Coach Swap: Examining the Effects of Coaching Changes

We’ve all heard the old cliché: you can’t fire the players, so first you fire the coach. Sometimes, teams need a shake-up and swapping out the guy behind the bench is a reasonable place to start. Often, the team will then go on a nice run, due in large part to the smell coming from the fire burning under their collective asses. They recognize that they’re next if things don’t change. It’s human nature.

It is often the case, that this run doesn’t last too long, and the team falls back into the same cycle it was in before the firing. There are exceptions, like last season’s Penguins — they fired Mike Johnston and Mike Sullivan instituted a system that was as entertaining as it was successful, capitalizing on the youth and offensive ability of the club all the way to a Stanley Cup. But there are more instances like this year’s Islanders, who were given a jolt via a coaching change and have fallen back to earth.

With about a month left in the season, I think it’s safe to say that there shan’t be any more coaching changes. The only guy that would make a coaching change this late in the season is Lou Lamoriello (twice!), and he currently employs Mike Babcock, arguably the best coach in the world right now.

Given this assumption, let’s examine how the rest of these squads have done since getting a new bench boss.

Florida Panthers: Gerard Gallant out, Tom Rowe in

The first coaching change of the season occurred in South Florida, when the Computer Boys in the front office axed Gallant after starting the season 11–10–1. Gallant, despite his refutes of the following claims, had reportedly been reluctant to embrace the analytics-based ideal that the Panthers were striving to achieve, and his .500 record on the season wasn’t up to snuff. He was infamously left waiting for a cab after being let go immediately following a loss in Carolina on November 27.

Since installing GM Tom Rowe behind the bench on an interim basis, the Panthers have gone 19–18–10 for a full-season record of 30–28–11. Arguably worse, but bear in mind they had to play without first-liners Aleksander Barkov since December and have been without Jonathan Huberdeau all season.

As you can see, they had been above 50% in score- and venue-adjusted CF% but had dropped a bit right around the time of Gallant’s firing. As you can see in the figure below, they experienced a spike right after Rowe took over, but have since struggled overall to maintain this level of play, and currently sit 6 points out of a playoff spot with only 12 games remaining, most likely an insurmountable deficit.

New York Islanders: Jack Capuano out, Doug Weight in

The next coach swap didn’t occur until mid-January, when longtime Islanders coach Jack Capuano was relieved of his duties and replaced on an interim basis by assistant coach and assistant GM Doug Weight. Capuano’s firing was long-awaited for many Isles fans, and their dreadful start to the season proved to be his downfall — they had a record of 17–17–8 and sat in or near the NHL’s basement for most of the first half of the season, both in the standings and the Corsi.

They slapped Doug Weight with the interim tag and Weight began his tenure 5–0–1 over a six-game home streak which vaulted the Isles back into the playoff race. They looked primed to control their own destiny, but after disappointing home defeats at the hands of Carolina and Winnipeg and another OT loss to Columbus in the last week, their chances have become slimmer. They’re currently battling the Maple Leafs and Lightning for the final wild card position, only one point behind the Leafs, who have a game in hand.

In terms of on-ice play, they seemed to be trending in the right direction toward the end of Capuano’s reign. However, the overall results indicate that there has been some improvement on the pattern demonstrated by the team in the beginning of the season under Capuano, albeit rather inconsistently. While they were consistently under water with Capuano, they have been hovering right around 50% with Weight.

St. Louis Blues: Ken Hitchcock out, Mike Yeo in

This was an interesting swap. Hitchcock had announced prior to the season that he was going to be stepping down at the conclusion of 2016–17, and Yeo, who was fired the previous season from his job with the Wild, was brought on as an assistant with the intention of promoting him to Hitchcock’s job when the time came. GM Doug Armstrong, however, felt his team needed a shake-up, and sent Hitchcock into early retirement on February 1.

Upon closer examination, we can see that Hitchcock had his team playing at a pretty high level in the early going, but they had begun to fade. Their record sat at 24–21–5, good for the second wild card spot at that time. Since Yeo took over, their play hasn’t improved much. However, he has overseen a stint of 14–7–0 that has them comfortably in a playoff position — it is still undetermined if they will finish as one of the top three from the Central, or in a wild card spot.

The reason for the spike? Goaltending. In fact, I’d be willing to say that their struggles were tied to goaltending in the first place, and I don’t think Yeo had any effect on it. Jake Allen and Carter Hutton were playing well below average, and they have been playing well above average since the beginning of February.

Boston Bruins: Claude Julien out, Bruce Cassidy in

Julien had inexplicably been on the hot seat in Boston for years. One of the best coaches in the league, he had been propping up the Bruins and turning crappy rosters into competitors almost since the Bruins won the Stanley Cup back in 2011 — at least since they last made the Cup Final in 2013. GM Don Sweeney, who has been lambasted for moves like trading a 3rd-rounder for Zac friggin’ Rinaldo (currently in the AHL, by the way), was presumably roasted not only for firing Julien, but for dawdling in doing so, and ultimately deciding to pull the trigger on the morning of the Patriots’ Super Bowl parade, February 7, to try to hide the news.

At the time of Julien’s firing, Boston held a record of 26–23–6, but also had the best score- and venue-adjusted CF% in the league, a truly elite number of well over 55%. However, they struggled to score, and thus remained on the playoff bubble. Sweeney, as we know, isn’t the brightest man in the world, and felt that a new coach could help his team to score. And, on the surface, it would appear that he was right — since removing Julien, the Bruins have gone 12–4–0. But as you may have noticed, their CF% has taken a bit of a hit since Cassidy took over.

Well, wouldn’t you know it, the Bruins under Julien had a horrendous PDO, which is a measure of “luck” in hockey. It combines shooting percentage and save percentage, and average luck is a score of 100. We’ve seen that, over a series of seasons, PDO mostly normalizes to about 100 (there are exceptions, mostly for teams with elite goaltending, like the Rangers). In a given season, PDO can be used to explain why a team like the Bruins, dominating in terms of process, still struggled for reasons beyond Julien’s control. And, of course, when Cassidy took the reigns, the Bruins PDO spiked way up. I’m gonna say it probably didn’t have to do with anything Cassidy potentially changed. Regardless, though, the Bruins look to be in a good spot in terms of qualifying for the playoffs.

Montreal Canadiens: Michel Therrien out, Claude Julien in

As an Islanders fan, I am angry that the Canadiens did this, because I wanted the Islanders to nab Julien in the worst way. But it was certainly a wise choice to bring in Julien, a coach that many correctly assumed would not be out of work long. Only a week after being let go by the Bruins, the Habs swooped in and put him in charge on February 14. Montreal, at the time, had a record of 31–19–8 and sat atop the Atlantic Division, but had also started the month of February 1–5–1 and pounced on the opportunity to hire one of the most respected coaches in the league. (Oh, and Julien is also French-Canadian, so they just had to go out and get him.) In an ironic twist, this marked the second time in history the Canadiens fired Therrien mid-season and replaced him with Julien, the first being back in the 2002–03 season.

The Canadiens haven’t seen a marked change in the results — they’ve gone 9–4–0 since Julien was hired, and the CF% hasn’t changed drastically. The story here, as well, is goaltending. Carey Price wasn’t playing up to his normal, world-beating level around the time of the firing, but had started to regain his normal touch, and is returning to his elite level of play.

Can’t say Julien had any effect there, but based on history, I’d still say replacing Therrien with Julien was the smart move, so good on Habs GM Marc Bergevin.

As I suspected, coaching changes haven’t had any substantial effect on the process of teams, but there often seems to be a boost in the win column following a coach firing. The reasons for that are unclear, but I’d be willing to wager that it’s just luck and not much more. Still, since teams are in the business of winning games at the end of the day, I can’t argue that it’s not potentially a wise strategy.