TED Nolan fired himself the first week of March when he picked against Rick DiPietro for both ends of a home-and-home series against the Rangers.
Forget any and all of the mitigating circumstances existing at the time that might have made backup Wade Dubielewicz the rational choice for either or both of the matches, for the moment the head coach crossed the franchise goaltender, he crossed the line.
GM Garth Snow talked again and again about “philosophical differences,” in explaining why Nolan was dismissed yesterday after two seasons behind the bench in which the Islanders were much more competitive than they had any right to be.
It wasn’t a Snow job, there was a conflict between the front office and the head coach on the age-old issue of cultivating kids as opposed to leaning on journeymen veterans, but Nolan’s failure to recognize the sway that DiPietro holds within the organization represents the true philosophical divide that got him fired.
This isn’t to suggest that the Islanders aren’t better off with a different coach, given the type of young team they’ll present next season. Nolan probably isn’t the right guy to have as a development coach, though that’s exactly what he was at Moncton of the QMJHL the season before Charles Wang brought him out of a nine-year NHL exile.
This isn’t to suggest, either, that the Islanders aren’t better off with a coach who isn’t as relentless a self-promoter as Nolan, and excuse the triple negative, but that’s pretty much what Nolan had become, a triple negative, even if his team of castaways overachieved.
The perfect coach deflects praise onto his players after victories and places the blame upon himself after defeats. Nolan must have missed that page in the manual.
Nolan also clearly misunderstood his rung on the organizational ladder in becoming enmeshed in a public fight with Snow during the first week in March after snubbing DiPietro twice in three days against the Rangers. It was an absurd move, one designed to make a statement of power by embarrassing the franchise’s favorite son, no matter how many other which ways the head coach attempted to frame it.
It became too much about Ted; became too much about Ted Nolan-type players. Every team can use the prototypical Nolan overachiever, but no team can progress from the bottom half of the league when more limited hard-hat players get their ice time at the expense of young, raw talents in need of nurturing.
The Islanders cannot attract prime free agents. They won’t even listen. The Islanders have no other choice. They must build from within. They also can choose not to trade down out of the first five in the Entry Draft – and once upon a time could have chosen to keep Roberto Luongo and Zdeno Chara – but these are different matters.
The next coach is going to have to be a teacher. He is going to have to have patience. He is also going to have to remember that DiPietro has 13 years remaining on his contract. That’s the organizational philosophy he should never overlook.