Jobs aren’t only hard to come by for the average American citizen anymore; National Hockey League (NHL) coaches are having a difficult time maintaining job security as well. Already in this relatively young NHL season four coaches have been removed from their duties as a result of sluggish starts from their respective clubs, and several others remain on the hot seat.
These changes are not surprising, seeing as NHL coaches have an average tenure of 2.3 seasons behind the bench; this is the lowest average among major professional sports in the United States. The league’s longest tenured coach is Nashville’s Barry Trotz, who has been with the team since its inception into the league 13 years ago.What does come as a surprise is how quickly coaches were given the ax this season. Most coaching changes occur either during the off season or as the season approaches the trade deadline. This season, teams chose to be more swift with their decisions, choosing to pull the plug on the coach at the first signs of trouble.The St. Louis Blues were the first team to do so, firing the young Davis Payne after he began the season with a disappointing 6-7 record. Although Payne was with the team for a little over a year, the team chose to replace him with the much more experienced voice of Ken Hitchcock, who won a Stanley Cup with Dallas in 1999.

Hitchcock’s success after that was limited, though he did return to the Stanley Cup finals the next season and won a division championship with Philadelphia. After being fired by Columbus last season, Hitchcock seems to have found his winning abilities once again in St. Louis, leading the young team to an 9-2-3 record in his first fourteen games at the helm, a franchise record.

After seeing the successful spark of a new coach in St. Louis, other teams followed suit in less than a month by replacing their own. During the last week of November, the Carolina Hurricanes and Washington Capitals both dismissed their respective coaches after players failed to respond to their methods. It was the first time since 2004 that two teams have fired their coaches on the same day.

The Hurricanes, who won the Stanley Cup only six seasons ago, had at times looked like the worst team in the league under Paul Maurice; he was in his second stint of coaching with Carolina. As with other teams in the same situation, the Hurricanes’ star players were failing to perform, namely captain Eric Staal, who was a league worst minus 17 at the time of the coaching swap.

Players in Raleigh will have to see if they can respond to Maurice’s replacement, Kirk Muller, any more effectively. Muller had previously been the head coach of Nashville’s minor league affiliate team.

Star players were not only a concern in Carolina but in Washington as well. Two time Art Ross Trophy (NHL’s Most Valuable Player award) winner Alex Ovechkin appeared to be sputtering under coach Bruce Boudreau’s new defensive-minded game strategy. After what has been rumored to be a clash between the superstar Ovechkin and the media favorite Boudreau, management decided the time had come for new leadership, despite a 7-0 start to the season.

Boudreau was the quickest coach in modern NHL to reach 200 wins, needing only 328 games to do so. The Capitals hope new coach Dale Hunter, a former player for Washington, will be able to turn the season around and ignite his star-filled lineup. It was this inability to motivate players and win in the playoffs that earned Boudreau a one-way ticket out the door.

That ticket turned out to be to southern California, where only three days later Randy Carlyle of the Anaheim Ducks was relieved of his coaching duties after losing seven games in a row. After being unemployed for only 65 hours, Boudreau was hired to take the reigns of a star-studded roster that includes All-Star goalie Jonas Hiller and reigning league MVP Corey Perry.

Not all teams have had the immediate success that a coaching change brings like St. Louis. Hitchcock is the only new coach to win his debut this season; in fact, new coaches have had a combined record of 3-7-1 with Hunter earning two victories with Washington and Boudreau winning the other in Anaheim.

However, most teams realize that once a team begins to tune out their coach, wins are not going to come easily. This is why these four coaches might just be the first to lose their jobs in a list of teams who have long underachieved for their potential, including the New York Islanders, Columbus Blue Jackets and the Calgary Flames.

It seems like the more players are pampered into accepting their superstar status, the less they listen to their coaches. Unfortunately, it is when these superstar players stop performing that the coach is immediately put on the chopping block. Perhaps it is time for coaches to have more of a voice when it comes to their players and for their players to have less of a check to cash.

Regardless, the recent coaching changes have sent a clear message to the other coaches around the league: produce or be fired.