Failing to Sign Barry Trotz Would be True North’s Biggest Mistake

Chevy and Co. were dealt a massive game-changer to their coaching search with the New York Islanders’ puzzling decision to fire Barry Trotz.

If it fits like a glove, take it.

Yes, as the old saying goes, the best shaped tools for the task are typically the ones that are not present at the job site.

That cannot be said, however, of the situation that Winnipeg Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff, governor Mark Chipman and fellow members of the True North Sports + Entertainment front office have found themselves in.

After seeing longtime head coach Paul Maurice walk out on the team in mid-December, the managerial team opted to promote second-year assistant Dave Lowry to serve as the team’s interim head coach – a title he held through the duration of the 2021-22 campaign.

The players making up this year’s version of the Jets didn’t seem to take to well to Lowry’s commandments, thus seeing a berth in the playoffs slip from their grasp as a rather inconsistent season wore on.

In his exit interview, Maurice said the team needed a new voice. And Lowry’s voice clearly wasn’t getting the job done. So, after the team failed to make the postseason for the first time since the 2016-17 season, one would think it’s back to the drawing board, correct?

According to captain Blake Wheeler, it actually feels like the team is right back to Square One.

“There have been years in the past where the expectations were really low and we had really good teams and were competing for championships,” the 35-year-old said. “This year, it seemed like expectations were high and we’ve obviously fallen well short of those. This is the best part of the year to be a hockey player, except when you’re in our shoes, then it’s the worst. It’s really disappointing. It’s hard to put into words, the feeling and you know, what it feels like. It just feels like we’re back to Square One. We built so long to get to a championship level and sitting here is pretty deflating.”

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So, in order to change the culture in the room, on the bench, and improve the production on the ice, Winnipeg will need to look into personnel adjustments. The first task at hand will be to find a coach that checks most of – if not all of – the boxes that the Jets need in a leader behind the bench.

“I informed the coaches that we’re going to be conducting a full-scale interview process for a new head coach,” Cheveldayoff said at his year-end media availability. “So I met with each of them individually, I met with Dave (Lowry) and told him that as well, and said to him if he wanted to be part of that formal search that he had earned that opportunity. We will grant him a formal interview process in that regard.”

In other words, ‘thanks for your efforts this season, but don’t let the door hit you on your way out’.

A massive list of candidates for the Jets’ head coaching gig includes that of Alain Vigneault, John Tortorella, Randy Carlyle, Paul McLean, Brad Berry and James Patrick to name a few.

But on Monday morning, Chevy and Co. were dealt a massive game-changer to the tune of the New York Islanders’ puzzling decision to fire Barry Trotz after one disappointing season (out of four). Trotz – the league’s second most experienced coach ever (1,812 games coached) and the owner of the third-most wins all-time (914) is currently without a job.

One team that will certainly need to provide Trotz with a lucrative signing package is the Jets. A product of Dauphin, Manitoba, the soon-to-be 60-year-old actually got his start in Winnipeg, coaching the University of Manitoba Bisons back in the mid-1980s.

sources telling us barry trotz is about to have his john tavares homecoming story pic.twitter.com/neBhPhXARP

— JetsNation (@NHLJetsNation) May 9, 2022

Trotz then went back to his hometown of Dauphin, where he added a couple of years of Manitoba Junior Hockey League coaching to his resume with the Kings, before grinding out six seasons in the American Hockey League. He got his shot with the expansion Nashville Predators and stuck as the bench boss for 15 seasons.

The veteran coach then moved on to Washington, where he tamed a fiery Alexander Ovechkin and earned the Presidents’ Trophy, Jack Adams Award and the Stanley Cup in his final year with the club. Trotz then moved from DC to Long Island, where he turned the cellar-dwelling Islanders into one of – if not the – very best defensive team in the league. He went to back-to-back conference finals with New York, before COVID, a failed arena opening plan and massive injuries during the 2021-22 season saw his team finish outside the playoff picture.

With multiple ties to the province of Manitoba, Trotz has immediately jumped to the very top of the Jets’ coaching candidates list. Although the team is undergoing an all-encompassing, exhaustive and scrupulous coaching search, Chevy’s metal detector has definitely begun beeping much faster.

Failure to offer Trotz an upgrade on what would have been the final year of a deal that was paying him $4 million in New York would be a catastrophic failure by True North.

If anyone would be able to walk into the dressing room, change the culture, stride onto the ice, change the defensive structure, and hop onto the bench and change the results, it would be Trotz.

And you know what? He’s done it before.

He’s a proven winner, and a good ol’ Manitoba boy to boot.

There is no better candidate available, under contract or not.

Hey Chevy, what are you waiting for?