Pens fire Therrien

by James Mirtle on Feb 15, 2009 7:44 PM CST Comment 10 comments

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Breaking news: Pittsburgh has fired head coach Michel Therrien and replaced him with Dan Bylsma on an interim basis. It wasn't hard to see the writing on the wall for this one when the Penguins lost lopsidedly to the all-but-eliminated Maple Leafs last night.

At 38, Bylsma instantly becomes the youngest coach in the NHL and is only five years removed from his playing career with the Ducks. This is his first season as an AHL head coach, and the Pens' affiliate in Wilkes-Barre is one of the top teams in the league.

The Penguins play the Islanders on Monday afternoon, in about 16 hours time. Bylsma was an assistant coach in Long Island in 2005-06.

"We believe we need a change in direction and, with 25 games remaining in the regular season, our goal remains to finish strong and qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs," Penguins GM Ray Shero said. "Dan Bylsma is one of the bright young coaches in the game and has done an exceptional job as the head coach in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton this season.

"We also would like to thank Michel Therrien for his significant contributions to the Penguins organization."

UPDATE A few more quotes from conference calls with Bylsma (pronounced bighls-muh) and Shero:

"I didn't part like the way, the direction the team was headed," Shero said. "I've watched for a number of weeks and, at the end of the day, the direction is not that I wanted to have here. I wasn't comfortable, and that's why the change was made."

"I'm not sure where it went wrong, to be honest. It's been a tough year, we're all disappointed with the results, and our expectations were higher."

***

"With the strengths we have, we should be able to go into buildings and make teams deal with the quality of players we have at every position," Bylsma said. "I look at a group that can win games right now, and we need to do that. We can do this, but the players have to believe we can do this."

"We need to put the brakes on — we're in a hole, but we need to stop digging and get focused on what we need to do to play good hockey. We need to be an aggressive group, and get focused on playing back to our strengths, and focus away from this situation the last while here."

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Comments

I don’t know how I feel about this. Obviously the loss to the Leafs Saturday night didn’t help much, but it’s hard to say whether or not Therrien was watching the team slip from his control. If anything, Bylsma has a proven AHL record. The Baby Pens have won nine of their last 10.

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by FrankD on Feb 15, 2009 8:26 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Can AHL magic strike again? Obviously, his background is 180 from Bruce Boudreau.

Pat Quinn on the phone otnight?

by odessasteps on Feb 15, 2009 8:30 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Pat Quinn’s name keeps popping up. I think it’ll be interesting to see how this pans out.

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by FrankD on Feb 15, 2009 9:03 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

So it looks like Ron Wilson was right. The Leafs do have a lot of coach killers on the roster.

Pension Plan Puppets: A Toronto Maple Leafs blog and a group therapy session.

by PPP on Feb 15, 2009 11:08 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

lol

And I heard that they hate even Ron Wilson up there.

by AppleSweetRose on Feb 15, 2009 11:38 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

And I was shocked, but I’ve resigned myself with the cut.
Hopefully… they’ll get some renewed energy from this, and look foreward to fighting to get into the playoffs.

by AppleSweetRose on Feb 15, 2009 11:39 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

And they’d only had Gonchar back for the one game.

by Doogie2K on Feb 16, 2009 12:32 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

And Fedotenko. Not to mention, what better time to make your debut as a coach than against the New York Islanders?

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by FrankD on Feb 16, 2009 8:01 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Am I the only one that sees a major problem with the coaching turnover in the NHL these days?
More and more it’s become the easy way out for a GM; the ‘solution’ that masks the GM’s own mismanagement or the player’s underachievement. The team is going through a slump? No problem, just fire the coach! He’s been there for all of 2 seasons now! Has to be his fault!
It’s getting ridiculous. What happened to players being accountable for what THEY do on the ice? What happened to players having pride in the logo on their jersey, and giving their best for that logo?

I think teams need to be held accountable for contracts given out to coaches. Have something like a ‘coaching salary cap’, which could include all coaching positions and the GM’s salary, and if you want to fire a coach, then it’s a buyout – you’re stuck with 2/3 of his salary for twice the remaining years.
Or better yet, include the head coach’s salary in the player’s salary cap (I know I know the PA would never agree to that…) so that if you want to fire your coach, you’ll have to think twice about the cap hit. You can’t fire a player at will, there’s no logical reason that you can fire a coach that easily.

Either way, something has to change. Teams need to realize that firing the coach is NOT the end all and I believe a rule has to be put into place that makes it so a team actually has incentive to HONOR the contracts granted to head coaches instead of scapegoating them left right and center.

by Habs on Feb 16, 2009 10:26 AM CST reply actions 0 recs