Faceoff Factor

Badger Bob or Jacques Lemaire?

Mike Adams | National Hockey League

Mar 7, 01:21 PM | Hype this story!

I mentioned in my game grades some coaches who I think are what I call “Ruiners of Hockey.” I decided to take it one step further and rate every coach in the league. To do so, we’ll use three categories:

Badger Bobs: coaches whose team play an offensive style, with a hard forecheck, solid physical play and minimal trapping.

Scotty Bowmans: coaches who it is hard to lump into either end of the spectrum. I’m not saying these guys are great coaches like Bowman, just that you can’t quantify them as offensive or defensive.

Jacques Lemaires: These are the Ruiners of Hockey, coaches whose teams play a boring, passive style that puts fans to sleep and eventually drives them away (see New Jersey).

We’ll start in the East.

Badger Bobs (in alphabetical order)

Bruce Boudreau. He has a lot of young talent in Washington, and he’s letting them play.

Guy Carbonneau. This one is a surprise, for this former defensive wizard. But he has a high-flying offensive machine going up there in Montreal.

Peter Laviolette. The Hurricanes have been a great transition team under his watch.

Lindy Ruff. His Buffalo teams, while sound defensively, have always been about skating.

John Tortorella. “Safe is death.”

Scotty Bowmans

Paul Maurice. Not much defense being played in Toronto, and that leads to fun hockey.

Bryan Murray. I was close to putting him as a savior, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. But his teams do generally play a pretty entertaining style.

John Stevens. His team plays a rough and tumble style that is pretty entertaining.

Brent Sutter. He’s close to being a Lemaire, but maybe I’m just comparing his to his predecessors. He has opened up the Devils’ attack a bit with more forechecking.

Michel Therrien. His attack really isn’t as wide open as the team’s talent would suggest it could be.

Jacques Lemaires

Claude Julien. He is in the process of turning his third team into one that nobody, including their own fans, wants to watch.

Jacques Martin. It took Ottawa getting rid of him before they had major success. He puts the shackles on any offensive talent he comes across. Just ask Olli Jokinen.

Ted Nolan. His teams work hard, but they never score.

Tom Renney. He is defense, defense, defense. For a team with that offensive talent to rank so low in scoring is a testament to his boring style of play.

Don Waddell. Not really enough data here, but his team’s offense has dried up under his watch.

Now let’s head west. I’ll put a caveat on this one saying that I don’t see the Western teams nearly as often as I do the Eastern ones. So I might not be as accurate with these.

Badger Bobs

Marc Crawford. I don’t like the guy, but at least his teams are usually entertaining.

Wayne Gretzky. You know the Great One won’t allow boring, passive hockey.

Craig MacTavish. It would be heresy for any Edmonton coach to preach passive hockey.

Denis Savard. He’s letting his young guns play and learn.

Scotty Bowmans

Mike Babcock. He was very defense-first in Anaheim, but has loosened the reins with more talent in Detroit.

Randy Carlyle. His team is tough, which is entertaining, but they play too much defense.

Mike Keenan. His numerous teams have always been about aggressive forechecking.

Andy Murray. I almost put him under Lemaires because his teams are always very disciplined and fairly low-scoring.

Joel Quenneville. His teams generally win, but at what cost?

Barry Trotz. The Preds play a fairly up-tempo game, but always seem to have trouble scoring.

Jacques Lemaires

Ken Hitchcock. The only fun thing watching his teams is seeing him waddle across the ice to the bench.

Jacques Lemaire. The original Ruiner of Hockey against whom all Ruiners are measured.

Dave Tippett. I’ve always found the Stars very boring to watch.

Alain Vigneault. Another Montreal disciple who takes all the fun out of the game.

Ron Wilson. Another guy who dumbs down the game to make it numbingly boring.