St. Louis Blues: Too Much Being Made Of Assistant Coaches

Most of the time, your average fan doesn’t have a clue who the assistant coaches are for their favorite. Suddenly, this offseason for the St. Louis Blues has caused everyone to freak out over the loss of assistant coaches.

Why such a fuss? Why such furor over a secondary position? Assistant coaches do a lot of the dirty work when it comes to day to day things and they deserve credit. However, they aren’t the end all, be all.

When the St. Louis Blues brought back Ken Hitchcock, it was with the knowledge it would only be for one year and that year would be his last in coaching. The club wanted to keep the staff that helped them reach the Western Conference Finals together, but only offered them one-year contracts to match the head coach.

Unsurprisingly, the two main bench coaches declined. Brad Shaw, who was the longest tenured coach with the Blues – he was on staff way back in 2006 – decided to pursue other options. Kirk Muller, who was mentioned as a potential successor to Hitchcock by GM Doug Armstrong himself, took an associate coaching position with his old team, the Montreal Canadiens.

The internet proceeded to do what it does and overreact. Muller is now in a position where he is likely the first choice to take over for Michel Therrien if the current Canadiens coach falters. Shaw has not signed on anywhere but is likely to be brought on somewhere, perhaps even on the new coaching staff in Ottawa, where he spent time as team captain.

It was the right decision for both men. That’s not to say they could not have stayed in St. Louis and made an impact and perhaps even taken the reigns when Hitchcock was done. Muller has already been a head coach and Shaw has been around the NHL enough to know what it takes.

There were no guarantees that would happen though, so they made the smart move to take a more stable position. It was smart to not guarantee them anything as well. A coach-in-waiting is not always smart. You don’t know what next offseason will bring.

A big name could become available and you would be stuck with what was your best choice right now. The Blues could regress and that might see both Hitchcock and Armstrong out the door. A new general manager might night like the Blues job if they know they are stuck with Hitchcock’s coach-in-waiting

The Blues were still correct to bring back Hitchcock. You don’t get rid of a head coach who has the best winning percentage in team history and the second most wins in team history just to hold on to an assistant coach who might be good. The St. Louis Rams did that and although they kept winning, the franchise was not as stable as a whole with Mike Martz as it was under Dick Vermeil.

Assistant coaches don’t necessarily make a huge difference anyway and don’t always transition into good head coaches. If we stay with hockey, we need not look far. Joel Quenneville has the most wins in Blues history and went on to win Cups in Chicago. Mike Kitchen was his assistant in St. Louis.

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Kitchen’s head coaching tenure was a disaster. He went back to being an assistant with coach Q and they won another Cup. They won before he was there too, so his inclusion or exclusion in the staff made little difference in the grand scheme.

Davis Payne wasn’t totally unsuccessful as a head coach, but couldn’t make the playoffs. He has gone on to be an assistant in Los Angeles. They won before he arrived and won after. Again, his inclusion or exclusion on the staff mattered little because they had a head coach that knew how to win.

Being an assistant on a winning team doesn’t mean much either. None of Chicago’s assistants from their first Cup in 2010 are still there. John Torchetti was the associate coach in Chicago, like Muller is now in Montreal, and it never amounted to anything. He bounced around from the AHL to the KHL and back before being brought in as Minnesota’s interim coach. There are no guarantees he will keep that job.

Chicago’s other assistant in 2010, Mike Haviland, hasn’t done anything since leaving Chicago either. He’s currently the head coach of Colorado College and has amassed 12 wins in two seasons.

Hitchcock’s assistants when he won in Dallas haven’t been covered in glory. Rick Wilson is still coaching and a potential candidate for the Blues to bring in, but he hasn’t beaten the world. If you’ve heard the name Doug Jarvis, you’re either a hockey historian or a fan of the Boston Bruins, where he is an assistant now.

None of the assistants from the Chicago Bulls’ dynasty went on to be head coaches. None of the assistants under Tony LaRussa have moved on to do anything. The bench coach didn’t make Michael Jordan the player he was. The hitting coaches for the Cardinals weren’t the main reason they won a World Series or not.

This isn’t to bash these guys or take away from anything they accomplished or provided their teams in winning efforts. It’s more to point out they are merely one cog in the machine and one that is fairly easily replaceable.

From a special teams aspect, losing Muller and Shaw might hurt. The Blues powerplay percentage was an average of two to three points higher under Muller than the previous two seasons, but the Blues also won the division in 2012 with a powerplay as low as 16.73%. Muller also never made the playoffs as a head coach in Carolina.

Shaw did have the Blues penalty kill clicking above 80% almost the entire time he was with the club, but there are other coaches to bring in just for that. Despite his knowledge and skill, he’s also never been offered a head coaching job in the NHL.

The bottom line is, the world isn’t ending. The sky isn’t falling. If you don’t like Ken Hitchcock or his style, that’s another argument. The fact of two assistant coaches, who are good coaches, seeking more secure contracts elsewhere has little to nothing to do with Hitchcock, his style or the St. Louis Blues organization.

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Muller went back to the city where he won a championship as a player. Shaw may have just decided that a decade in one city was enough.

The Blues are going to hire assistants that will fill the role and do their job (hopefully not Mike Yeo, but that’s another article entirely). Those people, no matter how talented or knowledgeable, are not going to be the difference between winning a championship or not. The Blues are going to win based on their head coach, their general manager’s ability to work the salary issues and the talent on the ice, plain and simple.

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