Here’s a shocking move.
The Anaheim Ducks are bringing back Randy Carlyle to be their head coach as TSN’s Darren Dreger reported on Monday night. Yes, you read that right.
Expect the Anaheim Ducks to announce the return of Randy Carlyle as head coach tomorrow.
— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) June 14, 2016
Anaheim reportedly interviewed multiple candidates for the position, including future St. Louis Blues coach Mike Yeo, before making the decision to bring Carlyle back into the fold. The 60-year-old coached the Ducks for seven seasons between 2005-2011. He had successful seasons with the Ducks, winning the Stanley Cup in 2006-2007 and leading the team to the playoffs in five of six seasons behind the bench. The team fizzled towards the end of his tenure, as they missed the playoffs in 2009-2010, were ousted in the first-round of 2010-11 and Carlyle was fired 24 games into 2011-12.
Still, the move doesn’t feel right. The Ducks fired Bruce Boudreau, one of the top coaches in the league, after shockingly falling to the Nashville Predators in the seven games in the first round of the NHL playoffs. Boudreau was one of the league’s best coaches. He was an excellent tactician and iced an Anaheim team that recovered from a brutal start to finish near atop the league in both possession and wins. His firing seemed inevitable following the upset loss, even if it wasn’t entirely just. Boudreau was quickly signed on the free agent market as the Minnesota Wild made him their head coach.
Anaheim needed to replace Boudreau with a coach who could step in and continue the win-now mindset of the franchise. For that reason, and a bevy of others, Carlyle is an incredibly bizarre choice to lead the Ducks back to playoff success.
Carlyle has the track record with the Ducks that includes a Stanley Cup, but that doesn’t mean he’s the best present day option for the club. Carlyle’s post-Anaheim coaching career was an unmitigated disaster. In 2011-12 he joined the Toronto Maple Leafs as their new head coach. He led the club to one playoff appearance during his time with the club, which resulted in one of the biggest blown leads in NHL history. Whisper “it was 4-1” to a Leafs fan and you’ll instantly ruin their day.
Carlyle coached teams have always finished near the bottom of the league in possession metrics – and Toronto (just like Anaheim) was no different. His Leafs squad struggled to be competitive as Toronto were the punchline of the NHL and Carlyle was the puppeteer aggressively pulling the strings on a busted marionette. He was so aggressively bad with the Leafs that he was fired after only two full seasons.
The Leafs didn’t have a roster assembled to win, so it’s hard to place the entire blame on Carlyle, but he’s largely responsible for turning the situation more toxic than it should have been.
Was Carlyle honestly the best coaching candidate available? John Stevens, Paul McLean (a current Ducks assistant) and a handful of other seemingly capable possible head coaches would have represented a change in direction for the positive. Handing the reigns back to Carlyle just seems desperate. The pros? He’s a veteran coach, familiar with some of the current roster and has a lot to work with. Carlyle could be a calming, familiar presence.
It’s a huge swing and a miss for a franchise who needed to make the right coaching hire. Replacing Boudreau was going to be nearly impossible. Getting Carlyle is laughable. Anaheim has so much talent on their roster and it’s likely going to go to waste. I’m not sure what general manager Bob Murray and Ducks ownership were thinking with the move. Familiarity is good, but Carlyle is not.
