St. Louis Blues: Keeping Ken Hitchcock The Right Move

The St. Louis Blues signed Ken Hitchcock to another one-year contract. While arguments can be made as to the wisdom of the one year aspect, bringing back one of the winningest coaches in franchise history is the right move.

This move is not one supported by all, to be sure. There are many detractors out there for Ken Hitchcock, though he is likely not to care. Just because a few fans and a random ex-player are upset doesn’t make it a bad decision.

There is a very vocal section of the St. Louis Blues fanbase that is unhappy about bringing Hitchcock back, but as is typical of online reaction there is no consistency. I think you might get more people agreeing about political issues than you would how the Blues should go about their business.

Some say Andy McDonald’s take is reason to not bring him back. Brett Hull actually works for the Blues. He played under coach Hitchcock as well. He seems a better source for how well or not the players will respond to Hitch rather than a frail forward whose career petered out and feels it is due to this coach.

One of the big issues is this odd phrase we’ve invented in recent years, in all sports, about needing a new voice in the locker room. Well the last time the Blues thought a new voice would be better than the man who won so many games, the team went into the toilet.

Granted, the situations were slightly different. The owner bailed on the roster and tried to sell the team the following year. However, when Joel Quenneville was fired (a move widely praised at the time, by the way), that was not yet in the cards and the team still had pieces to utilize under the coach that had won 307 games with the team.

Hitchcock has won a lot of games with the Blues, in case it wasn’t clear. He has 224 regular season wins under his belt up to this point. He also has the best winning percentage in the history of all Blues coaches.

Doubters will say he hasn’t gotten the job done in the playoffs. That’s true, but only to a point. Currently, Hitchcock’s record with the team is 20-25 in the postseason. People say they had to get to the Western Conference Finals for it to be that high.

Jacques Demers went to the conference finals as well and that only put his career playoff record to a game below .500. Quenneville has a .500 playoff record with the Blues. Someone on twitter was asking why the Blues couldn’t bring back Brian Sutter. He had a career playoff record of 20-21. Not exactly an improvement.

There is also the popular argument that his teams don’t score. Analyzing the stats since Hitchcock has been in St. Louis proves that just isn’t really true. Not as much as some want to believe anyway.

The worst year, compared to the league average in scoring, was 2011-12 when the Blues had 206 goals compared to a 224 league average. That wasn’t a coaching issue, it was a squad issue.

The Blues leading scorer was David Backes with 24 goals. David Perron had 21 and TJ Oshie had 19. Everyone else had 15 or less. Nothing against those players, but if you don’t even have a 30 goal scorer, it doesn’t matter if you have the greatest coach of all time.

Hitchcock also came in after the season had started. You can’t blame his system for the lack of goals in that year, because he hadn’t had time to implement a system.

The lockout year of 2012-13, the Blues scored 124 goals (only 7 below the league average). 2013-14 saw the Blues score 239 goals (14 more than the league average). They scored 15 more than the league average the next season by scoring 239 again. 2015-16 had a dip down to 219 goals (3 below league average), but the injury problems the team faced were well documented.

The team’s second leading scorer, Alexander Steen, missed 15 games. The third leading scorer, Paul Stastny missed 18. Troy Brouwer was the only player to play all 82 games. The Blues did not have a 100% healthy roster until the playoffs.

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It’s hard to get your team scoring when you’re constantly pushing the reset button. His best players were constantly having to rehab and get back into the groove. The mere fact the Blues were in contention for home-ice, let alone the best record in the Western Conference shows how good a coach Hitchcock is.

By my math, Hichcock has averaged 108 points per season in his time in St. Louis (if you project the lockout year to a full season).

Doubters will again say that’s all well and good, but that’s regular season. He hasn’t gotten the job done in the playoffs. Round and round we go. When it stops? Nobody knows.

The man just took this team to the Western Conference Finals. His team was two wins away from the franchise’s first finals appearance in 46 years. Somehow, he had no part to play in that?

It’s almost incomprehensible that people literally take up the argument that anything positive over the last few seasons was all on the players’ and anything negative was the coach. How does that make sense?

All coaches juggle their lines, especially when players perform as inconsistently as the Blues have. So that utterly ridiculous argument is thrown out the window.

Mar 22, 2016; San Jose, CA, USA; St. Louis Blues head coach Ken Hitchcock talks to his team in the game against the San Jose Sharks in the 3rd period at SAP Center at San Jose. Mandatory Credit: John Hefti-USA TODAY Sports The Blues won 1-0. /

The Blues underperformed in four straight playoff appearances before they finally made it to the third round. Is some of that on the coach? Sure. It has to be. Even Hitchcock will admit as much.

The Blues did not do their job for several years. That doesn’t give Hitchcock a pass for those playoff flops, but there are many out there willing to give the players a pass.

However, this odd notion that many have that those same teams were held back by their coach is ludicrous. This isn’t Hollywood. There aren’t always magic words said in the locker room to get men to suddenly play better.

We’ve been suckered in by this idea that coaches are supposed to motivate and get the best out of players. Coaches are supposed to put their players in the best position to succeed and then it’s up to the guys to do their job. A player’s performance should not completely depend on what a coach says to them.

Phil Jackson wasn’t a great x’s and o’s coach. I seriously doubt either the Bulls or the Lakers paid much attention to his Buddhist laced speeches. However, he was a great manager of personalities and put the players on the court that he felt were most likely to succeed. You don’t think people questioned him getting rid of Shaq or why he played Luc Longley so much or why Ron Harper played more than some guys? They did, but he won. So, we forget.

People are drooling over Brent Sutter because he’s won two championships with Los Angeles. Pardon the language, but if you don’t realize that Sutter is more of a hard-ass and probably less liked by his players than Hitchcock is, then you’re not paying attention.

This is the NHL. It’s not peewee hockey. This isn’t sunshine and rainbows and orange slices. These are grown men, getting paid to do a job and listen to their boss because he has more knowledge about the game in his pinky than most of us have in our entire body.

That doesn’t mean he’s perfect. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have flaws.

You have certain players you’d like to see together. I have certain lines I would like to see. We all have certain players we’d like to see featured less. The bottom line is winning though and Hitchcock has done a lot of it.

If Hitchcock stayed with the team as long as Quenneville had, he would easily have the most wins in team history. He isn’t going to though as he announced his one year deal will be his last.

That could cause issues. That bothers me more than any of this nonsense about juggling lines and not motivating the players. Will it cost the team free-agents because of the uncertainty of a one-year coach? Which assistants will come back (Brad Shaw is already not returning)?

However, the same issues came up last season when he signed a one-year deal. Would the players tune him out? Would they put up with his tough style? Would they underperform in an attempt to get him out quicker? Well those issues went all the way to the conference finals.

In the end, you’ve all made up your minds. You either love him or hate him. It doesn’t matter how many wins he gets or even if he wins a Cup because to some, he won’t have done it the way they wanted.