin, Joe Pavelski) and are very similar to the roster that went to the Stanley Cup Final in 2020.

They should be higher than 6th in the Central Division standings. Their 8-7-2 record just isn’t good enough and hasn’t met the expectations of the team at the start of the season. They brought in veterans like Suter and Braden Holtby because they thought they were close to conceding in the Western Conference, but they are battling to stay afloat in the playoff race.

Things appeared to hit a fever pitch in Minnesota last week. Bowness had told Minnesota native Riley Tufte that he was going to play that night in his hometown. Tufte bought tickets for many family and friends who thought he was about to play his first game at the Xcel Energy Center. Then, a couple hours later, Tufte was told he was actually scratched because Tyler Seguins was surprisingly ready to go for the night’s contest.

This did not sit well with the team’s fan base and though it sounds like it was kind of innocent, it wasn’t a great look. If the team was sitting atop the standings it probably would have blown over quickly, but fans are quite upset that the coach treated a young player that way and had all his family buy tickets only to have him sit in the press box.

Plus, the Stars got blown out 7-2 that night to drop their record to 6-7-2 on the season. It appeared to possibly be the end of the line for Bowness, but it as not and the team has bounced back nicely with a pair of wins afterwards. That’ll save his job for now, but the Stars could be a two game losing streak away from finally cutting ties with Bowness.

Travis Green

Honestly, I’m not sure how this hasn’t happened already. The Vancouver Canucks should have been able to compete for a playoff spot in the Pacific Division, but they sit near the bottom with a 6-12-2 record.

They recently returned from a three game road trip with zero wins and 19 goals allowed. They struggle at both ends of the ice, are 28th in the league in goals per game, 25th in goals against and they have the league’s absolute worst penalty kill at just 63.1%.

Their coach, Travis Green, has no answers for the lacklustre play on his players and it has led to some awkward post-game interviews with players rolling their eyes at reporters questions and apparently players yelling at their coach that the team doesn’t know what it is doing on the ice at practice.

Some confusion setting up a drill at #Canucks practice, as Travis Green discussed it at length with Boeser.

Appears to be a straightforward 2-on-0 drill, but the wrong mix of players was in various ends.

J.T. Miller could be heard yelling, “We don’t know what we’re doing!”
— Thomas Drance (@ThomasDrance) November 25, 2021

Things are going horribly on the ice for the Canucks and it doesn’t sound like things are going well behind closed doors either. This one certainly seems to a matter of time. The players aren’t performing up to their level and the team has fallen far short of expectations.

That’s a bad sign for a coach. When the team isn’t winning and doesn’t appear to be listening to their coach either, it usually means the end is near for the bench boss.

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