Bruce Boudreau has been fired

Are the Komets hiring? I'll wait for the replies to tell me Al Sims is better than Boudreau because of his 3 championships in a bought league.

I suspect that there are troubles in the locker room and the players have quit. Too bad.

Boudreau turned the team around after taking over in 2007. Let's see how well they do with Dale Hunter.

Hurricanes have also fired Paul Maurice and are replacing him with Kirk Muller...

Boudreau will be behind an NHL bench no later than next year. Plenty of folks with worse results (see Wilson, Ron) have no trouble getting hired repeatedly.

I don't think Boudreau is a bad coach, it just seems that (especially in the pros) a lot of coaches' messages get lost on players after they have heard them a time or few. When that is lost, so is the intensity and the win percentage drops quickly. One of the exceptions would be someone like LaRussa, Dungy, or as much as I want to puke all over my keyboard, Belichick.

Ovechkin called the shot here. He reportedly came to camp out of shape. Bruce tried to make him more of a team player to facilitate a better playoff performance.
Unlike the Komets Washington never had difficultly scoring. But come playoff time they couldn't keep the puck out of their own net.
Semin is another problem.
I think Bruce lost two players but the rest of the team was not able to save his job.
Hunter will have initial success because the Caps are just too talented. But once you start letting coaches go because your star is disgruntled , the revolving door starts.
2 years for Hunter.
Ovechkin becomes the next Alexi Yashin.

Wonder how Pierre Turgeon feels about this hiring?

RK, the better coach is the one who is still employed, has his team playing together, competing for pucks and winning games. Not taking anything away from Boudreau but the reality is he lost the locker room. Once that goes (as Mike said) then it's anyone's guess how long the next guy lasts.

wait, comparing a CHL coach to a NHL coach? saying the CHL coach is better? did i read that right?

You read everything right but the sarcasm, Boone.

taus: I don't see us disagreeing on anything from what I wrote to what you wrote.

Columbus should hire Bruce, now.

The CHL coach is still employed, was a NHL coach at one time (yes, nothing to compared what Boudreau did the last 4 years).

The point is why make a statement if the K's are hiring when the current coach is doing his job, the team is playing well and coming together? Maybe Bloomington needs a new coach since they are 2-12.

Sarcasm, you betcha, what do you expect when you throw out a statement about needing a new coach and about a league that was bought by the Komets? If they were losing and off to the start they had last year, then I may agree with needing a new coach.

On winning championships in a "bought" league, would you go up to any of the players and tell them they won a championship(or three) in a "bought" league? I don't think anyone would be that disrespectful.

Do you skate with the Komets by any chance, taus? There is no way you can seriously say the Komets had no advantage in the IHL2 over the other teams.

you are so far off base RK.. very well put taus.. please tell us the advantage running komet. im all ears on this one. and by the way, coach sims lost his nhl job in very similar fashion to bruce . young stars that know more than the coach.

Yeah, RK. The Komets had an advantage - they had management/ownership that had a clue as to how to run a franchise and they didn't play in a rat-hole arena (e.g. Flint) with no possibility of a decent revenue stream. However, your statement about a "bought league" implies or alleges a lack of integrity on the part of a lot of people. If that's not what you meant, I apologize. If that is what you meant, shame on you. The other teams in the IHL (the Sequel) had the same salary cap to work under and drew from the same talent pool that the Komets did. That the Komets were orders of magnitude better at it than any of their competition made them a very large fish in an extremely small pond.

That league was stacked in the favor of the Komets for the reasons mentioned by Ron. I was not trying to say that owners or players were paid to lose.

I was/am saying those other teams didn't have a chance to compete with the Komets financially. Try telling me that players with the facilities the Komets have to practice and play in don't have an advantage and desire to play harder? Tell me getting paid every week and not worrying about if your team is going to get you your paycheck doesn't matter. Tell me knowing you aren't going to get evicted out of your living situation because bills can't be paid doesn't affect your play at all. What about a lack of proper equipment to practice with? Probably don't need that either. Now that I think about it, that league was totally legit and even across the board. Every team had an equal shot at the title each year.

"Shame on you." Hahahahaha! Haven't heard that since my grandma used that phrase about 20 years ago.

There are countless ways around the cap. Blake has even acknowledged that fact in the past.

Nice backtrack, RK. You've described the legitimate advantages of a well-run, financially stable organization, not a bought league. Every league has an imbalance between the haves and the have-nots, even the majors (see the LA Clippers) and in a crap-shoot like minor league hockey, the differences are magnified. That's why there are only a handful of franchises that last more than a few years. And yeah, there are lots of ways around the cap. Did the Komets use any of them? If Blake has any evidence of it and didn't publlish a story on it, he should turn in his reporter card. (Easy, Blake. I don't think there is any evidence to be found.)

Um, I don't remember ever saying the Komets or any other team violated salary cap rules.

The other thing -- if those teams were that poor off financially, I always wondered why they didn't vote to lower the salary cup, but they kept it for three years. I always wondered about that.

I will say this, too. The Komets are practically experts at looking for legal ways to work salary caps. All good teams are. Look at the 49ers and Cowboys in the 1990s, and shoot, the Colts the last five or six years. They were always restructuring this or that contract to create space.

One advantage Komets always had was equipment and training staff. With Komets Kuarters, players could order sticks just about any time they needed them, and they always got new skates, equipment, etc, whereas some teams were struggling in that area. The Komets have never skimped in treating the players well in areas outside the cap as well. They also don't hire rookies as trainers or equipment staff and they pay them a solid salary instead of just hiring someone out of school because they are cheap.

Players also know there are plenty of opportunities in FW to find jobs on the side as well. Canlan, insurance, advertising spokespersons, etc. I have no idea how that compares to other cities.

They also were financing the efforts in Dayton, Bloomington and Flint while in the IHL2. But I doubt anyone would say that's an advantage.

go Komets! My 10 year old learned. The cotton eyed Joe dance today in gym, so it must be ok, they teach that in public school but they don't teach religion, go figure

Komets players also never needed to worry about eviction notices, games with less than 500 fans in the stands, the constant worries if their paycheck was gonna bounce or not, no training staff at all (especially on the road), having simple things like tape for their sticks, dealing with new owners and new promises every season or even if the team they played for would make it thru the season or not, etc...

When guys had to raid former players garages for equipment (Muskegon)...there's a problem....

Aside from Kinney, it truly was a league of Haves vs. Have Nots....

Also Blake, both you and RK were correct... RK said numerous ways 'around' the cap which you did mention several times during the IHL2 years... Neither of you mentioned 'violating' the cap.

Cap aside, there were just several area's outside the cap (some mentioned above) where the K's had such a large advantage due to a solid ownership group that has been around the block a time or two...

Thank you for actually reading what I said, JR1. Blake must've misread my post from 7:17 PM yesterday.

also, how many times did the frankes pay the other teams players so they would play at the MC on a game night because they were not getting paid??

Straight from a high ranking komets brass " the danbury trashers ordeal put an end to manipulating and cheating the cap , we don't mess around with it (the cap) we have to win clean"

I love how this turned from a "Bruce Boudreau has been fired" thread to the same old "the 3 peat means nothing because it was a bought league" thread. Old habits die hard I guess.

Getting back to Boudreau...I think he got hosed a bit. His teams have been nothing short of outstanding in the regular season but have fizzled for one reason or another in the playoffs. I don't think that you can lay all of that blame on him. They've had questionable / unproven goaltending since he's been there (with the exception of Vokoun now) and a bunch of guys that have never won a Cup and therefore don't have that playoff experience to draw from. The team was built to score a lot of goals and in the playoffs things tighten up and become more defensive. So what does he do, he tries to make the team more responsible defensively but on the same token the offense is going to take a hit. When you have a highly productive offensive guy like Ovechkin he's not going to like playing more defensively and is more likely not to buy into the system. Some of the ohnus lies with the players and the GM too...not just the coach. But when you have a highly talented buy like Ovie under contract for big money, the coach is usually the easy goat.

Couldn't agree more Harbz. I wonder why some are fans and continue to support the Komets if they think championships were "bought"? Those are my final thoughts on that.

Back to Boudreau, he won't be out of work for long. There's enough teams struggling right now that have made big commitments this year (Columbus, LA, Anaheim etc...) that we could see more coaching changes by January. Gabby's a good coach and knows what it takes to win.

RK, sorry saw your question from previous post, no I don't skate with the K's, I've been a long time fan and have been fortunate to have known several players on a personal level from the 80's and 90's teams.