The Detroit Red Wings have a new head coach. They introduced Jeff Blashill on Tuesday. Blashill doesn’t have NHL head coaching experience. He has coaching experience in the American Hockey League (AHL) and as an assistant under Mike Babcock. Is this the right guy for the job?
The Detroit Red Wings were looking for a new head coach after Mike Babcock agreed to coach the Toronto Maple Leafs. Babcock coached the Red Wings for ten years. He had an amazing record of 458-223-105 for a winning percentage of .649. The Red Wings made the playoffs every year under Babcock and went to the Stanley Cup Finals twice. They won it in 2008 and lost to Pittsburgh in 2009. Babcock sought a new challenge in Toronto.
The Detroit Red Wings knew who they wanted to be the next head coach. Blashill was their only coaching candidate. He had been the Grand Rapids Griffins Head Coach for the last three years. Grand Rapids are the American Hockey affiliate of the Detroit Red Wings. According to ESPN, Blashill told General Manager, Ken Holland, he was interested in the job. He said, “I told Ken a year ago that with Mike’s uncertainty, if Mike were to leave Detroit, that the Red Wing job was the job that I wanted most of any in the NHL. I was a Red Wing fan, an avid Red Wing fan growing up. It’s a great city that I believe in. It’s a great organization.”
According to ESPN, Red Wings’ General Manager Ken Holland said, “We certainly talked about the uncertainty of Mike Babcock’s situation. I told Blash that if we weren’t able to retain Babs that he would be my No. 1 candidate.”
Blashill may not have NHL head coaching experience but he has been a decent AHL coach. His record is 134-71-12. He led Grand Rapids to the Calder Cup in 2013. This year they made it all the way to the conference finals in the AHL.
He coached plenty of players on the Red Wings’ roster in Grand Rapids. These include Danny Dekeyser, Luke Glendening, Petr Mrazek, Gustav Nyquist and Tomas Tatar. The Red Wings’ roster is full of talent. It includes forwards Daniel Cleary, Pavel Datsyuk, Johan Franzen, Henrik Zetterberg, defensemen Marek Zidlicky and Kyle Quincey. Jimmy Howard and Petr Mrazek can both be efficient goaltenders for the Red Wings and lead them to the playoffs. The Red Wings haven’t missed the postseason in 24 years.
Detroit has a coach who is unproven in the NHL. They have the talent to go far in the playoffs. It’s up to Blashill to make that happen.
What do you think of the Detroit Red Wings hiring Blashill?
Leave a Reply