In hindsight, maybe the Toronto Maple Leafs should not have given Randy Carlyle that contract extension. It’s not like anyone really expected he would last the season, much less another two years.
The fact that he lasted even this long was surprising; let’s face it: he never really had a chance.
From the moment Carlyle was forced to replace his assistant coaches — one of the requirements was that one of them had to have coached in the NHL — we all knew that he was on borrowed time. He not only had to make the playoffs to keep his job, but he practically had to win the Stanley Cup. Even then, his future seemed dependent on whether or not the Leafs could pry Mike Babcock out of Detroit in the off-season.
It never got that far. Having lost seven of their last nine games and clinging to a second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, the Leafs fired Carlyle on Monday night and announced it publicly on Tuesday morning. They will, in the interim, turn the head-coaching duties over to assistant coach Peter Horachek.
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“Good coaches get let go and unfortunately today we had to do that,” said general manager Dave Nonis, who now inherits the target that had been on Carlyle’s back. “It has nothing to do with the summer or whether or not [Carlyle] was the right guy. He was the right guy to bring back and unfortunately today this was the right decision for our team.”
Whether this change does anything is anybody’s guess. No one had accused the Leafs of underachieving with a record of 21-16-3. Despite a cap hit that is among the top five in the league, most predicted this roster was good enough to be a bubble team. And so far, the Leafs have come as advertised.
On some nights, when the goaltender stands on his head and Leafs’ shots have eyes for the back of the opponents’ net, Toronto looks like it might just sneak into the playoffs. On others, fans toss jerseys on the ice. The Leafs have won 13 games by three or more goals and lost nine others by the same deficit. After losing 6-2 to the Buffalo Sabres and 9-2 to the Nashville Predators, they went on a 10-1-1 run. But since then, the team is gone 1-1-7.
The roller coaster of inconsistency was the reason Nonis cited for the change. But what ultimately did in Carlyle were the same old problems from the last two seasons: getting grossly outshot and relying on goaltending, opportunistic scoring and special teams for wins.
“The numbers, they go beyond wins and losses,” Nonis said. “That’s why I said it’s not about one game or one stretch. We felt that we had to make that change today because of the direction this team is trending, that we need to move forward and try to get our team back to where it was when we were winning those games and do it on a consistent basis. We can throw reasons in there all we’d like why we’ve done certain things. I don’t think that’s helpful. The fact is we need to play better. We felt we had to make the change today in order to try to get back to where we need to be.”
Is it all Carlyle’s fault? Probably not. After the 5-1 loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday, he told reporters, “We’ve been trying and preaching and begging, coddling, kicking — doing whatever you have to do to get more people back in the puck-recovery zone.” But the team’s best players simply cannot — or will not — play a style that requires sacrifice.
Maybe a new voice will help change that. Then again, former Leafs head coach Ron Wilson told TSN Radio on Tuesday that, “Some of the core players have failed under two or three coaches, so it’s got to be the player’s fault. You’d have to surmise that some of them might be uncoachable. You never change a leopard’s spots. You paint over some of those spots, but they’ll eventually shine through the paint and that’s just too bad.”
That is where the change has to happen now. Leafs president Brendan Shanahan did not address the media on Tuesday, but this change was his first big move since taking over in the summer. It was an admission that the status quo had come to an end. And though it started with Carlyle, it should put everyone — from Phil Kessel to Dion Phaneuf to Nonis and the scouting staff — on notice.
For now, the hope is that this shake-up provides a short-term spark that can buy the Leafs some more time until Babcock potentially becomes available.
Source:: National Post
