Firing Hitchcock wouldn't help Jackets' future
When the season started, it seemed that most people regarded Ken
Hitchcock as one of the Blue Jackets' major assets. The prevailing
opinion was that a small-market expansion team was lucky to have
him, that a coach with his attributes — smart, well-spoken,
former Stanley Cup winner, future Hall of Famer — wouldn't be
in Columbus if circumstances hadn't been exactly right at the time
of his hiring.
It would be interesting to go back and count the number of
times a fan started an analysis of the team's prospects with,
"Well, at least we have a good coach..." The implication was
obvious. It's not that his predecessor wasn't, but Gerard Gallant
didn't have Hitchcock's track record. If the Blue Jackets continued
losing under Hitchcock, at least we could be sure it wasn't because
of the coach.
So now it is, right?
The sentiment isn't surprising because of the musical-chairs
nature of the NHL: Go into a slump, get antsy, fire the coach. It's
a nice, quick way to silence the squeaky wheels in a team's fan
base. It shows that the general manager and the ownership have
taken notice of the problems and everyone moves on, at least
temporarily.
But as bad as Blue Jackets have been lately — and
losing 21 of 25 is bad with a capital B — screaming for
Hitchcock's dismissal makes no sense to me. For one thing, the
major benefit of a coaching change is the surge of adrenaline that
comes with a new coach. If the Jackets have that surge now, they
might be able to climb to 11th or 12th in the Western Conference
standings — wake me for the parade — and still miss the
playoffs.
And what then?
Here's the future I see every time I read a "Fire Hitchcock"
post on the Internet:
Hitchcock is fired, and two weeks later he is hired by a
struggling big-market team that can't believe its good fortune.
That teams surges, and a few months from now he has it in the
playoffs, and winning. Meanwhile, the Blue Jackets are sitting at
home and the angry Internet posts are about losing Hitchcock and
general manager Scott Howson doing something with the flawed
roster.
And what of Hitchcock's successor? It's hard to believe team
owners are going to pay big bucks to another coach with Hitchcock's
credentials, or find one willing to come here, so the new coach
would likely be an unproven guy who might be good and to whom some
of the players might relate better. But six months or a year from
now, would the Blue Jackets really be better off with him than they
would have been with Hitchcock?
The unhappiness over the Jackets' prolonged funk is
understandable. But the big picture is more important than what
happened in Vancouver on Tuesday or in Edmonton Thursday night. At
this point in this lost season, it's not about where the team is
next month, but where it is next year and beyond.
The Blue Jackets aren't going to spend their way to success.
The franchise has to have a plan and the patience to stick with it.
In other words, don't fire a Hall of Fame coach because a young
goaltender who was the league's best rookie a year ago is
struggling; don't fire a proven coach because the team is 2-8 in
shootouts — as artificial a way to decide a game as has ever
been devised; don't fire a coach who is one of the franchise's
major assets because an overpaid, underperforming veteran player or
two don't like his style.
Has Hitchcock made mistakes? Absolutely. Would the Jackets be
winning if Gallant, Dave King or Doug MacLean were still coaching
the team? Not likely.
I have seen more than one veteran hockey scribe write that a
great coach like Hitchcock doesn't get stupid overnight, but the
culture of the NHL dictates that he will likely be fired, mostly
because he's at a place where the fans are impatient and angry
because the franchise has been a perennial loser.
To me, this is what is known as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
