There’s really only one certainty we can take out of the coaching changes made yesterday by the Tampa Bay Lightning.

OK Hockey – dubbed a circus by so many – may be out as an ownership group but, clearly, the show must go on.

What about replacing assistant coach Wes Walz with Norfolk head coach Jim Johnson makes sense at this point in the season, at any level?

With 21 games left for the parent Lightning and 20 for the AHL Admirals, both teams are firmly entrenched in a battle for playoff positioning and the addition of any assistant coach, be it an upgrade over Walz or not, certainly won’t make enough of an impact on its own to put this team over the hump. And there will be no convincing anyone that removing Johnson, who took a Norfolk team beyond dead in the water for the better part of the last two seasons and led them to a 13-2-2 run and into a playoff position, can possibly benefit that team, who can now boast instability to the tune of at least four head coaches this season, when all is said and done (with Leigh Mendelson currently behind the bench on an interim basis).

From a tactical standpoint, it’s basically a push, at best.

And so much for that desired stability throughout the organization.

There are other odd elements to this story, of course, such as conflicting information from Lightning GM Brian Lawton and head coach Rick Tocchet. Lawton, apparently, claims Tocchet was consulted on the matter beforehand, while the coach states the contrary – that he was made abreast of the situation when it was already a foregone conclusion.

What does that say of Lawton’s confidence in Tocchet?

He’s claimed it’s no indictment on the current Bolts bench boss but, really, you don’t at least run it by a guy before axing someone from his own staff?

A crazy mind (which is what it takes to understand things around here sometimes) might say something like this was done with the intention of irking the head coach, or at least adding a little pressure. But there have to be better, less nonsensical ways of doing as much – especially with the Lightning’s current place in the standings.

And, if that’s the intent, why not just axe the head coach? The timing would still stink but, at least there’d be more of a clean break.

With outgoing ownership unwilling to have three head coaches on the payroll (Barry Melrose, Tocchet and some replacement or other), sacking Tocchet was never really an option before. With the team sold, does that change?

Word is, despite the financial restraints, Tocchet’s ousting was at least considered during the awful December swoon where the team nearly fell apart on a lengthy road trip before righting the ship against the Blues and Islanders.

And the muffled thought with Lightning management remains that Tocchet gets outcoached regularly.

Are yesterday’s moves the first outward indicator of that mindset?

But, again, how exactly Johnson would be looked upon as any sort of savior this late in the schedule is beyond me.

Back to Walz for a minute: If the penalty kill, largely Walz’s responsibility, was the problem (80.5% and 22nd in the league) the timing of this makes even less sense when you consider that, though they went 0-3 to finish the pre-Olympic portion of the schedule, they were 10 of 11 in killing penalties in that trio of games – not exactly a glaring problem, nor the reason for any of the losses.

Yet Wes Walz takes the fall here?

Further, it isn’t as though the offer to up and move to Virginia and become the head coach – the first such appointment of your career – for a red-hot Admirals team was anything near enticing. Instead, it would have been a huge risk for Walz, not to mention a difficult snap-decision for a family man. If the team falters, you’re the scapegoat, since the previous coach was able to do wonders with a group of players that had struggled mightily under former coach Darren Rumble. And then, what next? You’re 39 years old and you’ve failed at your first head coaching gig. Would that not be looked upon as a blemish or a significant backward step in just your second year of coaching overall?

No wonder he didn’t want the job. And perhaps that was the idea.

But, if that’s the case, why put your minor league club in such a pickle? To Norfolk’s credit, they managed a victory last night under Mendelson but what can that room be thinking?

And just what was wrong with leaving Tocchet’s staff intact for at least the remainder of the season in the first place?

The only thing that makes even a semblance of sense here is the school of thought that Walz had close ties to a certain outgoing owner who isn’t looked upon fondly in many hockey circles and that now, with that particular person soon to be completely out of the picture (not that he was in it often to begin with), action was taken to sever another of those remaining ties.

Still, why now, when it could very well take place at the expense of your AHL club?

Far more questions than answers here, obviously, and most will go unanswered with any real assurance.

But this reeks of a larger, underlying issue, because simply swapping out Walz for Johnson at this point in the season doesn’t make a lick of sense.

We’ve come to expect just about anything with this franchise for the better part of two seasons now and, apparently, that approach will have to remain until further notice.

JJ

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