Coaches and FO are two different beasts. The average NHL coaching tenure is like 2-3 years.
I’m not great at math, but, even at 2.5 years per coach we’re looking at 10 years.
So taking Torts out of the equation, since you're just throwing him in there to inflate that number, we're not that far out of the norm. Vincent was an emergency hire who didn't get extended, so I wouldn't really count him either. That leaves Larsen and Babcock.
Again, along with the Laine/Merzlikins and the
group of vets situation, we have the extremely UNIQUE situation of our coach
“retiring”, only to come back a year later to coach a different team. Still don’t understand why this isn’t talked about more. Was his “voice” shared by the players in the “cut out the cancer” meeting??
To say the CBJ coaching situation of recent years is anywhere near “the norm”, is ridiculous. To use
WHATEVER happened with Tortorella, to attempt to normalize things even more, is possibly the only thing more ridiculous.
Babcock was a case where he might have actually been the most qualified person for the job, with the most experience and the resume to back it up....and how did that work out?
We still have essentially zero idea about what ACTUALLY happened with Babcock. He looked at people’s phones, big f***ing whoop. Reality is that whatever he saw IN the phone(s) in probably worse than his actions of looking at said phones. Literally did the shit he was probably asked and tasked to do. Then everyone joined the groupthink crowd and called for his head. Should have kept him around.
This team would be BEST off with Torts as its GM, and Babcock as coach. If you ACTUALLY wanted to win a Stanley Cup.