Crawford Must Go
By Jason Reed

DECEMBER 19, 2007 -- LONG BEACH, CA -- It’s good to be the king. Unless you’re an LA King and then it is a pretty safe bet that you wish you were one of those other kind of kings that they have over in Europe. After a summer in which many thought that the Kings would be improving, it seems that it is business as usual in the City of Angels—and when it comes to hockey, “business as usual” is not a good thing.

With a December record of 2-8-1, to say that the Kings are struggling would be a huge understatement. They came in dead last in my NHL Power Rankings this week and to be quite honest, there was never a chance that they would be anywhere but the bottom of the pile. I think that I would have put the University of Wisconsin Badgers above the Kings this week. Ouch.

So, why are the Kings a royal mess right now? GM Dean Lombardi seems to be doing his part, which leads me to believe that Marc Crawford isn’t doing his job. Crawford has a decent roster to work with—not a dominant team by any means, but a team that should be fighting for a seven or eight seed and not simply trying to keep their crowns above water.

Yeah, yeah, I know what argument the Crawford homers will lay on me—he won a Cup with Colorado early in his career, so he HAS to be good, right? Wrong. No offense to anyone, but lets be realistic. A blind mute could have coached the Avalanche to that Cup in 1996. Look at the talent that they had—Patrick Roy, Peter Forsberg, Joe Sakic, Uwe Krupp, Mike Ricci, Chris Simon (OK, so he’s not such a great example) and Claude Lemieux among others. If your roster looks like that you damn well better win the Cup! His next couple of seasons in Denver saw the ‘Lanche exiting early in the post-season, which just helps prove the “anyone could have done it” theory.

Crawford has a decent group to work with. Rob Blake, Michael Cammalleri, Anze Kopitar and Lubomir Visnovsky are all on the All-Star Ballot and while it is true that the Kings have had some goaltending woes, this team should have a better record than they currently have. With a record of 12-21-2 and a paltry 26 points, the Kings have half as many points as the Red Wings (53) with the Kings having played only one more game than the NHL’s #1 team.

While I agree that Andy Murray was not the coach to lead the Kings to the Stanley Cup, he was (and in St. Louis still is) a great teaching coach who can take a young, weak team and make them a good, solid team. Murray got run out of town and was replaced permanently by Crawford—but the dream of Cup glory has been more of a nightmare, what with the Ducks winning a Cup before the Kings, and I think that with the young roster the Kings have, most of the LA loyal would be happy to see Murray back in town.

Which brings us back to Crawford. To me this guy is an amateur illusionist. Whenever things start to get rough he probably breaks out that ring of his from ’96 and tries to distract you with it. If you drink the Crawford Kool-Aid (a Jonestown reference—Google “Jim Jones’ if you don’t know what I mean) then you probably believe that the grey in his hair has nothing to do with the stress that he feels daily, wondering if he will show up to work only to hear the words, “Mr. Anschutz would like to see you in his office. NOW.” For the record, Mr. Anschutz owns the Kings and wears the biggest crown in Tinseltown.

I have to believe that Dean Lombardi could pick up the phone and have a better coach on a plane within the hour, but for some reason Crawford still has a job. Check his coaching stats and you will see that he has had only a handful of good regular season point totals and a lot of mediocre ones. With the exception of the Stanley Cup, his teams generally get good tee times in April and May, which is to say that they get knocked out of the playoffs pretty early.

Once Lombardi comes down off the Kool-Aid then he can get on with the business of finding the next coach for the LA Kings and hopefully that coach can bring the team out of the storm cellar and into the house with the big boys. Until then, good luck LA fans and here’s hoping that Crawford finishes up here real soon.

EMAIL JASON: JASON@REEDWRITING.NET
 

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