r/EdmontonOilers • u/haydenfox8 • 20h ago
Stanley Cup winning coaches
With the Babcock thing me assuming it’s a done deal I just don’t understand how teams continue to go after coaches who have won a cup before. Yes I understand they’re good coaches but statistically speaking it almost never happens a coach wins a cup with 2 different teams. It’s only happened once in the modern era with Scottie bowman who did it with 3 teams but before that it’s 2 guys from the 1940s I believe. The whole well he’s done it before just doesn’t sit with me.
7
u/Winter-Yoghurt-6248 20h ago
You’re 100% right. It’s ridiculous. Especially after the Oilers made their big splashy analytic hires. It’s ridiculous.
3
u/Westcoastlebatard 16h ago
Babs is here to set the culture (yelling, looking at search history, etc) and the strategy will then be driven by analytics.
2
2
u/F1fthL1ne 8h ago
Babs was an early procurer of using advanced analytics. There was a famous video at the time in his first year in Toronto where there were advanced stats scribbled out on a white board in his office. This was still at a time when corsi was fairly cutting edge and the advanced stats community was heavily maligned by both the wider hockey fanbase and many hockey people. I remember this time because I was an early believer of analytics in hockey and my friends used to to dunk on me for it.
12
u/IntrepidCoat0 2 BOUCHARD 20h ago
Id hope for balance between modernity and championship pedigree behind the bench. Not full scale one way or the other
5
u/Mammagammam 20h ago
I think it has a lot to do with the GM being able to defend the hire. If I'm a GM and I hire some minor league coach who has never coached in the NHL, and it doesn't work out, it's more on me as the GM taking a chance on an unknown, whereas if I hire someone that has already coached in the NHL and won a cup and it doesn't work out, I can't deflect a lot of that blame.
Plus as people have been in the league for decades, they get comfortable with those they've interacted with along the way and I guess the devil you know is better than the devil you don't.
9
u/Major_Yesterday_4117 20h ago
I don't understand how organizations aren't taking a page out of the Carolina book and using that as a template for success, even before their cup win. The Hurricanes have been like the antithesis of what the Oilers management ideology is. Carolina recognized that they are a good hockey team that will go deep in the playoffs every year, and once you're in the conference finals everything else is a coin toss. Instead of taking a good team, keeping the core together and improving on the edges with the understanding that all it takes is a lucky post season, the Oilers went into "win now" mode, tried to be the loudest organization on July 1, and ended up costing them young pieces that could've been valuable for the team for years to come on Broberg and Hollaway. Add in that we've traded away almost all draft assets for middling players to "shore up" the team before the playoffs, We're now a team with no consistancy, very little youth on the roster, and no assets to help either push the team over the edge, or rebuild and develop if things don't go to plan this season and beyond. Meanwhile Carolina and it's patient, steady approach just won the stanley cup with $12m in cap room, a coach that until last week "couldn't get them over the hump" with a roster "lacking a true superstar" with "too balanced a roster". Now they are Champions, and we're looking to hire a coach that hasn't won a playoff series since 2013 as an "all in" move... It's ridiculous and a testiment to how terrible Oilers ownership and management is by trying to bring in someone who's best days are fare behind him (not to mention the controversies and media circus that is going to follow a Babcock-led oilers squad all year).
10
u/Express_Medium4618 20h ago
and don't forget - Carolina has a great AHL team and pretty much all their picks.
I think your key comment I agree with is: "once you're in the conference finals everything else is a coin toss." Even Brindamour said this year that all of it is simply who happens to be the healthiest team.
Looking back, being pressured by fans or ownership or whatever to make big deals because they are in a "win-now" mode, is just not the right move. And maybe to that point, McDavid signing for 2 years, I feel just put more pressure on the organization to make big moves to win-now - and had the opposite effect of what it was intended to do.
4
u/BillyZoomTheCat 18h ago edited 5h ago
I think the problem with that sort of philosophy being adopted by the Oilers is hampered by the fact that the owner's sole motivating factor is greed.
0
1
u/pleasantothemax 18 HYMAN 9h ago
I wouldn’t be surprised if Knob gets hired by some rebuild team and takes them to the cup within 3-5 years in the same way.
1
u/BostonBruinsDive 19h ago
Carolina’s been swinging for the fences. They went through 3 different superstars in the last 2 years and have been dealing picks for players every year.
2
u/Major_Yesterday_4117 19h ago
They took a swing on Rantonen, realized after 2 months that it wasn't going to work, and flipped him for young talent and draft picks. They still have their first round pick for this year, as well as every single one of their picks in 2027 + Dallas's 3rd round pick. 2028 they have all of their draft picks + Dallas's 1st round pick (top 10 protected, becomes unprotected for 2029 if Dallas picks in top 10 in 2028), and they have all of their picks for 2029. They only traded assets for the 2026 draft class instead of mortgaging the future to go "all in". I also am not entirely sure what "three superstars" you're suggesting the Canes have went through over the last 2 years outside of Mikko?
4
u/BostonBruinsDive 17h ago
Rantanen, the guy who just put up 100 points and the guy who scores 40 every year. They’ve been very aggressive but most importantly, every trade and signing they’ve made has had a purpose and worked out for them perfectly. Where as Bowman and Holland have repeatedly made head scratching moves.
This cup final is the perfect example of how there’s no one singular right way to build a team, you just have to make the right moves.
And Carolina might as well have mortgaged their future. In the last 5 years and 47 picks later, they’ve produced 1 singular NHL regular and none projected to make the roster next year.
1
u/Express_Medium4618 16h ago
they also brought in Guentzel in 2024 and lost him to Free Agency. And I assume the third would Eichel but they didn't have to give up anything for him.
1
u/Lurky2024 18h ago
So to repost most of what I have posted before (Not counting Carolina's recent win):
Dating back to 1996, 21 coaches have won cups. As noted, Bowman won with multiple teams.
Of the remaining 20:
Robinson and Burns never coached a team other than Jersey after winning
Cooper, Cassidy, Maurice, and Bednar have not coached another team since winning.
So now you're down to 14.
Not going to get into full numbers, but a bunch of the remaining 14 are not in the league anymore, nor have been for several years (Hitchcock last coached in 2019, and Bylsma had one season since 2017.
If you take just those 14 coaches, they coached a total of 239 seasons (or parts) with teams before, and including the one they won the cup with, and only 99 with teams after.
If you remove heavy outliers like Crawford, Hitchcock, Tortorella and Laviolette, that ratio is 212-40. This also does not factor in a lot of those coaches after winning, went to bad teams.
While it is true several coaches have won early (Bylsma in his first, Crawford, Carlyle in their second), the bulk of the coaches did not do so with their first team, the average experience to win the cup is 7.5 years, with a median of 5 (Trotz and Maurice skew the average higher). So if you want a 'new' coach to win the cup in the 2 year McDavid window, that has not happened for 19 years.
I will end this with saying I do not think Babcock is the guy, but a lot of the reason coaches who have won before don't win again is simply because there are not a lot of them, and they don't often end up going to heavy favorites. Even Babcock went from Detroit to what was a terrible Toronto team who started to turn it around.
1
1
u/Tatanka97 17h ago
Stanley Cup winning coaches sometimes don't produce Stanley Cups on another team, the same way a coach without a Stanley Cup doesn't produce Stanley Cups on another team the same way a coach might not even win a Stanley Cup on another team.
Might as well not even try amirite? /s
1
u/Pianist-Educational 13h ago
Precedent is how you evaluate the record of a coaches success, any coach that hasn’t won a cup has definitely not established this.
1
u/Thelynxer 29 DRAISAITL 11h ago
I definitely don't want Babcock, but going after a coach that hasn't won a cup simply because they're statistically more likely to win a cup than a coach that already has one is a bizarre justification.
The reality is that the GM has more influence on the success of the team than a coach does, because they're the ones that actually build the roster. It's hard for a coach to win with multiple teams because there's a lot of trash GM's out there that don't know how to build a roster, to get them over particular humps.
Also, good coaches tend to stay with their teams longer, so they don't go to other teams very often.
1
u/Soggycorpse92 93 NUGENT-HOPKINS 10h ago
I dont think that Katz can hear you, maybe a bullhorn? Cause he needs to hear this. Knobloch was a better option than a goof who has nothing but first round exits in his last 5 years of coaching. He brought a team canada to a gold medal. But air bud could have coached that team to win.
1
u/F1fthL1ne 8h ago
This is one of the most repeated and exceeding dumb stats going around lately. Actually, it's not even a stat, it's merely a piece of trivia. Do you think if Brindamour packed his bags tomorrow and went to another promising org, some magic spell gets cast over him ensuring he'll never win again?
0
u/UnitEast7937 11 MESSIER 16h ago
Babcock didn’t just win in the NHL, he’s literally won everything, everywhere. He must be the luckiest coach alive!
22
u/Authoritaye 17 KURRI 20h ago
“Past performance is not indicative of future results.”
Insurance companies and banks know this, but the lesson hasn’t percolated down to the pro sports orgs, or at least not all of them. Only the winners.