New York Rangers need their next head coach to have these five traits
The New York Rangers’ have a lot of important decisions to make this offseason. Perhaps the most important one is who they hire for the head coaching role. These are five traits they must have to get the job.
The New York Rangers are looking for a new coach.
The front office didn’t believe Alain Vigneault was the best fit going forward for a rebuilding team. They were probably right in that assumption, too.
This is not to say that Vigneault was a bad coach. After all, he is tied with Winnipeg Jets coach Paul Maurice for 10th all-time in NHL wins. That is no simple feat to accomplish. There was a reason that the Rangers employed the French Canadian for five seasons, two of which saw the team get the Eastern Conference Finals or further.
But it is also true that Vigneault was a very flawed coach. He doesn’t exactly have the best track record with younger players. He has also shown a propensity to let his ego get the best of him, often pushing the blame away from himself and on to others while failing to make adjustments in-game.
The Rangers will certainly be looking for a coach that brings a completely different style to the table. Here are five traits that this future coach should have so the Rangers’ upcoming rebuild goes as smoothly as possible.
Leadership
This is, by far, the most important trait that the next coach should have.
The Rangers are going to be loaded with youth in the near future, and the coach should be a shining example of what it means to be a pro. The coach should demand respect by the way he conducts himself on and off the ice.
The coach should also be somebody who can accept blame and criticism when it is deserved unlike his predecessor. Too many times Vigneault tried to deflect blame on to his players even when said player was not deserving of it at all. Instances like this one should not happen again.
They must be somebody who is a good communicator and that can be trusted by his players and he rest of his staff.
If the Rangers can find this in a candidate, then they are off to a good start.
Attention to Detail
Too many times over the last three seasons, the New York Rangers’ were a complete disaster in the defensive zone. The defensive zone overload system the Rangers have used was so poorly executed last season that they finished 28th in the league in goals allowed per game. It’s been a trend developing for a while now.
The next coach needs to be very detail-oriented. Lord knows Vigneault wasn’t. He needs to be able to look at things and break them down piece by piece to assure that everything in the system is functioning perfectly.
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Hands on
It has been well documented how Vigneault was a very hands-off coach. He was brought into the organization after John Tortorella was let go. Tortorella was his foil in this area as the future coach will be Vigneault’s foil as well.
Vigneault’s coaching success at the NHL level has come with teams with veteran leadership cores. Because of this, Vigneault knew that the players knew the game well enough and had the leadership capability that he wouldn’t have add another voice to the clutter.
The new coach will not have the luxury of having a loaded veteran core. The Rangers will be a very different looking team come training camp in September. They will likely be one of the league’s youngest teams. Because of this, the coach will need to be super hands-on with his players and his chosen leadership group so they can get comfortable in the league and find success as quickly as possible.
Makes adjustments
No Rangers fan will be able to forget the Ottawa Senator series of 2017. The Rangers had a real chance of going back to the Eastern Conference Finals for the third time in four years after defeating the Montreal Canadiens in six first-round games. The Senators were the only ones standing in their way.
Oh, Vigneault was also standing in their way.
Vigneault kept failing to make the same simple adjustment game-after-game: taking Marc Staal and Nick Holden off the ice in the final moments of the third period and overtime. This was one of the main reasons Vigneault and the Rangers lost this series in six games.
The next coach of the New York Rangers must be able to make adjustments in-game. If the Rangers are clearly getting killed in one area of the game, he should be able to swallow his ego and make a change to stop the bleeding.
Familiar with analytics
We’ve all heard plenty about Alain Vigneault’s “sophisticated stats package” but it’s about time the Rangers had a coach that understood what said stats package means.
Now, the coach doesn’t need to be stats savant. He just needs to be able to understand them and be able to practice on them.
A coach that doesn’t value the advanced statistics at all isn’t going to survive too long in today’s NHL. He needs to have a balance between the eye test and statistics. Following one and not the other is doing a disservice to the organization and their fan base.
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If the Rangers find a coach that has each and every one of these traits, then they are going to be in good shape on the other side of this rebuild. There search for that perfect coach could end once Sheldon Keefe of the Toronto Marlies has his interview.