NHL Nhl Coaching

In the NHL, coach firings are as common as parking tickets in New York City. Throughout the NHL season I'll be taking a bi-weekly look at five coaches who are the most likely to get fired. Be advised your local coach may be axed at any moment. Consider this fair warning.

We've made it through the first month of the NHL season and not one coach has gotten fired yet. That's got to be some kind of record. This is the NHL! Coaches are fired for lots of reasons and sometimes no reason at all. How is no team displeased enough to have fired a coach yet? And what have you got to say for yourself, Lou Lamoriello? Why is your finger not on the trigger?

Doesn't that sound like a juicy headline?

It probably does and has probably left you wondering who it was taking on the Toronto coach. Was it Joe Thornton? Maybe Evgeni Nabokov or Olaf Kolzig? Well, the answer is none of the above. The former player who laid into Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Ron Wilson on TSN's Off the Record this week was Jim Thomson.

If you just said 'who?' you're not alone.

The Minnesota Wild are off to a slow start, winning just two of their first eight games. A couple of weeks ago, our resident Wild expert, Bruce Ciskie, argued that not all of Minnesota's early season struggles were due to the offseason coaching change that resulted in Todd Richards taking over for Jacques Lemaire, the only coach the franchise had known in the first eight years of its existence.

But how much of an impact has the coaching change, and a new system, had on the team, especially defensively?

When you watched the Minnesota Wild the last eight years, there were some things that could be counted on almost every game.

The teams coached by Jacques Lemaire weren't known for being lazy, uninspired, or unprepared. In fact, Lemaire has developed a reputation for getting the absolute maximum out of even the most marginal NHL players. They might not have been the most exciting team in the league, but they were competitive.

Each and every Saturday this season I'll be taking a look at the random happenings and absurdities that occur in the world of hockey. This is the first edition. Feel free to suggest stories, complain or otherwise babble at me via electronic mail.

Sometimes when naming a child, a parent chooses to give their child a special name. Occasionally, they name their offspring after a parent, a friend or someone else who has been influential in their lives. Other times, well, the child is named after a Canadian junior hockey club in Western Canada. This is one of those times.

One of the more famous scenes from the movie Miracle happens before the United States-Russia game in Lake Placid. Team USA head coach Herb Brooks -- portrayed by Kurt Russell -- walks into the locker room and delivers a passionate speech to his college-age players.

It's a speech that has been replayed at hockey arenas around the country. Surely, a few hockey coaches have tried to "borrow" the contents of the speech to fire up a team. Of all the impersonations you'll ever hear, the best might be from a four-year-old boy on YouTube. Video after the jump.

The NHL season is almost upon us. That means the weather is getting colder, leaves are falling off trees and coaches are ever closer to getting the proverbial axe. Last year, it took only four games for the Chicago Blackhawks to fire Dennis Savard. The Penguins let Michel Therrien go with 25 games left in the season and it was just what the doctor ordered. The team went 18-3-4 under Dan Bylsma the rest of the season on their way to a Stanley Cup victory. Here, I'll be taking a look at the coaches most likely to end up like Savard -- coaches who are starting the season on the hot seat.

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The Coyotes didn't waste much time announcing the long-term replacement for Wayne Gretzky, who stepped down as coach and director of hockey operations on Thursday. Seven hours after Gretzky made his announcement, the club held a press conference to introduce Dave Tippett as their new bench boss.

Head coach Wayne Gretzky never had the players. Hockey executive Wayne Gretzky never had the most brilliant partners. As a result, The Great One's tenure with the Phoenix Coyotes turned into The Great Disaster.

The Phoenix experience went so Southwest on Gretzky, it has essentially ended the hockey operations and coaching career of the greatest player in the history of the game.

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The old cliche in sports is that often times the best players turn out to be the worst coaches, and Wayne Gretzky, arguably the greatest hockey player ever, is, perhaps, one of the finest examples. The Great One resigned from his position as head coach of the Phoenix Coyotes on Thursday following four unsuccessful seasons behind the bench in the desert.

As a team, the Edmonton Oilers of the 1980s were one of the best collections of talent the NHL has ever seen, winning five Stanley Cups -- four with Gretzky -- between 1983 and 1990.

Four members of those Stanley Cup winning teams, including Gretzky, went onto become head coaches in the NHL with mixed results behind the bench.