Follow me on twitter Follow @stlgoalie As reported earlier, the Blues relieved Ken Hitchcock of his coaching duties, replacing him with head coach in-waiting Mike Yeo after the Blues loss last night to the Jets. The loss was the first time Hitchcock had lost four home games in a row.
Many of us had been speculating privately as to when Doug Armstrong might feel compelled to fire his good friend. It appears the Blues fall to last wild card spot and last night’s loss were the last straws. Last night I commented that I thought he might be let go if the Blues lost tomorrow night against the Leafs and for certain would be let go if they lost to both the Leafs and Penguins.
Hitchcock ends his tenure with a lot of Blues accolades including the highest regular season winning percentage, 2nd most regular season wins, and a Jack Adams award. For all of his regular season success, Hitchcock struggled in the playoffs. Even with last season’s 10 playoff wins, Hitchcock was only 8th in playoff winning percentage and tied for 3rd in playoff wins.
As most of you know, I am not a credentialed journalist so I haven’t had the pleasure of getting to interact with him at press conferences or the like. While I have not spoken with him in a media setting, I have had the pleasure of interacting with him on numerous occasions.
From my conversations with him, a number of things were very evident. Hitch cares and is interested in hockey, all levels and all kinds of hockey. His love of the game spans women’s hockey to youth hockey to co-ed beer league hockey to levels he coached. It was also very clear that he cares a lot about the teams he coaches and does everything in his power to do what he believes puts his team in the best position to win and will do so even if it puts him at odds with the fans or with the general manager or the owner. Much like another former St. Louis manager, Tony Larussa, he believes in himself and his convictions and follows them, everyone else’s opinion be damned. While I sometimes did not agree that his chosen course was the best for the team to succeed, I have nothing but respect for him holding to his beliefs, following them and standing by those decisions.
As to the reports about his planned retirement, I never bought into those as I have already shared before. He has too much focus and drive and thrives too much on the actual competition. I don’t think his personality will let him retire. I expect he’ll crave and miss it and he’ll be back before opening night next season. Will it be in Florida? New York? Las Vegas? Another place? If I was betting in Vegas, I’d bet he’ll be guiding a team by opening night 2017 if not sooner.
Hitchcock was put in a very difficult situation this season and it didn’t work but that is a blog for another day.
In addition to letting Hitchcock go, the Blues let goaltending coach Jim Corsi go. Most of you know that I wasn’t overly thrilled with the hiring of Corsi back in May of 2014. I wasn’t shy in sharing that I felt the Blues should hold out in hopes of getting Mitch Korn who later went to the Capitals.
In looking at Corsi’s body of work, Brian Elliott’s best season with the Blues was pre-Corsi in 2011-12, besting his extremely strong season last year in both save percentage and in goals against average. Elliott’s 2013-14 season was also better than his 2014-15 season.
Jake Allen’s first full season in the NHL was with Corsi as his coach. Allen did show some improvement in his second season before regressing substantially so far this season. All in all, I think you would be hard pressed to defend that the goaltending has improved since Corsi arrived.
Compare that to Braden Holtby who continues to put up stronger numbers under Mitch Korn’s guidance while increasing his workload. Under Korn, the Capitals main two goalies have posted save percentages of at least 92% in every year except Philip Grubauer’s 91.8% so far this season. It’s a great day for hockey.
Fellow Hockeybuzz bloggers Nashville Predator's Paul McCann, Winnipeg Jet's Peter Tessier and Minnesota Wild's Dan Wallace have generously agreed to a friendly charity wager. We were hoping to do the whole division but don't have it fully represented yet. The blogger whose team finishes the highest the standings at the end of the year gets to pick a charity to whom the others donate in their name.