The Coaches Room is a regular feature throughout the 2024-25 season by former NHL coaches and assistants who turn their critical gaze to the game and explain it through the lens of a teacher.
In this edition, Paul MacLean, former coach of the Ottawa Senators and assistant with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, Detroit Red Wings, Columbus Blue Jackets and Toronto Maple Leafs, discusses how where teams stand approaching U.S. Thanksgiving is an accurate indicator of where they will finish at the end of the season heading into the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
It became my philosophy once I went to the Detroit Red Wings because the first person I heard about U.S. Thanksgiving was Ken Holland. He was very big on that aspect of where you sit at U.S. Thanksgiving after 20 games was probably where you were going to sit after 82 games. He had all the historical data that showed that.
It’s not every team that ends up that way, some teams will fall out of the playoffs, but for the most part, up to 80 percent of the playoff schedule is basically decided.
If you look at the schedule, you can make the playoffs in the first 20 games, and right now, the Carolina Hurricanes have basically done that with their start. The Florida Panthers are up there with the Toronto Maple Leafs, and you have the Vegas Golden Knights and Los Angeles Kings that are up there.
Then there is the Winnipeg Jets and Minnesota Wild, they’ve pretty much punched their tickets to the playoffs, unless there is a huge catastrophe that happens to any of these teams. The top two teams in each division are pretty much going to be in the playoffs, they just have to go .500 the rest of the way.
That’s a big carrot to get out to a quick start and get off on the right track in the first 20 games. Winnipeg is obviously awesome right now, winning 15 games already. If you’re four or five games over .500 and your goal differential is really good, that’s a big thing.
If you’re trying to turn your season around, to get past a bad goal differential, that’s a tough go.
Those are telling stats, and it might be only 20 games, but they tell you how you are playing in your overall game and the 5-on-5. It’s not something that is just made up. That standard of where you are at Thanksgiving and where you’re going to be at the end has been proven over time, that is the case.
It was a Red Wing thing for sure, Ken Holland might have gotten in from Jimmy Devellano or they might have got it from Scotty Bowman. Everybody had a thought on it and agreed that’s pretty much where you were going to be. It’s something that has been around the game a long, long time, it was a barometer people they used to judge their team and rank their team.
I think it’s a pretty good barometer, especially for some of those top two teams in division. It’s probably more for them, because there could be some change at the bottom.
If you look at Winnipeg, I think it’s tremendous for their fan base to have the team come out and do that.
Scott Arniel spent a lot of time with a lot of coaches since the last time he was a coach in the NHL, and he really absorbed a lot of techniques and tactics from a lot of those people. He hired good people to come in and help him out and the team basically hasn’t skipped a beat from where they were last year. They’ve actually gotten better.
I think being healthy is probably one of the reasons why, because that’s going to affect every team as the schedule goes on, but they’ve really been healthy. They really had a great training camp and great focus in their training camp in how they wanted to play and what their identity was.
Their leadership group is good with Adam Lowry, Josh Morrissey and Mark Scheifele, and I think Nino Niederreiter is a really important player in that group as far as getting the team to play the way they’re playing right now. They have a lot of guys that really playing at the best they can play.
It is a long season and when you get off to a good start, you like to be as consistent as possible. You’re trying to have a consistent message every day as to what you want to do and then be constructive in telling the team if they are falling in some way and need to work on something.
In general, there are going to be things they want to maintain; their power-play excellence, they are trying to be creative there and, on the penalty kill, they want to make sure they are working on certain things. If they can work on trying to make that game their everyday game and keep it at a high level.
That’s what the coaches are trying to do is to maintain that.
There are going to be ups and downs a little bit, but you want to make sure those blips are really small and the straight line heading upwards stays high.
Injuries are going to be part of it and fatigue is going to be a part of it as well. But the coach’s job is to keep steady on the rudder as old fishermen say and keep everything positive at what you’re trying to work on.
If you’re the Colorado Avalanche, you’re thinking, "We still right there, we’ve got a couple of guys out and we have such a good group that we know when we’re healthy, we’re going to reel off whatever games we need to win to get in."
That’s a team that has tons of confidence. The Edmonton Oilers are another team that is trying to find their game and get healthy. They’ve proven they can come from behind and get going and get rolling into the playoffs because they did it last year.
Consistency from game 20 to game 40 is important. I would say once you get through the holidays and into January, it’s the consistency of your game that’s going to get those team that are on the bubble into the playoffs.
They have to play very, very consistent hockey in the next 20 games to see if they can give themselves a chance to make a run and change what those standings were at U.S. Thanksgiving.
For those teams, the next 20 games are bigger than the first ones.
