Square peg, round hole

by Gann Matsuda
Hockeytalk.biz

LOS ANGELES (June 12, 2008) — On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Kings decided that they needed a new leader behind their bench when Kings President/General Manager Dean Lombardi announced the firing of head coach Marc Crawford, the 21st head coach in franchise history, stating that he did not fit into the future direction of the team.

SQUARE PEG, ROUND HOLE?

Crawford, who was hired on May 22, 2006, and earned a 59-84-21 record with the Kings, was likely the best available option at the time of his hiring. To be sure, he was the “biggest name” available.

But his fiery, in-your-face style does not work well with today’s National Hockey League players, especially the youngsters.

“The young players that are in the draft, and as we see more prevalent coming through the system—this is one of the advantages of going out on the road, meeting kids myself, meeting parents—I think the ability to communicate and build trust with young players is critical because the fear factor with young people is not there anymore as it was in the past,” Lombardi explained.

“I don’t care what type of leadership role you’re in, whether it’s the sports business or anything, the building of trust—how you can push that athlete or that employee—is based on trust and that takes time. It takes time to sit down with these kids,” Lombardi elaborated. “All of us who’ve come from [the older] generation where it was do this or you get a slap in the back of the head, it’s taken us all time to adjust to learn that. I fully understand it, but I probably didn’t understand it as much seven or eight years ago.”

“So the question is...is it change your ways or is it adapt to the people we’re dealing with? I think we’ve all had to do that. Even [assistant general manager] Ron Hextall says it’s very different from when he came up through the ranks when dealing with players, the impact the agents now have—these kids have agents at 14 years old. They learn in junior hockey now that if you don’t like going somewhere, you can manipulate the team you want to play for.”

Indeed, with the Kings in the midst of a total rebuild with youth, Crawford was clearly not the right man to be behind their bench going forward.

“When you go through everything, the most important thing is where we’re going,” said Lombardi. “Since the season ended, you have the overall plan on how we want to build this into a contender. Then, obviously, you have to make adjustments within that plan, either accelerate it or whatever. I think we looked at what’s happening in free agency, the payroll and where it’s going, we had the time to look at the draft and how it’s going to affect us next year. We also had the time to look at some of our young players—where we think they’ll be in the last couple of months in terms of integrating them.”

“Then it comes down to fit,” added Lombardi. “There’s no doubt we’re committed to the way we’re going after my meeting with ownership this week. It’s more evident than ever that they’re committed to building a young core—for the lack of a better term, the old-fashioned way. Taking that all in, you’re making a gut call on the fit for what we project our team to be like.”


'FIT' WAS NOT THE ONLY REASON

Although Lombardi focused on how Crawford did not fit into the team’s future, he also pointed to the fact that the Kings were out of the playoff picture so early in the 2007-08 season.

“Part of what you look at when you evaluate, whether it’s a coach or scouts or whatever, we did not expect the team to be out of the playoffs in January,” said Lombardi. “I don’t think we were kidding ourselves into thinking we were world beaters. We set realistic expectations, but I don’t think it was reasonable for us to be out by January.”

“Certainly, that enters into the equation, but the most important thing was going forward,” added Lombardi. “There’s a lot of work that goes into this process, and I touched on a few of those. It’s clear how we’re going to use free agency. It becomes clear that the way payrolls are going and how some players are going to get paid, how we’re going to have to do this to keep the young core together and when to play them.”

But Lombardi stressed that the team plummeting out of playoff contention so early in the season (in reality, the Kings were out of the playoff hunt as early as mid-December), was a minor factor in the decision compared to how Crawford fit into the future of the franchise.

“If you’re only going to evaluate it on the past, the season ends disappointingly, sure,” Lombardi explained. “We weren’t as good as we thought. I think we should’ve been better. But is that enough to make a change? I didn’t really think so, particularly with a coach who had a good track record with other organizations. But then you look again, just like a player, where does he fit into your overall plan?

“We’re talking about a guy with a lot of wins,” Lombardi continued. “But this is different from Colorado or Vancouver. This is not an easy team to coach when you have to go out and get bridge free agents to bide time for your young players and build something through the draft and through your system.”

“You have to be realistic in terms of your expectations because you’re not able to build the camaraderie. I go back to free agency back on July 4. Six or seven guys—not the way to go and that’s a harder team to coach. I don’t think Marc ever confronted that type of building scenario, even though he had a wealth of experience. When you’re in that situation, the bridge towards the build, I don’t think he had to face that yet.”

Indeed, Lombardi must bear much of the burden, even though he did not have much choice, for Crawford’s situation last season. Given the fact that Lombardi handed him a roster made up of young, inexperienced talent at the top end and not much else outside of over-the-hill or drastically underperforming veteran players, it is quite clear that Crawford really did not have much to work with—he was going to be hard-pressed to keep his team in the playoff hunt, although his team should have been able to stay afloat until at least the All-Star break and should have been able to stay out of the basement of the league standings (the Kings ended the season tied in points with last place Tampa Bay).

“Marc’s record speaks for itself in terms of his winning record,” said Lombardi. “It just comes down to a question of fit.”

“We appreciate Marc’s commitment the two seasons he has been here,” added Lombardi. “However, we believe that in evaluating where we are at and, more importantly, where we are going as an organization, we feel this coaching change was the right decision to make. We wish Marc the best in his future endeavors.”

Although Crawford’s firing does not come as a total surprise given his team’s poor showing, it was certainly not expected, at least, not yet. This move also raises the question of how much of it was to deflect the heavy criticism being aimed at Lombardi and his staff by fans who are no longer willing to wait for their team to be a consistent winner and contend for the Stanley Cup.

In any case, the off-season for the Kings has already started off with a bang. It will only get more interesting with a huge entry draft coming in just a little over a week, a new head coach and other likely roster moves ahead so stay tuned...

...it’s going to be bumpy ride.


 

Gann Matsuda is a Los Angeles native and has followed the Los Angeles Kings since 1973. His days covering the Kings began in the mid-80's when he wrote game stories and news and notes pieces on various online services (GEnie, National Videotex Network and eWorld), before moving to e-mail lists and the World Wide Web. He has been the news editor for the Online Kingdom (http://www.kingshockey.com) since 1995, and has also covered professional hockey players of Japanese descent for the Rafu Shimpo (Los Angeles Japanese Daily News) since  2001.

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