Ron Wilson has had an outstanding career as a hockey coach. Six hundred-plus wins in the NHL is nothing to sneeze at. Nor is 16 years as a head coach, making it to the cup finals in just his fifth season.
On the international stage, he coached the Americans to the 1996 World Cup Championship, and won the silver medal in the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Unfortunately for Leafs fans, his decent career hasn’t transposed into any form of success for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
In terms of making the playoffs, his career isn’t as great as the sum (600 wins). In 16 seasons, his teams have only made the playoffs eight times. It will soon be nine in 17 seasons. You flip a coin with Ron’s career and you have a slightly better chance his team won’t make the playoffs.
Granted, many of those teams were struggling “rebuilding” type teams.
Still, the stats that a coach can influence most—power play and penalty killing—are stats that Wilson’s Leafs are struggling mightily in. Both are in the bottom third of the NHL with a particularly bad penalty killing percentage. Wilson came into Toronto wit ...
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Article written by Smiley Gimbel
Toronto Maple Leafs Coach Ron Wilson and Why He Needs To Be Replaced
February 7th, 2011 by Smiley Gimbel Leave a reply »
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