With Barry Trotz having just been hired by the Washington Capitals, some are likely to say that the Canucks missed out. Trotz coached the same team for 15 seasons, and was a seemingly good communicator, able to do so much with so little.
However, I am relieved by the hiring. I certainly cannot say he is a terrible coach, and if he did become Vancouver’s guy, I would certainly cheer for his (and the team’s) success. But on paper at least, he seemed like the wrong guy for the job.
Everyone knows the Nashville Predators, Trotz’ previous and only NHL team, are horrendously boring. Every time they played the Canucks, the Predators guaranteed a defensive snoozefest.
Many like to point out that Trotz did what he had to, playing such a boring game due to the talent he had. However, the Predators have had star players such as Shea Weber, and their GM, David Poile, was GM of Team USA for the 2014 Winter Olympics, a highly offensive team.
Unlike Tortorella, Trotz was probably a good communicator with a good repertoire with the team.
Although a lack of talent probably comes down to how much money (or lack thereof) the owners put into their team, the firing of Trotz and hiring of Peter Laviolette indicates that the owners saw a problem in Trotz’ offensive game.
It should be noted that Trotz’ Predators missed the playoffs more often than they made them (by a slim margin), and only once made it past the first round. And us Canucks fans should remember this, as it was the Canucks who knocked them off in their 2011 Cup run.
So I was skeptical when Trotz’ name was bandied about as the frontrunner to be Tortorella’s successor. A main reason for keeping Tortorella, after all, was his previous playoff success; his replacement should be a guy who is similarly offensively minded.
And again, that is not to say that Trotz didn’t have his advantages. He was the coach of a team for 15 years straight. Regardless of being a southern expansion city that probably doesn’t care too much about winning, a coach usually gets canned before 15 years. Usually before five.
Someone clearly thought he was getting the best out of that team, regardless of the system being played. His longevity also indicates that he is a good communicator and had a good repertoire with the team, unlike Tortorella, who many see as an inefficient communicator, and someone who loses a team after a relatively short period of time.
Concerning his offensive game, I’m sure Trotz can adapt his style to be more aggressive; with Washington he will have to. Most coaches coach the systems they have to, and with Ovechkin, maybe Trotz will be the one coach who can drill a system in that is defensively sound and accommodates Ovechkin’s skill (as opposed to Dale Hunter, who, if I recall correctly, stifled Ovechkin’s offense with a highly defensive system).
Who knows? Maybe the Capitals will become an elite team under Trotz’ leadership.
But for now, I am pretty happy that he is not the coach of the Canucks. I no longer have to remain cautiously optimistic about another defense-first coach.
