Wayne Gretzky: the greatest casualty in Phoenix

Canada needs
a seventh team!

We can't
abandon Phoenix!

Just let me
coach...

By Garth McLennan, Sports Editor

nough print has been spilled about the

ongoing Jim Balsillie/Gary Bettman/

Phoenix Coyotes saga to take out a
few forests, and that isn’t likely to change
any time soon, especially with the recent
resignation of the now former head coach of
the Coyotes, Wayne Gretzky.

Gretzky was put into an impossible
position over the summer with Balsillie’s
bid to purchase the team and move them
to Hamilton, Ontario. With both Balsillie
and Bettman out for blood over who was
the rightful owner of the team, Gretzky
couldn’t take a side with the future of the
club so up in the air. Things only got worse
as the summer progressed and owner Jerry
Moyes, on behalf of the franchise, filed for
bankruptcy.

Gretzky, being one of the team’s
creditors as well as the head coach, decided
to no-show training camp on advice from
his lawyers due to the financial uncertainty
surrounding the team. Knowing Gretzky
and the love he has always shown for the
game, it must have been a heart-wrenching
decision for him. He left the squad in the
care of Ulf Samuelson, much to the scorn
of Don Cherry, and shortly after made his
resignation official.

Gretzky was easily the highest paid
coach in the NHL, making an estimated
$8 million per year. Both Balsillie and
Bettman’s group had made it clear to
Gretzky that he wasn’t in their respective
plans for the future and so Gretzky did the
classy thing. He stepped aside before things
had the opportunity to get messy, even
though he forfeited millions of dollars in the

 

process.

It is difficult to look at Gretzky’s tenure
with the Coyotes as a success. Over 328
games at the helm, Gretzky produced just
a 143-161-24 wins/losses record. The team
never made the playoffs under his watch and
the Coyotes were viewed at times as far too
lax with Gretzky as the head coach.

Taking that all of the above into
consideration though, it is equally as
undisputable that Gretzky didn’t have a lot to
work with in Phoenix. While his decision to
install Michael Barnett as the team’s general
manager ultimately resulted in failure, the
argument could be made that Phoenix is well
set up for the future, or at least on the ice,
with the way they’ ve drafted under Gretzky.
Phoenix was far and away the youngest
team in the NHL last season with an average
age of just 25.1. They only had four regular
players over the age of 30 and just one older
than 32. It’s pretty tough to expect a winner
with a line-up that green.

As the years wore on, and especially
last season, Gretzky really showed
improvement as a coach. Despite their youth
and inexperience, the Coyotes never quit last
year and appeared to be in the running for
the post-season several times. That largely
has to be attributed to Gretzky.

The Phoenix experiment won’t taint
Wayne Gretzky’s name in the long run, no
matter what Don Cherry says. The very fact
that Gretzky even took the Coyotes job,
putting his reputation as one of hockey’s
ultimate winners at stake, is a testament to
the incredible person he is. He’s the best of
all time, and it’s a real shame that his term
with the Coyotes had to end this way.

 

The ‘Other News

 

 

Great deal or big risk?

ews that Canucks’ GM Mike
Ne had given head coach

Alain Vigneault a three-year
contract extension, to kick in after the
2009-10 campaign, has been greeted
with general acclaim and approval.

After all, Vigneault did win the
Jack Adams award as the NHL’s coach
of the year in 2006-07 and has compiled
a 133-86-27 record with the Canucks
to go along with leading Vancouver to
two Northwest Division titles in three
years. His .595 winning percentage is
the best in club history and the Canucks
are poised to be strong contenders for
the upcoming season. Plus, a Vigneault-
coached NHL team has never lost in the
first round of the playoffs.

All of this suggests that Vancouver
has found long-term stability behind the
bench. Certainly, Vigneault appears to
be a real keeper. But is giving any coach
in the NHL a three-year contract a
good idea, especially one with one year
already remaining on his current deal?

While Vigneault’s
accomplishments look great, he isn’t
exactly Scotty Bowman. In seven
seasons as an NHL bench boss,
Vigneault has never made it past the
second round and has missed the
playoffs entirely three times, including
two years ago in Vancouver.

He’s shown an unsettling
propensity to panic and return to a
batten-down-the-hatches defensive
C— that has rarely worked when

 

pe SEES TE

Vigneault signs for three years with Canucks

 

Alain Vigneault

Garth McLennan

sports editor

 

things are going bad. He most notably
demonstrated this in game five of the
playoffs last season against the Chicago
Blackhawks, where Vancouver sat back
the entire game as wave after wave of
Chicago attackers blitzed the defence.

A lack of post-season success
isn’t the only consideration to be taken
into account. Regardless of who it is,
giving lengthy term to a head coach
is a risky proposition. Assuming that
Vigneault stays for the duration of his
current and new contract, he will have
been the head coach here for seven
years. That’s a very long time for
anyone. Let’s say in two or three years
Canucks’ management fires Vigneault,
which could very well happen (anyone
remember Marc Crawford?), they still
have to pay him for the entirety of his
deal on top of paying whoever they find
to fill his position.

Sometimes if a.coach is in one
place for too long his message begins
to wear thin and his tenure grows
stale; again, Crawford comes to mind,
and that can happen to the best of
coaches. While Gillis has demonstrated
seemingly unshakable faith in Vigneault
with not only this signing but by also
refusing to cave to public pressure last
season with the Canucks mired in an
eight-game losing streak and the city
calling for Vigneault’s head, it is nearly
impossible to predict what will happen
several years down the road in the NHL.

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