The Rangers decided to let David Quinn finish out the season but ultimately fired him yesterday which caught me by surprise. James Dolan wants to win now apparently and I though that Quinn was the right guy to continue to develop this young team. But as Barry Melrose points out above, the NHL has a history of going back and forth between types of regimes. In other words, the fact that the team has been said to be targeting older successful coaches is no surprise because they are now swinging away from what they had in David Quinn. Melrose talks about why he was surprised as well and also touched on other topics across the NHL.

  • Melrose thought if they were going to fire Quinn, they would have done it all at once. It is certainly obvious that a new GM wants his own coach but still it was odd that the Rangers waited to make the move.
  • The plan was that the Rangers were going to build the farm system and it was going to take some time. Melrose thought the plan was working pretty good as they were able to build a decent balance of veterans and young players. They have depth in net and some big blueliners and Quinn was doing a pretty good job. The new head coach could inherit a solid situation.
  • There are a lot of guys out there to replace Quinn and although you feel they would want to stay young with a guy who will keep teaching the young guys, with the NHL being a copycat league, they most certainly will go with a guy who had a lot of success like a Gerard Gallant.

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