Rick Tocchet deserves a new contract?!?!

by sfxc13 on May 11, 2009 7:50 PM PDT

Let me preface this by saying that I am not a Melrose fan. While he is entertaining on SportsCenter, his East Coast bias in previous years has permanently damaged his reputation in my eyes. Anyways Melrose is not the point of this rant.

Rick Tocchet was recently granted a contract extension by the Tampa Bay Lightning. Tochhet coached the Lightning to a 19-33-14 record during his tenure as interim coach. For those keeping score at home that is 52 points in 66 games.

Tocchet took over after Barry Melrose was fired after just 16 games. In those 16 games Melrose amassed a 5-7-4 record. That is 14 pts.

What does this all mean? Well Melrose got the team .875 points per game and was fired immediately. Tocchet got the team .78 points per game and was granted a 3 year contract extension!

And why not? As Lightning owner Oren Koules said so eloquently "He's a character guy." Guess that is why Tocchet was accused of financing a nationwide sports gambling and pled guilty to conspiracy and promoting gambling.

I am confident the Lightning made the right decision; clearly there are no better coaches out there with or without criminal records ...

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You’re talking about the Lightning, dude. You wanna see something more mindblowing than Tocchet getting a new contract? Check out what the net return was in the end for the Dan Boyle trade. They’re like two retards at a bar, that have no idea what they’re talking about, going on about stupid shit, including what they would do with the team if they owned it. Except unfortunately for TB fans, they actually do own the team. And that’s sad for Tampa, and hockey in general.

I’m actually glad the Ducks are doing well, I just wish they would just switch conferences or something. Hockey doing well in non-traditional markets is always a good thing, no matter what any other idiots say.

http://wingsvducks.blogspot.com/
Check out the Wings/Ducks coverage over at CycleLikeSedins!

by IAmJoe on May 11, 2009 9:38 PM PDT reply actions

You’re damn right about the TB incompetence — but hey, I won’t complain if one team takes themselves out of the running for the cup (but yeah, wish it were a western team).

And it would be quite ironic if the Ducks joined the eastern conference while Detroit stayed in the west. We’d all have something to complain about then. :)

http://www.battleofcali.com/

by Earl Sleek on May 12, 2009 7:40 AM PDT up reply actions

Allright, that’s true. I wish the Wings would switch conferences, and then they wouldn’t have to deal with such a gauntlet to get to the finals. I bet they’d have won an extra Cup, if they’d been in the East for the last 15 years. For all the little advantages the Eastern teams get, they really ought to do better, you’d think.

http://wingsvducks.blogspot.com/
Check out the Wings/Ducks coverage over at CycleLikeSedins!

by IAmJoe on May 12, 2009 9:32 AM PDT up reply actions

Heh, the Ducks announcers were talking about the Phoenix bankruptcy last game, and they were saying (and i paraphrase) “If the Coyotes go to Southern Ontario and go into the Eastern Conference… who’s going to come over to the West? I don’t think any of them would volunteer”

Nobody cares about your opinion.

by brokenyard on May 12, 2009 12:15 PM PDT up reply actions

It’s a good question, really. Maybe all thirty teams would just join the eastern conference to avoid making any already-existing eastern franchises feel uncomfortable.

http://www.battleofcali.com/

by Earl Sleek on May 12, 2009 12:35 PM PDT up reply actions

I just think it’s funny that there’s really only 8 teams in both Canada and the US that are on the Western half of North America (i define this using the 100th Meridian – maybe it’s not perfect but it’s close) … so 7 are just fill-ins and then in the future it’s possibly be losing one and needing an even more extreme redefinition of “West”

100th Meridian:

Nobody cares about your opinion.

by brokenyard on May 12, 2009 1:32 PM PDT up reply actions

they’d make hamilton the Western conference fill-in and not move them east, I could almost guarantee it. First of all, DET will never go along with someone else going East before them. That’s a non-starter for them. Second, if Hamilton is making the problem, they should be the ones to fix it, and its not like its a particularly egregious case to put them in the West, when they’d be fairly close to DET, being in the West already. Third, Balsillie will play in the special new international division if he has to, just to get a team. Fourth, making Hamilton stay in the West is a nice way for Bettman to get in the last little word, after he’s already been beaten.

http://wingsvducks.blogspot.com/
Check out the Wings/Ducks coverage over at CycleLikeSedins!

by IAmJoe on May 12, 2009 3:29 PM PDT up reply actions

Might change the divisions up a little though… Hamilton to the Central, some team from the Central to the Northwest… and Vancouver to the Pacific? Bah.

Nobody cares about your opinion.

by brokenyard on May 12, 2009 4:26 PM PDT up reply actions

yeah, probably something like that.

It wouldn’t surprise me if they stuck Hamilton in the Northwest, and swapped someone, probably DEN into the Pacific. That way they could get their inter-canadian matchups across the one division.

http://wingsvducks.blogspot.com/
Check out the Wings/Ducks coverage over at CycleLikeSedins!

by IAmJoe on May 13, 2009 1:42 AM PDT up reply actions

spot on

It’s mind boggeling to think they actually won a cup with that.

by Mike in OC on May 12, 2009 9:53 AM PDT up reply actions

Well, the cup I think was a large part of their demise — they paid a ton in long-term deals to try desperately to keep all the pieces together. Failing that, then they’ve been dealing stars away for very little (partially because they have to deal these mammoth deals) — Richards to Dallas for spare parts, Boyle to San Jose for pieces.

It’s a key lesson — once your team has success, probably not best to keep things together at all costs — you still need the roster to evolve and turn over. That’s partially why I’m never as upset as some fans that cup players like McDonald, Kunitz, Penner, etc. aren’t still around — Burke could have tried like crazy to keep it all intact, but the price of doing so would have hurt the team a lot, I think.

Not a hard rule, for sure — you definitely want to keep a lot of what worked — but I think Tampa went too far with that.

http://www.battleofcali.com/

by Earl Sleek on May 12, 2009 10:04 AM PDT up reply actions

I think Boyle was different than Richards. They made that mistake entirely on their own, with new ownership. Richards/St. Louis/Lecavalier you can throw in the same boat, but I don’t think the Boyle deal goes quite in the same boat of “victims of success”

http://wingsvducks.blogspot.com/
Check out the Wings/Ducks coverage over at CycleLikeSedins!

by IAmJoe on May 12, 2009 3:30 PM PDT up reply actions

You think Koules has been taking advice from Sterling?

by sfxc13 on May 12, 2009 11:16 PM PDT up reply actions

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