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What went wrong...the coaching staff

April 2, 2018, 11:11 AM ET [214 Comments]
Noel Fogelman
New York Islanders Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Follow me on Twitter @thefirstnoel19

The nightmare that is the 2017-18 New York Islanders season has mercifully three games left. There are quite a few reasons why the team will likely finish with their fewest points in a non-lockout season since 2010-11. Today I will focus on the coaching staff.

In his first full season as Islanders head coach, Doug Weight chose quantity over quality for his coaching staff, having five assistant on his staff. The former Edmonton Oiler hired three former teammates; Luke Richardson, Kelly Buchberger and Fred Brathwaite. Scott Gomez, who Weight has had a relationship with, was also brought in. Gomez had zero coaching experience prior to this season. The two holdovers were Greg Cronin and video coaching Matt Bertani.

This staff, with the exception of Bertani, seemed in over their heads for most of the season. The problems of the first two months were only masked by the fact that they were putting up five plus goals a night.

Defensively, this inexperienced staff has failed to find any answers to their season-long breakdowns. They have allowed an NHL-worst 285 goals, which breaks down to 3.6 per game. Cronin, who was a shaky ground after last season, has overseen a penalty-kill unit which ranks last in the league. If Weight survives this season, I'd imagine Cronin would be the fall guy for the staff.

Weight followed in general manager Garth Snow's footsteps bringing in his buddies instead of hiring the best coaches available. Being a novice coach himself, Weight needed to hire an assistant with a ton of coaching experience, either a former NHL head coach or a career assistant. That guy was out there in Lindy Ruff. The former Sabres and Stars head coach's contract was not renewed by Dallas following last season. Ruff was hired his the Rangers last Summer.





Weight seemed to regress following his interim stint last season, especially postgame. His comments were often baffling, as if he was watching a completely different game. Imagine if he had to deal with another market, one which actually had more than four people who ask questions postgame, he would have self destructed month ago.

The excuse that was often given was that he was still trying to figure that part of the job out. For someone who played over 1,200 games in the league to say that he doesn't know how to deal with the media is a complete cop out.
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