It’s FanPulse Wednesday! This week we talk about which NHL coach will be fired first in the 2019-20 season.
Coming in with 37.51% of the votes is Bruce Boudreau of the Minnesota Wild. This isn’t a huge surprise, the Wild have been a middling team for the past few years and have started this season 8-11-2 for 18 points in 21 games. Is this Boudreau’s fault? Probably not. We all remember the Paul Fenton debacle. If this prediction comes true, I can’t imagine Boudreau stays on the market for too long — unless he wants to of course.
Not far behind Boudreau is John Hynes with 26.26% of the vote. The only surprise here is that he didn’t get more votes. The New Jersey Devils went out and made the big acquisition of P.K. Subban this offseason, won the Jack Hughes sweepstakes, upgraded various positions and still sit in the bottom of the Metropolitan Division. I can’t believe that GM Ray Shero is comfortable with a 7-9-4 start in the first 20 games of the season.
The San Jose Sharks have not had a good start to this season, but they are at least starting to right the ship. Kind of. Peter DeBoer received 19.46% of the votes, which is a little lower than I was anticipating considering it seems like the majority of Sharks fans think a coaching change is what it will take to bring their team back into contention.
Mike Babcock received 12.78% of the fan votes — sure the Toronto Maple Leafs have been disappointing this season, but not quite fire your coach midseason bad. Maybe we can throw in a #FireHakstol just for old times’ sake. Could we see a coaching change in Toronto during the offseason? It’s possible. But it’s not likely to happen midseason.
I added Jon Cooper to the poll to see how people are feeling about the situation in Tampa Bay. The Lightning are consistent Cup contenders, yet they haven’t been able to get it done. Cooper received a contract extension last year so while I don’t necessarily expect him to be fired midseason, their start to this season has not been promising. It seems that hockey fans aren’t really expecting this either as he only received 3.99% of the votes.
Who do you think I should have included in this poll? Let me know in the comments. Also, sign up for FanPulse and get your opinions heard!
