Senators fire coach Paul MacLean
The Ottawa Senators made the first coaching change of the 2014-15 season by firing Paul MacLean on Monday.
The Ottawa Senators announced on Monday afternoon that they have fired coach Paul MacLean after more than three seasons behind the team's bench.
It is the first coaching change of the 2014-15 season, and it also showed just how quickly teams can change directions, how short of a shelf life NHL coaches have, and how it really is a "what have you done lately" profession.
Just two years ago MacLean was voted the NHL's Coach of the Year and led the Senators to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, a performance that earned him a three-year contract extension the following offseason. Not even one full season into that contract extension, MacLean is out of a job and the Senators are in the market for a new coach.
At a news conference on Monday Senators general manager Bryan Murray said that assistant coach Dave Cameron will replace MacLean, and that it is not on an interim basis. He is the new head coach, according to Murray.
Cameron will be the Senators' fifth coach in the past eight seasons.
In parts of four seasons, the Senators compiled a 114-90-35 record under MacLean and qualified for the postseason in his first two seasons. The Senators took a step backward last season and fell short of the playoffs. Through the first 27 games of this season Ottawa is just 11-11-5 and in 10th place in the Eastern Conference. The Seantors were overtime winners against the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday night, but it is now pretty obvious that the decision to make a coaching change was determined before that game took place.
When discussing the firing, Murray talked about the Senators being a big turnover team in their own zone and that while their goaltending has been outstanding, on some nights the number of chances the team gives up defensively are atrocious. He acknowledged that it also falls on the players, but that the coach is the leader of the pack and that it's up to him to implement a system that works.
Whatever shortcomings MacLean may have as a coach, and whatever mistakes he may have made over the past two seasons, the problems in Ottawa seem to run much deeper than the coach right now.
The Senators have undergone some significant changes over the past couple of years when it comes to the lineup they're putting on the ice. Following the exit of Daniel Alfredsson before last season and the trade of Jason Spezza over the summer for Alex Chiasson and some prospects, the Senators now have the lowest payroll in the NHL, and outside of Erik Karlsson and Bobby Ryan have no true impact players.
But the concerns weren't just limited to what was happening on the ice. Murray also talked about MacLean's change in personality over the past couple of years and that there was a definite uneasiness in the room as MacLean seemed to become more demanding, while some of the better players in the room did not like being singled out publicly.
Before Saturday's game in Pittsburgh, which the Senators lost, MacLean had some interesting words for TSN's Chris Cuthbert when he was asked if he would be more worried about facing a hot or cold Sidney Crosby.
"All I know is I'm scared to death no matter who we're playing," MacLean said. "Whether it's Sidney Crosby or John Tavares or the Sedins, I go day-by-day and I'm just scared to death every day of who we're playing. And sometimes I'm scared to death of who I'm playing."
Murray addressed that comment and said that whether he meant it or if it was in jest it, made him wonder if MacLean still believed in the players that he had.
