After the Philadelphia Flyers announced the hiring of former New York Rangers’ head coach Alain Vigneault, it’s clear New York made the right call going off of the board with David Quinn.
The NHL like most other fields is a self-feeding cycle. Meaning that once an individual gets into the business, they’ll stick around because if one organization was willing to hire them, another one will as well. This is true at every level of the game from the players on the ice up to the executives in the luxury boxes.
Look at hockey lifer Glen Sather who’s been with the New York Rangers for more than 20 years, who’s life in hockey started more than half a century ago. From player to coach to an executive, Sather is a textbook example of this retread system and how to work it.
The position in which this rings most true is the head coach. Look at the Philadelphia Flyers’ decision to hire Alain Vigneault to lead the team into the future. At one point in time, Vigneault was a hot coaching commodity. He’s won several President’s Trophies and come close to winning the Stanley Cup on multiple occasions.
But, it’s 2019, not 2012.
The Flyers are only looking at the good and failing to identify what went wrong with Vigneault at both of his previous stints. The coach’s insistence on playing low-risk veterans over the potential of younger and more talented players. During the Rangers’ catastrophic failure of a 2017-2018 season it was clear that Vigneault was done.
David Quinn
This brings us to the New York front office’s decision to go outside the coaching carousel last summer and inject some fresh blood into the team. Instead of getting a coach who had failed with another organization for one reason or another, the Rangers went out and got David Quinn to lead the team into the future.
It would’ve been far easier to hire someone with NHL experience of some shape or form and roll with a young team. But, the Rangers’ recognized the importance of a fresh perspective on talent development especially in regards to teaching and instruction. This is something that certain established NHL coaches struggle with, just look at Vigneault.
While there were lumps in year one with Quinn, the Boston University product seems to have the respect of the room and done a masterful job of massaging a variety of different personalities through a bumpy season.
Whether or not Quinn is considered a success will come down to how well the Rangers’ prospects develop under his regime and if the organization can return to a perennial contender.
But, it’s safe to say that hiring the Rhode Island native was automatically a better choice than bringing in someone who had already failed at one or more stops.