This Coach Was Never a Washington Insider

My first reaction to the news of Bruce Cassidy’s firing was what in the world took so long? The average shelf life for a head coach in the NHL is two years. Coaches who get to the playoffs get fired, seemingly at the drop of a puck. Ken Hitchcock won a Stanley Cup in Dallas and two years later he was thrown out. Larry Robinson won a Stanley Cup in New Jersey and in less than two years, he was tossed. Bob Hartley, in four full seasons in Colorado, took the Avalanche to four conference finals and won the Stanley once and was fired two seasons after winning the title.

And Cassidy doesn’t have anything near their resumes. I’m shocked it took this long, shocked he made it all the way through October, especially since a coach who is late to his own meetings and late for the plane and so clueless that he redesigns his power play at the morning skate in front of the opposing coaches should never have been hired in the first place.

My second reaction to the firing is that it doesn’t matter in the least. If Cassidy walked up Connecticut Avenue wearing a jersey with “Cassidy” on the back of it, nine of every 10 people would turn and ask, “Who’s Cassidy?” He didn’t make any impact with the players, particularly the veterans who never appeared to take to him in the first place. He didn’t make any impact with the club, which has more losses than any team in the NHL. He didn’t make any impact here because the Capitals are more or less irrelevant to the sports landscape beyond the loyal folks who spend good money night after night to watch in person.

And he didn’t make an impact because Jaromir Jagr stopped being the best player in the world the moment he arrived in Washington. Isn’t it amazing that the two sorry, no-account Washington franchises -- the Capitals and Wizards -- get the best player in the world and the No. 1 overall pick in the draft and less than three years later you want to give both of them away? Two coaches have been fired on Jagr’s watch already and maybe the meter’s still running.

See, in basketball and hockey one great player can affect the fortunes of an entire team, and I’m not talking about a hot goaltender during the playoffs. And Jagr isn’t Scottie Pippen. Jagr was better with Mario Lemieux, yes, but he was undeniably great without Lemieux. But since everybody in his right mind would have made the move to get Jagr, and since a roster that includes Jagr, Peter Bondra, Olie Kolzig, Robert Lang, Sergei Gonchar and Dainius Zubrus ought to be a helluva lot better, the coach is going to get fired, especially in the NHL where everybody including Scotty Bowman gets fired.

Of the three head coaches who were fired Wednesday -- Dan Reeves in the NFL, Frank Johnson in the NBA and Cassidy -- the latter is the most irrelevant by miles and miles in the national sports news. Much of that is because the NHL commands a fraction of the interest of the NFL and NBA. But much of that is because in a league whose most important story is a pending owners lockout, the Capitals are irrelevant even in that context. They had the second-worst record in the NHL going into Wednesday night’s play. They’ve not won a playoff series since going to the Stanley Cup finals in 1998. That’s five years, no playoffs twice and out in the first round three times.

The Capitals had better hope folks around here even care that Cassidy got fired. There’s not even a sizzling subplot to his firing like there is to the one in Atlanta where the owner canned Reeves now because it would have been tougher to do it in three weeks if Michael Vick was on a four-game winning streak. Reeves has taken two franchises to the Super Bowl. He has coached perhaps the greatest quarterback of all-time, John Elway, and perhaps the greatest quarterback prospect of all-time, Vick. It’s not insane to suggest that Reeves might one day sneak into the Hall of Fame. So that story’s got some juice, some layer to it, some heat.

This story just elicits a yawn. “Coach Fired Who Should Never Have Been Hired!”

The Capitals only make news outside the neighborhood when they fire a coach or when Jagr screws up. That’s how you know you’re irrelevant. And this was the year to grab some attention, too. Michael Jordan is gone, the Redskins aren’t good, Maryland football got off to an 0-2 start and Maryland basketball is rebuilding. There was nothing but fairway out there and the Capitals couldn’t find it. They’re the worst team in a town (and let’s include the sorry Orioles for these purposes) of awful pro teams.

It’s easy to understand the promoting of Glen Hanlon, beyond the fact that at salary of $150,000 or so there’s no financial risk. (There wasn’t much in hiring Cassidy at $350,000 either.) Hanlon, having worked with the kiddies in the minors in Portland, is a teacher, he has got productive relationships with many of the players. And he understands that a franchise once known for great defense is now a sieve and had better find some quality defensemen before even thinking of contending.

But instead of a rational and safe hire, I swear I’d call Mike Keenan and ask him to come in for the rest of the year, much the way Jerry West brought Hubie Brown to Memphis, and I’d give him carte blanche to make the Capitals as miserable as he wants to for the rest of the season in an attempt to whip them into shape.

Look, there’s a work stoppage coming. The team is in last place. The owner is trying to dump salaries, understandably. George McPhee’s position, given he hired Cassidy, has to be tenuous. The best coaches in the world aren’t going to be begging to come to Washington. But an out-of-work Keenan with nothing to lose but time would at least be interesting, which is more than the Capitals have been able to say about their team in the last few seasons.