Three Veteran Coaches The Washington Capitals Should Consider Hiring
Three Washington Capitals head coaching candidates.
It was reported on Sunday that the Washington Capitals had fired their head coach Todd Reirden. Reirden had coached the team for the last two seasons. Those two seasons were seasons to forget for the Capitals, both being first round eliminations.
When you have a team as talented as the Capitals a first round exit just won’t do it, let alone two. Thanks to those performances and results the Caps are now searching for a new head coach. This is a hire they can’t really afford to get wrong.
I write this in late August in the cursed year that is 2020. What that means in relation to this article is we are less than a month away from Alex Ovechkin’s birthday, his 35th birthday. I don’t think I need to tell you that his years are numbered. If the Capitals get this next head coach wrong it’s at least another two years wasted and we’ll be back here when Ovechkin is 37.
Other key, the Caps are getting older as well. Nicklas Backstrom will be 33 before we start the next season, whenever that is. John Carlson has hit 30. T.J Oshie is 33, and their long time goaltender Braden Holtby seems unlikely to return due to an expiring contract, leaving an unproven netminder as their number one going forward.
This is an important hire.
The Capitals are a little lucky in one sense. There are several big name, veteran coaches that they can choose from to take over this Cup contending team. It’s sounding like that is what the Capitals want in their next head coach as well, a veteran guy who can command respect in this locker room that they have assembled.
After two playoffs where effort has been a major question, hiring a vet who can get these guys going and won’t take the lack of effort would be the smartest thing this front office can do. As we said, there are plenty of those guys on the market. Here are three the Caps should consider.
Mike Babcock
Now, this one is a bit sketchy. I’m saying this, personally, as someone who has called Babcock incredibly overrated. I stand by that opinion, but that doesn’t mean he is a bad coach. You can say what you want about his failures in Toronto and his late years in Detroit. Based on how those teams were built I think he did a fine job, and this Capitals team is better than those teams.
Babcock is apparently known as a no nonsense guy, we’ll talk about that being a bad thing in a minute. We’ve talked about the Caps needing a guy who can control this room, I would think he can.
I personally love his style of play as well. At least the old Red Wings style. The Capitals current breakout strategy is long passes and there doesn’t seem to be a second option. If it works you can score a bunch of goals, a lot on the rush. If it fails it leaves the defense vulnerable. The puck gets turned over and the other team comes right back at them.
The way the Red Wings used to play, at least as far as I remember is short passes with support. There is less chance of turnovers and if there is a giveaway the defense isn’t left out to dry. This Caps defense isn’t great, they need help and this style of play I think could help them.
Now for the downsides. The Maple Leafs are apparently paying Babcock a ton of money to do nothing. Sounds like fun to me. He also got a nasty dragging through the mud after he was fired from the Leafs with multiple guys that played for him calling him “a bad guy”. Babcock didn’t have the most graceful exit from Toronto.
While he has his questions now, I still think he’s a good coach. A coach capable of taking a good team far into the playoffs and even lifting Lord Stanley’s treasured chalice.
Gerard Gallant
The Capitals used to have a head coach known for getting the most out of his teams, even if those teams didn’t have the most talent. That was Barry Trotz, and for some reason, they let him go. If they want another coach with that kind of reputation, there is one available. That would be Gallant.
Gallant took an expansion side that didn’t have any big names, outside of the goaltender, to the Stanley Cup Final in 2018, a series Caps fans remember well…for some reason. That team was known for how hard they worked and how hard it was to play against them. If he could coach this team and get them to work hard, with the amount of talent that’s on this team they could be very, very hard to beat.
I don’t even have much to say about this one. This seems like it might be the slam dunk hire. Anyone who needs a new head coach will have this guy towards the top of their list. Everyone seems to agree he is one heck of a coach and gets fired for very strange reasons. He last got fired by Vegas after he led his team to a 24-19-6 record. That must have been the worst good team ever?
The Caps need a veteran coach to get them to play hard. There might not be a guy out there better to do that than Gallant.
Peter Laviolette
While looking at unemployed coaches, this name snuck up on me. The previous two names screamed out at me and I assume they did to most people as well. Babcock is always talked about when talking about the best coaches and Gallant has been put in that discussion in recent years as well. Laviolette seems to fly under the radar.
Laviolette has coached in the NHL for around 17 seasons. Give and take a few years due to firings. He has coached in 1,210 career games and he’s won 637 of them. He’s made the playoffs ten times in his career having a 75-68 record in the postseason.
Laviolette has also made the Stanley Cup Final in each of his last three stops. He won the Cup in Carolina in his first full season there, he lost to Chicago in the Final in his first year in Philadelphia and he lost to the Penguins in his third year in Nashville.
Hot. NHL 21 gets it right with Alex Ovechkin. light
This guy is a winner. If he can’t come in and demand some respect, who can? If this Capitals team won’t play hard for a guy who has won as much as Laviolette has then this team has serious issues.