The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 112: Top 10 GMs and Top 10 Coaches

Episode Date: November 2, 2016

Jonathan Willis joins the show to help rank the Top 10 General Managers and the Top 10 Head Coaches. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: 2:00 Honourable Mentions 6:00 Bob Murray's rough summer 10:00 Building the Washington Capitals 13:30 Young GMs rising 18:15 Jim Nill's trading record 20:30 David Poile's makeover 22:15 The cream of the crop 25:30 Coaches Intro/Honourable Mentions 30:00 Young coaches 32:00 Ken Hitchcock's longevity 35:45 Alain Vigneault's pet projects 40:30 Peter Laviolette's omission 45:15 Carlyle vs. Tortorella This episode is brought to you by Freshbooks, an online accounting service designed to save time and help avoid all of the stresses that come with running a small business. They’re currently offering a free 30-day trial to listeners of our show at Freshbooks.com/PDOcast (just remember to enter “Hockey PDOcast” in the ‘How You Heard About Us’ section). Every episode of this podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher and can also be streamed straight from this website. Make sure to subscribe to the show so that you don’t miss out on any new episodes as they’re released. All ratings and reviews of the show are greatly appreciated. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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My name is Dimitri Filipovich. and joining me is one of my favorite guests we get on this show. We haven't had him on in a while, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to ring him up and help him get him enlist his help to finishing this off, off this Top 10 series. It's Jonathan, what's going on, man? Hey, good to be here.

So I contacted you and I asked you for some help, and we're going to do the top 10 GMs and top 10 head coaches. And I don't know how you felt when you were constructing your own list, But for me, it was kind of difficult doing these two, much more so than doing the players, just because we're not really privy to all the kind of what's happening behind the scenes. So we don't necessarily know how much one guy is responsible for a certain decision and how much it was, you know, the owner, let's say, kind of forcing a GM's hand. Whereas with players, we can just evaluate the on-ice performance, and it's kind of tough to deceive us that way.

So that was kind of one of the biggest challenges I had in making my list. Yeah, I felt similarly. this is one of those cases where you just don't have perfect information and you have to make do with what you do know. And so there's always a little bit of guesswork involved. Yeah. So we'll start off with the GMs because it makes sense. I mean, they're the sort of guys at the top of the food chain. And they're generally the guys that have hired the head coaches in place.

One thing I found interesting when I was kind of searching up all the guys is that 10 of the 31 current GMs have no playing experience. So pretty much if you want a GM job, your best bet is. to have played in the NHL already. Yeah, which is interesting when you consider the requirements of the position. I mean, obviously there is a evaluating players component and a lot of people feel with a lot of justification, it has to be said that, you know, former players have the best eye for that sort of thing. But there's also a whole bunch of, you know, financial management and contract negotiation. And we've seen a lot of successful GMs that don't have that playing background.

So it's certainly an interesting dynamic whenever a team makes that decision. Yeah, yeah, definitely. There are a few guys sort of honorable mentions that at certain points, maybe if we've done this in the past five years, I would have probably had in my top 10. But at this point in time, just where they stand and other guys that have emerged, I couldn't in good conscience put in my top 10. And they're Ken Holland.

I've laid this working theory out before. Let me know what you think about it. But I think he's more of like a VP who should be sort of, overseeing things and putting people, hiring the right people to make the decisions for him as opposed to actually handling the player personnel stuff themselves. Because you see some of these trades he's made, particularly at the trade deadline when he's tried to keep this playoff streak they have going. And they're generally not the right move, especially in the big picture.

Whereas, I mean, I think he's high. Obviously, you see some of the guys that have come from that tree, whether it's the Steve Eisermens or Jim Nill or the coaches that are pretty clearly, you know, very good hockey minds and are succeeding in their new ventures. So I think Ken Holland's done a lot of good things, but as a pure GM, especially these days, I just couldn't put them in my top ten. That's interesting.

Because I did have a similar debate with Ken Holland, just because a lot of the things the Red Wings have done, especially the last couple of years, have been easy to criticize. And you kind of shake your head a little bit at some of the decisions that have been made. But when I look at his body of work and some of the unique things that Detroit's

does, you know, with respect to prospects, with respect to developing people internally, whether they be coaches or executives, as you mentioned. To me, he still slips inside the top 10. He's not, there was a time where he would have been at the very top of the list. To me, he's sort of fallen out of the top five. But when I look around the league, I'm still hard pressed to push him out of the top 10 entirely. So he's right in the lower echelon for me. Well, I'm curious what you're going to say about a guy like Dean Lombardi then,

because also, you know, a few years ago, he would have been very high up this list. And especially, I remember when the Kings had all that success, they were being hailed as a team that was really ushering in this analytics era and that they were ahead of the curve. But then in the past year or two, we've seen a lot of really questionable comments from him. And it's tough to say how much is sort of gamesmanship and posturing and kind of playing dumb and how much of it he actually means. But, I mean, you see his work with Team USA, for example.

And let's just say he's left a lot to be desired. Yeah, Lombardi is really a logical place to go after Holland, isn't me? And it's the same sort of thing. Those two guys both take up two of the bottom three spots on my top 10 list. And in Lombardy's case, there's been too much, and not just in L.A., but also in San Jose, there's been too much good that he's done for me to dismiss him entirely. I think it's interesting you reference the analytics, though, because it's one of those things where L.A. did the same sort of thing that all these teams do,

They're like, you know, we buy into analytics. We use this in making decisions, but they were very vague on what they did. And then you look at some of the recent decisions and particularly, I mean, Team USA cast it into stark relief. But even when you look at L.A., people like Dustin Brown, people like Mike Richards, I'm trying to remember which role player they signed to like a multi-year, $2 million contract this summer. I think. Trevor Lewis, right? Yeah, Trevor Lewis, $2 million a year, I think, for multiple years. And it's like, really? Because he's got this loyalty to his core.

And, you know, in all fairness, you and I, when we talk about intangibles, it's one of those things that you can't really quantify. And you have to have a little bit of respect for the fact that it's not quantifiable. But in Lombardi's case, I think we can say without a doubt he's made some very wrong decisions based on things that don't appear on the ice, you know, that loyalty to the winning core. to me he's still in the top 10 but it's it's a close run thing okay and then the other guy that I had as an honorable mention and he could sort of be kind of he could fit him in with those two previous guys who just discussed is Bob Murray um I think that in Anaheim he's done an incredible job drafting um whenever that's kind of the GM's main calling card I'm I'm a little skeptical of how much of it is his doing and how much of it is just the guys he's

surrounding himself with whether it's an awesome scouting staff or whatever but I mean you look at the summer he had this year and I thought that it was really tough. I mean, we'll discuss guys like Doug Wilson and Doug Armstrong in a bit, I'm sure. And I had them high on my list just because they really showed the ability to not give in to temptation to kind of, you know, blow things up and make drastic moves based on on playoff failures. And Bob Murray really, I don't know what happened this or whether it was pressure from ownership or what or from just, I don't know, he just had had enough. but I mean the move going from Boudreau to Carlisle is in defense of all in my opinion and you look at I mean they had clear sort of needs in terms of getting some cheap goal scoring this summer and then they bring in guys like Jared Bull and Antoine Bermatt and don't really do anything to address those concerns so I had Bob Marr burning just outside of my list whereas maybe if we've done this exercise you know sometime last year he would have been in there I have I have Bob Murray's not in my top 10 list he's he's probably in that that middle 10

field. I guess the equivalent guy for me of honorable mentions who I kind of lump in with Holland and Lombardi is Toronto's general manager, Lou Lamerillo, because Lamarillo has this tremendous body of work and, you know, it was a real innovator when he came to the league and has done a lot of brilliant things, but in recent years, hasn't done enough to crack, like, I think I have him 11th or 12th. But to me, he's in that same category with Bob Murray, where he's that he's done a lot of good things, but there's enough recently that he just isn't in that upper tier anymore for me. Right.

Yeah. The other honorable mentions I had were the Leafs and Panthers, kind of conglomarets there, just because they've done a lot of things I like. And obviously, this is sort of a, you know, a progressive thinking analytics type podcast. So you'd expect those two groups to be really high up this list. But I just, you know, there's so many moving parts there and so many chefs in the kitchen that I just had them just missing. but I kind of wanted to give them a little bit of a shout out there.

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned Florida because that's a team that's done a lot of really interesting things in which, but there's just too soon to know, right? And in all of these cases, I've kind of leaned towards a little more, being a little more conservative and docking guys for recency. And Florida is one of the teams that fits that. Right. And one of the kind of weird things that you ought to balance there is like on the one hand, you know, you have people who are in Dale Tallon's camp who give him a lot of credit. for everything that's happening. But in another hand, it's like, well, yeah, I mean, they sucked for a lot of

years and got really high picks in Barkov and Ekblad and Huberto. And it's kind of easy once you kind of build that core to surround them. So, and Dale Tallinn's not even really there and more at least not in a functioning GM capacity. So that was kind of the tricky thing in ranking that Panthers group. Yeah, it's, it's an interesting front office arrangement, one that clearly underwent some evolution this summer. I know Talon does get a ton of credit, but then you look at things like the Dave Boland deal, and just the way he overreacted to Florida's, that one successful season with Kevin Deneen that Florida had and how he handled that, to me, it kind of left some sour feelings, and I don't, I wouldn't

put him that high, but the current group in Florida, they look like they're smart, they look like they know what they're doing, but, you know, the proof will be in the pudding. Okay, so we mentioned guys like Lombardi and Ken Holland, and you mentioned that they were sort of on that right inside of your top 10 but not too high up. So let's count it down. Give me like your 10, 9 and 8. Okay. So Lombardy's 9, Holland is 8.

Number 10, there were a whole bunch of guys, including one you mentioned, who is Doug Wilson and San Jose, who just slipped outside. My 10th spot, I gave it to Las Vegas general manager, George McPhee, who's work in Washington. I loved in a lot of ways. He's been doing, I know, it's easy to love him right now because he hasn't had to do anything with Las Vegas yet. But to me, he's just a very smart hockey guy. He's done so much well in building the capitals to where they are now, even though he wasn't able to get them to that ultimate success.

And he just slips inside the top ten for me. Yeah, that's interesting because I have Brian McClellan as my tent guy. and you could kind of go George McPhee slash Brian McClellan there. It's really tough because I agree that, you know, George McPhee, it's a shame that his enduring legacy in Washington might honestly be that Philip Forsberg trade, even though he did so many great things there and really, really help build this nucleus. This is one of the best teams in the league right now.

But the thing that I like about McClellan is, you know, it's always tricky when you bring in a guy who used to be sort of the right-hand man of the guy you just fired because I always think it's a delicate balance, right? You bring him in for an interview and then if he's trying to sell himself, he's basically kind of stabbing the guy who he used to work for in the back, right, in terms of being like, I didn't want to do any of this bad stuff that he did. You know, it wasn't my say. So that's why I was a little bit skeptical in bringing in Brian McLeod and promoting him there. But the thing that I really like about what he's done is that, you know, this team had clear needs, especially on the right wing in terms of getting guys who could kind of help school. and make them a more balanced attack rather than just being of Etchkin and just the power play. And he's done that.

I mean, the T.J. Oshie move in the trade with St. Louis was really smart. And then, you know, he brings in a guy like Justin Williams, for example. And he's done smart stuff like that on the edges, which is really important for a guy that's working with a contender. We see that a lot of GMs kind of struggle finding those right pieces to make it all fit. So that's why I had McClellan this high, but I totally understand the argument that, you know, he wasn't really directly responsible for bringing in like the best three or four guys on this team. So it's kind of tough to give him all the credit.

Washington right now, the season they had last year, like that team was incredible. I don't, I know a lot of people look at the series against Pittsburgh and kind of chalk it up to, you know, the same old capitals, choking in the playoffs thing. But to me, Pittsburgh was so good that I don't care how good you are. You enter a series with a team with those three forward lines and you're flipping it coin. Washington to me was the most complete team top to autumn at all positions last year. I have McPhee at 10 in a large part because of what he did. But I also have McClellan at 7 on my list. Look at that.

I know. And when I did my first draft of this, I didn't have McClellan in the top 10 just because it's been, you know, it's the recency thing. I like everything he's done. I think he's had great results so far. But how much do you weigh, you know, his involvement with building the team initially when McPhee was in charge. How much do you dock him for not having a long track record? But he's right in that spot for me.

Yeah, the next three guys I have are interesting. I'm going to lump them all together here because, I mean, you mentioned that recency thing. And that's also something that I was wary of and I didn't want to fall into the trap of. But at the same time, I just love the job that guys like Ron Hextall and Ron Francis and Brad Shree Living have done. And I understand that their track record isn't necessarily as long as some of the other guys on this list, but there's a lot of, there's a lot to like in terms of sort of the philosophy

they've shown in, in helping build their teams. It's very progressive stuff. And particularly in Ron Hextall's case where, you know, I mean, you could say the same about Ron Francis, I guess, but it's like this former player comes in and you wonder, you know, whether he's going to be, you know, how he's going to approach all these moves. But we haven't really seen anything from them that makes you think that, you know, they aren't willing to embrace new stuff and, and hear different opinions and try some new things. And I think that, you know, Philly, for example, was a team that was in really rough shape when Paul Holmgren left them. And Hextal's made quite a few nice moves to get them out of that cap hell and really set themselves up for the future. And they've

drafted really well in the past few years. You're starting to see some of that with guys like Pro Rob and Kneckney. So I'm really big on the job Hextall's done and sort of Philly's future moving forward. Yeah, I won't belabor the point because you've really, you've really, really done a nice job of covering it. Ron Hextall's third on my list and I know he hasn't been in the job long, but to me a huge part of this is managing the salary cap and making financial moves. And Hextall as an ex player has been shockingly good at this. Philadelphia was a total disaster when he took over from Paul Holmgren financially and he's right at the ship. Bradshaw Living's in the same range for me. He's number six. I don't have Ron Francis in the top 10 because

as good as Carolina has been analytically, and as much as he's dealing with sort of a shoestring budget, we haven't seen Carolina have success yet. I really shook my head at the Cam Ward deal this summer, and it looks, so it's early enough that we don't know yet, but it looks like goldening could cost them again this year after it cost them last year. So for me, Ron Francis isn't in the same group, but I feel very strongly that Hextall and Tre Living have done a good job. I have Trilliving at 6 and Hextall at 3. Yeah, the thing that I gave Francis a little bit of a pass and maybe it's sort of unfair on my part. But I've honestly viewed the Cam Ward move as just like a not so subtle, or maybe it is a subtle sort of tank move where they realize they're necessarily not ready to kind of compete and be one of the best teams in the league yet.

So they're going to kind of submarine their overall great five-on-five performance and try and get another high pick or two here. So, I mean, if they actually, you know, if I was led to believe that they think Cam Ward is the answer and he's going to take them to the promise land again, then I'd bump him down this list because that would be a very egregious move, but I'm kind of just giving him the pass there. We should talk a little bit about the job Brad True Living is done here because when we did the winger's rankings, we just sort of glossed over Johnny Goddrow and a lot of the flames fans are upset with me for that. So let's give Brad True Living a few minutes here, sort of discussing the job he's done. Well, the first thing I talk about with Trill Living is how he approached the goaltending this summer. He made two cheap bets in Brian Elliott and Chad Johnson, both with just a single year left on their deals. And to me, if you're, you know, unless you want to get into that position where you're really overpaying for a name goaltender, if there's even one available, that's the way to do it. You go out, you find two guys who are good, two guys who could potentially be the starter and you don't pay them a lot because you don't know for a, you know, 100%

certainty that they they'll do the job. I know Dougie Hamilton is a deal that a lot of people are going to criticize right now based on his deployment. To me, that trade return was exceptional. They didn't pay a whole lot to get him and they got a player who is a lot better, I think, than he's shown in the early season and how he's been used in the early season. He's just done a lot of really smart underrated things. You can throw Michael for a leak in that mix.

I know some analytics guys are not as big on the Troy Brower deal. To me, I don't mind it. I thought it was a reasonable amount of money for a veteran guy. And then I, because there will be some Edmonton listeners, I should also mention that, you know, sneaking Christopher Steag got Edmonton on that that dirt cheap contract after he signed a PTO with the Oilers was a nice little steal as well. Yeah, I'm a big fan of the job for you living is done. So correct me from wrong, but it sounds like we're basically getting into your top five here. like we've done six, seven, eight, nine, ten? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so let's get in your top five then. Who do you have a five?

I have Jim Nill in Dallas at number five. Even though I'm not a huge fan of what he did this past summer, I thought he was a little too eager to go to the green blue line and maybe, I don't want to use the word complacent because I'm sure he's not. But to me, I don't understand what they're doing with their goaltending. That was something they could have addressed this summer. I didn't understand when they brought in Antini. But on the whole, you know, I'm making the case against him at 5, you look at what he's done, you look at that forward group, you look at the trades he's made, bringing in Tyler Segan, bringing in Jason Spetsa.

That's a crazy thing to do to a good team to build that one-two punch at center. He's just done a lot of really smart things. And I think you can see the impact his departure from Detroit has had. Yeah, no, definitely. And I mean, even, I mean, you mentioned a couple of trades there that he's made that are really good. even it's kind of smaller ones like trading away what like 20 games of ericol or something like that for a guy like matias yannmark who unfortunately is out right now but i mean stuff like that and and then the patrick sharp trade where they they also got stephen johns who chicago could

desperately use on their blue line right now so yeah and i had jim nil at four on my list um it's it's weird how basically he won every single trade in a landslide and then you know just got fleeced in that in that Chris Russell trade. And I don't know. I guess it might have just been like he was just rocking too high of a trade PDO and he was bound to regress eventually. So we'll see how his next few trades turn out. But overall, if you view everything,

if you take a step back and view everything he's done as a whole, I mean, it's pretty clear that he's a top 5 GM in the league, even though, as you mentioned, his most recent track record isn't necessarily the greatest. Although while I've been criticizing his most recent track record, I should take a moment, mention Yuri Hoodler. It hasn't paid off for the, them yet. Huzler hasn't been healthy, but that was a sneaky good signing.

Yeah, no, their forward group is once again, very, very good. Yeah, so I, okay, let's just keep up with your list and then we'll kind of fill in the gaps where I have guys. So let's get into your, give me your number four right now. Yeah, so I think you had Ron Hicks stall at four. I have him at three. In the fourth spot, I have Nashville's David Poyle. I think you look at how he's shepherded that team from day one. he doesn't have a perfect track record, but he's just done a solid, solid job of team building. He wins more trades than he loses, but he doesn't seem to lose the big picture in a lot of cases. You know, if I'm playing devil's advocate, I'd mention Pecker-Renay, but outside of that,

you know, he's just built a very good solid four-line forward team. He's hired good coaches and he's stuck with good coaches through hard times. And Nashville's maybe second to none in terms of building defense. Yeah, it's just amazing to me. sort of the organizational makeover they've gone undergone in the past few years, where for the longest time under Barry Trots, they were, you know, they were a successful team, but they were considered, you know, very boring and sort of wanted to slow it down and play kind of a stagnant defensive game. And then they bring in a coach in Peter Labio Lett and make some of these trades for these forwards. And they've drafted so well with guys coming up, guys like Kevin Fiala and Vlad Kamenev's on the way. And then you have guys like Arbitson and Mika Salamaki and the list goes on and on of sort of these guys that can step into the lineup right away and really contribute and push to pace and play the type of game that Peter Lavialat wants to play. So the Predators have, I mean, they were number one on my watchability rankings before the

season and they've had sort of a weird year so far. And I guess we can get into it a bit more when we do the coaching rankings and discuss Peter Lavie-Let. But the job David Poil is done in assembling this team and sort of just a pure longevity, he's had an ability to kind of, you know, make himself and the franchise over and not just become incredibly stagnant is is worth commending. So I had a man number three as well. So I'm happy with that. Let's get to your, let's get to your top two here. Yeah, I suspect we have the same names in our top. We haven't mentioned the names yet, so I would hope so. Do you want me to just do them both?

Yes. Yeah. Okay. So in the first spot, I have Chicago, Stan Bowman, and in the second spot, I have Tampa Base Steve Eiserman. Stan Bowman in Chicago has done the best job of, Chicago has been the best team in the league for, it's almost the last decade now. It's not quite the last decade, but getting pretty close to that. He's made very few missteps. You can't avoid missteps entirely.

So, you know, if we're talking about Brian Bickle, we can mention that. But he's had so much cap pressure. He's kept his core in place. He has danced around it. That team has rebuilt itself time and time again. You look at the talent they've had to leak due to the salary cap. People like Dustin Buff,

and Andrew Ladd, and on and on the list goes, and somehow they're always competitive. He has done as good a job as could realistically be expected of anyone, I think, of identifying the players who really matter to the team and being willing to cut loose the players who don't. So he's done superb work. And then if I'm going to go into Tampa Bay, Steve Eisenman's built a very good young team. Just an incredibly professionally run organization, smart move after smart. move after smart move and turning over responsibility to their young core in a timely fashion, but not bringing them up too soon.

So both of those guys, just done superb work, I've got nothing but good things to say about either of them. Yeah, yeah, I add them the other way around. I had Isamer number one and Bowman number two, but I mean, it's sort of, they're kind of in a little bit of a class of the role in there, and you can, it's a little bit of a subjective opinion. The thing that I'll say about Isamoran is that what stands out to me, is just how big of a badass he is in terms of you never want to play a game with chicken

with him because he's just like he's not going to flinch uh he he's showing that i mean this summer we discussed how guys like bob murray for example just really had a rough one and and and knocked him down this list i mean iserman was pretty clearly the big winner here where obviously you know he brought back stamp coast but then he sort of sneakily snuck in that that long-term extension for victor headman which i feel like was even more important and then you know he he he resigns a guy like Kuloran and he brings back Kucherov in the last minute for what I'd say is a massive steal for that team. So the fact that he's been able to kind of make all of it work and hasn't necessarily needed to start bleeding away talent and trading away guys like the Blackhawks have done is is

huge for them and kind of makes you think that, you know, they're going to be once again be one of the the hot picks to either make the Stanley Cup final or actually win it this year. And while we're singing Eisenman's praises, uh, Anton Stralman has to be one of the best, uh, free agent additions in the last decade. Um,

I, you know, we, I, we, we're not doing a top 10 list of free agent additions, but that was a crazy good contract for a top pairing defenseman. And it,

it seems like it's only now that people really realize how good that player is. Uh, yeah, I completely agree. Uh, okay, let's move on to the coaches now. Um,

um, and the thing that pops off the page for me when I was looking at this list was, just how tough it is to actually have, you know, some semblance of longevity at this position because, Claude Julian is the longest tenured guy right now, and he's entering his 10th season with the Bruins. And Quenville and Tippett are the only other two guys that have been hired before the start of 2010. So this is another one of those reasons where, why, you know, when I see that a team has extended a coach while he still has a term left on his deal,

I just like shudder every time because it seems like it's not going to wind up looking good, right? Like they're eventually going to realize that, you know, coaches have a very short shelf life if they're going to wind up firing them and they're basically just lighting money on fire at that point. But I get the devil's out of what people are going to come back with where you know, you need to give the coach a little bit of credibility and staying power and show the guys in the room that he isn't necessarily a sitting duck and they, you know, should listen to them. But even kind of acknowledging that, I still think that you really want to avoid, you know, locking up these coaches for too long just because things change so much of that position.

I think that's true to a degree. I think it really does depend on. management style. There are people who have had great success with the same coach in place year after year after year. And I kind of feel like the lack of longevity for coaches has a lot less to do with coaching talent than it does, just the nature of the business. It's easy to scapego coaches. People demand performance every year all the time. So you can have a coach who's been great for five years who gets canned in his sixth year because he's just in one of those organizations that demands, you know, is, oh, what have you done for me lately, organization? You've mentioned Dave Tippett. You know, if Dave Tippett was coaching in a

different market, Arizona hasn't been that great the last few years. You might well have paid the price for that. So in a lot of cases, I do agree with you that you shouldn't extend a coach if you're not a general manager who has the ability to safeguard your guy. But I also think that in a lot of cases, a coach gets fired after three years when he really could be behind the bench for a decade. Yeah, yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah, they're generally kind of scapegoated like that. you mentioned tippet i had him just in the periphery of this list um i think he's an awesome coach and he's he's done a lot of remarkable things but then it's tough to properly evaluate him just because that franchise hasn't even really made an effort to win the past few years so it's kind of it's kind of

it's kind of tough to say how good of a job he's really done and whether he still is worthy of a top 10 spot so he was one of my honor roll mentions and the other guys were you know i had bill peters 10th and i really wanted to slide like three or four other guys in there and sort of this this group of younger coaches, you know, they're all sort of hovering around 50 years old, so they're not necessarily the youngest guys, but in terms of how long they've been around in the league, especially at this position.

And whether it's, you know, the job Mike Sullivan's done in Pittsburgh in less than coming up on a year or now or John Heinz in New Jersey or Dave Haxall and Philly, as we mentioned, you know, I'm very excited about some of these younger guys that have come in, whether it's from the college ranks or from the HL and are showing that they're willing to experiment

and kind of think the game at a higher level. So I line up with Bill Peters as the cream of that crop. But if you told me that Mike Sullivan was your favorite guy or John Hines sneakily in New Jersey, I'd be willing to listen to that argument. Yeah, after about the top four or five were fairly straightforward for me. And then there was a second tier, two or three guys. But from the number nine spot to the number 20 spot,

there's very little separating those guys. And there are, you know, a half dozen names that I'm just kicking myself that I couldn't find some way to slide into the top 10. Most of the guys you mentioned are on that list for me. I mean, Mike Sullivan did a great job, but how do you judge a half season? John Hine has done great work. Haxdoll actually does climb into my top 10.

I should mention I like Bill Peters as well, and he was another one of those guys. I've got Haxstall at number, let me just see here, number nine on my list. I love what he's done in Philadelphia, especially the back half of last year. You saw that team really take off. he just slides in for me, but there are a lot of young guys who have sort of that

that recently thing where you just don't know how much to, how much weight to give their early results. Yeah. No, it's tough because, I mean, there's obviously only 10 spots in a top 10 list and I didn't want to do that type of thing where I go like 10A, 10B, 10C, 10B, right? So that's always a cop-out. So I didn't want to do that. But it's tough because you have sort of these old goats that are hanging on. And, you know, so I had Bill Peters 10. I had Lindy Rough 9 and I just, you know, I couldn't bump Lindy Rough out of this list because, you know, everything you hear coming out of Dallas is that they have the talent and obviously they have the players to play that uptempo fun style where, you know, they're an offensive juggernaut. And it seems like every game is, you know, if they're up for nothing, they could all of a sudden wind up pulling that lead in a matter of minutes and that's sort of the ugly part of the job. But then if they're down for nothing and you can snap your fingers, they could be up five four.

It's, you know, they're the funnest team in the league. And I think Ruff is, is a big part of that. I mean, I remember I had Mike Johnson on the podcast and he was discussing how he was doing a video session with him. And he was, and Lindy Ruff was praising the players for doing, you know, good things with a puck and trying to be creative and entering the zone with possession and stuff like that. And rather than getting on guys' cases when they mess up. So I think some of that stuff is very novel and refreshing at this coaching position. And that's why I had Ruff at 9. and I just couldn't bump him outside of the top 10. Yeah, Rough was a very tough call for me.

I have him just outside the top 10. He's, you know, I look at his record in Buffalo, especially, you know, his last five years in Buffalo. And as good as he was early, there are things that you can look at and kind of, you know, shake your head a little bit. I think he always coached a competitive team, and I do have a lot of respect for the job he's done.

But in the case of both him and Claude Julian, and there was just enough that I tried to be conservative for most of the list, but just the latest results have been enough that they didn't quite crack the top 10 for me. Okay, well, let's get into your top 10 then since you are the guest. Give me like your 10, 9 and 8. Okay, so I mentioned Dave Haxstall at 9. I have Ken Hitchcock in St. Louis at number 8 and Todd McClellan in Edmonton at number 10. McClellan, I don't think what McClellan has done in Edmonton yet, with all due respect to October, is enough.

But when you look at what he did in San Jose, he had such a good record for such a long time, that I'm okay putting him there. Ken Hitchcock, I always marvel at this guy. I think he's a particular kind of coach, and I understand why he drives people crazy. I was freaking out a little bit in the playoffs when he was playing Troy Brower ahead of Vladimir Teresanko. I was just pulling my hair out. I couldn't believe he would do that. But when I look at his body of work, he's an incredibly, he's an incredibly smart man, but he's also a guy who has managed to stay with the times.

You look at most of the coaches, and I guess you could say this about rough to some degree, too. Most of the coaches who were there when he broke into the league have long since gone by the wayside, but he has reinvented himself time and again. And he's just a very smart, very progressive guy, and I really respect that. Right. I think that last point you mentioned is really worth hammering home how he's been able to reinvent himself and help create some staying power because there was a while there, especially towards the end in Columbus, where you wondered if he'd ever have a head coaching job in this league again just because it seemed like the style that he was playing and also just his everything you'd hear about the way he was interacting with his players and how big of a hard ass he was. just wasn't really going to work in this new NHL. And he came to St. Louis, and by all accounts, you know, he's really kind of lightened up.

And he still has his moments, particularly in the playoffs where, as you mentioned, you want to pull your hair out just because they do get kind of bogged down and get a little conservative. And that is an issue. But in the grand scheme of things, I think the job he's done was remarkable. And it's kind of a shame that this is going to be his last season in St. Louis. But I had him a number six on my list. And I feel pretty good about that.

I had Bill Peters 10, I had Lindy Ruff at 9, and I had Barry Trots 8. And I don't know where you have Barry Trots on your list. Higher than 8, I have them at 4. Okay, well, let's get into Barry Trots then. Make me your Barry Trots argument. Okay, well, first of all, there's what he did in Nashville. To me, you've talked a little bit about how Nashville has reinvented itself, and that's absolutely true.

They've gone to a different style under Peter Lavio Let, and they've had a lot of success with it, early results this year notwithstanding. But I mean, Barry Trots was there from the beginning. He built that team from, you know, I'm trying to remember whose top score was the first year. I think it was Cliff Ronning. But it's a whole bunch of names you wouldn't recognize when you look at the roster. There's a lot of David Legwant. Well, you know, it's a team that pined for David Legwant.

Yes. Like, it's all like Sergei Krivo Krassov's and Sebastian Bordelos. But he built that team over years and years. He had a really long run. a really good run. Nashville basically had, you know, one or two bad years at the end of his tenure, and there was the lockout thrown in there. And other than that, it was steady growth from nothing to contender.

So I give him a lot of credit for shepherding that. I obviously give David Poil a lot of credit as well. And then when I look at the job he's done in Washington, and I say this with all due respect to Bruce Boudreau, who's also, you know, high on my list. but that Washington team the last two years has been to me the most formidable version of the capitals that we've seen over the last decade and I give him credit for that. Yeah, no, that's definitely fair. I'm a big, very Trots fan. Okay, let's continue with your list. Where are we at right now? Okay, so I had Trots at four. I had McClellan, Ten, Hextel 9, Hitchcock 8, which we've talked about.

So I guess six and seven. I have Bruce Boudreau at six and Elaine Vino at seven. I was really, I knew I was doing this with you, so I was very curious to hear your thoughts on Elaine Vino. I know his work in New York has gotten mixed reviews at times. I love his, and here's a little bit of bias. I love his style. I love his sort of calm, unflappable approach to things. I think he, you know, love for Tanner Glass, notwithstanding, was the guy who really pushed Zone Start management for coaches at the NHL level early on. so I give him a lot of credit for that.

And it had some very big, great results with the Sadiens. Bruce Boudreau, he's a guy who has just been successful everywhere he's gone. And he's a guy who took the long road to the NHL. He was a very good minor league coach for a lot longer than anybody should have to be a very good minor league coach. And I've just been very impressed with him both in Washington and in Anaheim. Yeah, I have Bruce Boudreau 5. We've discussed on this podcast many times about, you know, just how good about coach he is and how his teams always do better with him than they do without him.

And this year in Anaheim, for example, is going to be a very interesting litmus test. And so far, the results have not been very good. And I'm not necessarily surprised in the least. You know, the job Boudreau did last year in particular, I think, was really commendable. Just it was pretty clear that the team, I don't know if it was, you know, they'd messed with the shooting percentage gods or whether, you know, as they're showing this year, maybe they just didn't have the requisite finishing talent, but he realized that they weren't going to keep being able to be successful the way they were playing already.

And he changed it up and incorporated much more of an LA King style neutral zone attack and it paid dividends for them. So I think Bougo is amazing. Elan Vino was interesting for me. I had him as an honorable mention. I'd have him in that 11 to 15 range. And I think he's done a really good job. And there's a lot to like about it.

The problem I have with him is that, you know every coach has these little little kind of bugaboos these guys that they just can't seem to shake their love for for whatever reason and i often say that you have to kind of acknowledge that every coach is going to be that way and you just hope that he's able to minimize the exposure to it and the whole tanner glass thing is one thing i mean he's a fourth liner and while playing him over guys like j t miller or kevin hayes at times is is very egregious at the end of the day the the impact of that is sort of incremental it's not necessarily going to sink the entire operation but then you see the way he's kind of loved guys like Dan Gerardi, for example, and I think that's much more detrimental to the team when he's playing, you know, 20-something minutes a night and really being kind of just cratering out there. So it's weird. I think Vigno's a really smart hockey mind, and he does

a lot of things really well, but then I just can't shake sort of some of these personnel decisions that he just can't seem to get over. Yeah, and that's a legitimate point. I think if you're if you're coming up with the counter argument to Alan Vino, you have Dan Girardi, you know, in shining lights as the big marquee. The one thing I would add is that, you know, he didn't build that New York Rangers defense and he didn't hand out the contract either. So there are,

I guess the counter argument is basically that in some cases it's not a choice as much as it is a lack of options as much as I do think he's overused the guy. Yeah, I completely agree. Okay, let's get into your top five here. Okay, yeah. So for me, the top four, we mentioned Trotson four already. They're sort of separate from the pack, but that five through eight slot, we've talked about Hitchcock and Vino and Boudreau.

And number five, I have John Cooper. And I love John Cooper. I love the way he talks. I love the way, like, you know, this is one of those things where I have to be careful because I definitely have a style bias in favor of the guy. I love his background. I love that he's a lawyer. I love that he's a, you know, a Western Canada guy.

But he's just done a really good job building a young team. He's been successful at every level. He shepherded young talent at every level. And he sort of made the jump in sync with his, you know, Syrac, I believe it's the Syracuse Crunch was the team he was coaching before their farm team. And he sort of took three guys with him and they were instantly good in the NHL. I don't think he's made a false move. I was tempted to put him higher, but I put him at five.

Yeah, I had Cooper third. I think he's done obviously a remarkable job, and him and Eiserman are kind of the big driving forces for everything that's going well there in Tampa Bay. So you don't have to sell me on Cooper. So who else did you have on that list after that? So now we're getting into the top three. The top three for me, I'll just name them all,

because they're all really close. I had Joel Quinevale, Chicago at one, Mike Babcock in Toronto at two and Daryl Sutter in L.A. at three. And if you want to make a case that any of those guys should rotate with any of the others, I'm okay with it. To me, when I look at L.A.,

Sutter's been given a pretty good roster, but he has, you know, that team is a Daryl Sutter team like San Jose was before. He coaches a certain style. It's a very effective style. When he took over from Terry Murray, I think they had a four-point jump in Corsi. He's just a very effective coach

to me. Babcock and Quinville are sort of neck and neck is the best coaches of this generation. Babcock did great work in Detroit. But to me, what really sets them apart is the work he did with the national team. And it's a little weird to say that because we're talking about the Canadian national team. So how does a coach not look good? But he's turned that into sort of this robotic, you know, a low risk, cautious thing, which not everybody's going to love, but undeniably effective.

This isn't a team that takes chances. it sort of locks down, locks down gold as early as it can and as quickly and as safely as it can with minimal risk. And Joel Quineville, I don't even know what you say about him. He's done a masterful job in Chicago.

Man, that's a team that's constantly had to evolve and reinvent itself and he's handled it superbly. Yeah, I think, you know, Quineville and Babcock and Sutter sort of, you know, their resume speak for themselves. We don't necessarily have to belabor those points. The interesting thing that I notice is in your top 10,

you didn't have Peter Laviolet in there, and I had him at a number six on my list. I'm kind of curious why he didn't make your top 10, and it might be kind of a good pivot point here for us to discuss the weird early season struggles for this National Predators team. Yeah, Laviolet was a guy who, you know, again, I don't want to get into that whole, well, you know, the 10A, B, C thing, but he's a guy who really easily could have made it.

He's bounced around the league. Everywhere he's gone, he's had success, but he's also never really, well, he's never really had stability. Like, I don't think he's been five full seasons with any of his NHL teams. And that to me, that's why I'm a little bit reluctant to wait his early work with Nashville,

because this is sort of his record. He comes in. he does a good job off the hop and then he's out within three years of whatever his crowning achievement with that club is. So that's maybe my reservation with Lavillette. Unlike a lot of guys on this list, he hasn't been able to stick it out with one team for the long term. Yeah, that's fair. I think I like, I like sort of the, I like his style as you mentioned and how he ushered in this kind of faster-paced, more offensive style in Nashville. And obviously having the personal to do so was a big part of that. But I'm kind of curious, have you seen anything from them earlier this year,

whether it's from watching them or from kind of looking at their statistical profile that would explain why they've been so bad? Because obviously, it's easy to say, you know, Pekkerene's contract as an albatross and he's not a very good goalie anymore. And that's fine. But, you know, you also kind of watch a lot of these games and he's actually been their best player in some of them. And they just have been buried on the shot counter. And it's bizarre coming from a team that has been really good for the past couple years and you would have expected would have been even even able to take that next step this season. Yeah, Nashville, they're fascinating. I don't know what's going to happen with them. I don't know which way it's going to go. To get into their

problems is probably a full episode in its own right. Yeah. I'm very, I'm fascinated to see which way it's going to go. And yeah, I don't even know that I'd like to attempt. an explanation in the short term beyond, you know, Pecker-Rene is a bad goalie and his contract as an Elbatross. Yeah, yeah, it's tough. It's tough. I mean, they haven't even played 10 games yet, so I don't really want to. The talent is so undeniable there that I would like to think that they'll eventually put it all together and turn this around and there's still plenty of time to do so. So maybe let's... But then you've got guys like James Neal that have, you know, two points or Ryan Johanson,

who doesn't have a goal and you just kind of, or Philip Forsberg, who doesn't have a goal, and you just kind of shake your head a little bit at it. Yeah, yeah. And that kind of makes you think that I'll eventually even itself out and normalize. So let's put a bit, pin in that discussion and we'll get into it a bit later. One final thing before I let you go, you're running a team and you have to pick one of these two guys to be your coach. Is it Randy Carlisle or is it John Torterill? Or do you just quit?

I'll take Randy Carlisle because I think he's probably less of a pain to work with than John Tortorale. Yeah, that's true. I mean, it all depends on how much you love your toast. I love all the toast. I love the jam. I love the crust. That's good stuff. All right, John, this is the part of the podcast where I let you kind of plug some stuff.

Where can people find you online and what do we have to look forward coming from you in the coming weeks and days? Well, I bounce around a lot. So I guess the best thing to do is just to plug my Twitter feed at Jonathan Willis on Twitter. And I'm trying to think what I have coming in the next few. few days. Oh, I've got a fun piece for Bleach Report coming out, which nobody's going to like. It's why your team won't win the Stanley Cup. And everybody loves it when I explain why everybody's team's terrible. So that that should go over well. You do know that one team has to by law win the Stanley Cup. But I'm going to be right 29 times out of 30 here. So you're just working on.

Exactly. All right, John. It's been a pleasure as always. And thanks for coming on the show. And we'll make sure to get you back on soon. Awesome. Yeah. This is always a lot of fun for me too. The Hockey PDOCast

with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud. At soundcloud.com slash hockey p.docast.