It won’t be a mistake if the Edmonton Oilers eventually hire Todd Nelson as full-time head coach

source : blogs.edmontonjournal.com

But the prudent thing to do is for the Oilers to explore all options

A lot of good things happened with the Edmonton Oilers after Todd Nelson took over as head coach 36 games in the 2014-15 season.

The squad’s best players, including Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jordan Eberle, Taylor Hall and Oscar Klefbom, all played significantly better two-way hockey under Nelson than they had under former coach Dallas Eakins.

Two players who were going nowhere fast under Eakins, Nail Yakupov and Anton Lander, demonstrated much better play under Nelson, so much so that both can be counted on to at least adequately fill in roster spots on one of the Oil’s top three lines next season.

The team also won more, with a 45% winning percentage under Nelson, as opposed to the 30% record they had under Eakins.

If Nelson were to be handed the full-time head coaching job right now, it would also be a signal that the Oilers really are keen on development and they trust the work that’s been done by Nelson at Oklahoma City in the AHL. It would provide some continuity to the players, as many of them played for one, two or three years for Nelson in Oklahoma.

Nelson’s Oilers kept on playing OK hockey right up until the end, even as the team had lost its best defenceman, Jeff Petry, kicking off an alarming chain reaction that saw all other Oilers d-men start to struggle as they were forced to play higher up in the line-up against tougher competition.
So, it would seem, Nelson has a lot to recommend for him when it comes to becoming head coach of the Edmonton Oilers.

Indeed, there are only two things that should give Oilers GM Craig MacTavish some pause.

1. The Oilers haven’t had a coach with a proven track record of success at the NHL level in some time, but a few such coaches will likely be on the market this summer.

2. As much as some players improved and the team won more under Nelson, the Oilers still struggled against tough competition from the Western Conference. In 25 games against Western teams, Nelson’s teams averaged just 12.8 scoring chances for and gave up 16.6 scoring chances against, a negative 3.8 differential.

That -3.8 represents an improvement over the horrendous -4.7 differential scoring chances differential that Eakins’ Oilers had in 2013-14 against the West, but the team improved to -2.5 under Eakins vs. the West earlier this season.

Overall, the Oil’s -2.6 scoring chances per game differential under Nelson was unimpressive, though, again, it’s important to factor in the loss of Petry in late February, which was the key line-up difference between the first and last parts of the season.

Bottom lines: Nelson has been a pro coach for more than a decade now. He’s paid his dues as a head coach for three seasons in the UHL and five seasons in the AHL. He’s had good success as a pro head coach. In some ways, he’s just what you want to see from someone coming up from the minors, someone who isn’t just ripe, but is over-ripe for the NHL.

It won’t be a mistake to give him the head coaching job, but if there are other more qualified NHL candidates, coaches with proven playoff success over a number of NHL campaigns, they would still be superior hires for the Oilers.

Panthers hire Gerard Gallant as coach, reuniting him with standout Jonathan Huberdeau

Montreal Canadiens Tomas Plekanec gets a few pointers from assistant coach Gerard Gallant during their training camp Wednesday, January 16, 2013 in Brossard, Que. The Florida Panthers hired Gallant as head coach on Saturday.

source : faceoff.com

Gerard Gallant and Jonathan Huberdeau had a wildly successful coach-player relationship at the top level of junior hockey.

The Florida Panthers hope they will again in the NHL.

Gallant was hired Saturday to coach the Panthers, a move that reunites him with Huberdeau, a young forward who is considered one of the franchise’s biggest keys to rebuilding. Gallant replaces Peter Horachek, who had the interim title for most of last season after replacing Kevin Dineen. The Panthers told Horachek in late April that he would not be retained.
Weeks later, they settled on Gallant.

“He is an individual with tremendous character, integrity and a strong passion for the game and has experience as an NHL head coach,” Panthers general manager Dale Tallon said in a release distributed by the team.

“Gerard is an excellent teacher and motivator who possesses the leadership qualities and hockey knowledge that are necessary to lead our team.”

Gallant will be formally introduced by the Panthers on Monday.

He spent parts of three seasons as the head coach in Columbus before being fired in November 2006 and has been an NHL assistant with the Blue Jackets, the New York Islanders and most recently the Montreal Canadiens, for whom he worked the past two years.

He also has some time in the Panthers organization, having spent the 1999-2000 season as an assistant with the team’s AHL affiliate.

But one of his key selling points was likely his work with the Saint John Sea Dogs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. He went 159-34-9 in three seasons there, with Huberdeau — the third overall pick in the 2011 draft — on the team for those years. Huberdeau had 88 goals and 124 assists in 165 games in juniors under Gallant.

Still, Gallant faces a big test with the Panthers, who finished 29th in the 30-team in NHL with 66 points this past season and have not won a playoff series since going to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1996.

Florida ranked next-to-last league-wide in goals scored, plus were the worst team in the NHL on special teams — scoring on 10 per cent of its power plays and letting opponents score on 24 per cent of man-up chances.

By season’s end, Florida was a staggering 27 points out of the final post-season spot in the Eastern Conference.

Gallant becomes Florida’s eighth coach in 11 seasons. As a player, he spent parts of nine seasons with the Detroit Red Wings, then finished his NHL career with the Tampa Bay Lightning. He scored 211 goals in 615 games.