Why was Wayne Gretzky such a bad coach?

[Ianturnedbull]

2005 38 W 39 L OTL 5
2006 31W 46 L OTL 5
2007 38W 37 L OTL 7
2008 36W 39L OTL 7

Hardly ever getting above .500.

Did he always have terrible players?

Could he not manage the room?

Why did this become such a difficult thing for him?

 

[ACLEVERNAME]

Dude has no Rizz. Stone cold as a block. Same reason why Crosby or McDavid would make terrible coaches.

 

[Megustaelhockey]

He's a pushover.

 

[tfwnogf]

Didn't know how to explain his otherworldly hockey iq and vision to others

 

[DitchMarner]

I've heard it said that he wasn't effective because no one else could see the game the way he saw it.

I guess it's a theory. I don't know, though. I had no interest in the Coyotes... ever, really.

 

[Summer Rose]

I've heard it said that he wasn't effective because no one else could see the game the way he saw it.

I guess it's a theory. I don't know, though. I had no interest in the Coyotes... ever, really.

It was both. The Coyotes had a terrible roster for his coaching tenure. I will give him credit on one thing: he was good at making an already terrible team look even worse.

 

[DitchMarner]

He's a pushover.

I don't know. He seems like one of those guys who aren't big or physically intimidating and seem mild-mannered but have alpha male tendencies and tend to dominate their sphere of influence.

I'm sure there are many of that type in business.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

He struggled with systems.

There’s a good Olli Jokinen quote from when he was with Phoenix, and how Gretzky critiqued him because he didn’t see the 2nd or 3rd trailer on a play.

It’s why the reserved, cerebral players rarely translate into good coaches. They just see the game on a different level and that’s something you can’t teach in practice, nor do they fire you up to go run through a wall.

 

[Section 104]

Part of the problem was having friends in positions.His brother Keith as director of amateur scouting. His former player agent Michael Barnet as general manager. Grant Fuhr as goalie coach.
Off the ice drama..his mother and grandmother dying. His wife caught up in the Rick Tocchet gambling scandal.

 

[Doom Bot]

He's a drunk idiot

 

[Dingo]

most great coaches were fringe NHLrs, or didnt even quite make it.

Id say that those guys would likely largely be star centers as kids, 2nd liners as juniors, and role players in the league they got to. They would have run the gamut, able to relate to any player.

Superstars only ever do superstar things. And they cant relate to what normal people struggle with.

Gretzky isnt the only example of a superstar player who didnt make it as a coach

in fact.... i cant think of one.

 

[Super Hans]

Wouldn't bagskate the boys, just told them that was the greatest game he ever saw them play after every game.

 

[mightbeabird]

Because he was more focused on gambling.

 

[Naslund]

He's not a people person. Pretty clear from watching him on TV on NHL on TNT. It must have been difficult for him to be an effective manager. I'm sure he was on top of the hockey part of the job.

 

[Randyne]

He assisted from behind the net.
And realised that this thing is not working without bodyguards.

 

[BLNY]

It's really hard to teach instinct and when you do a whole lot without the puck you don't have the knowledge base to teach that. He came from no structure hockey to structure hockey and it was alien to him.

 

[Summer Rose]

Part of the problem was having friends in positions.His brother Keith as director of amateur scouting. His former player agent Michael Barnet as general manager. Grant Fuhr as goalie coach.
Off the ice drama..his mother and grandmother dying. His wife caught up in the Rick Tocchet gambling scandal.

Those years of the Coyotes were rotten to the core (not that other eras of the Coyotes were a great deal different since it permeated from the top on down with the constant ownership fiascos). If Gretzky was trying his best in a bad situation, then I could give him some credit. Most Coyotes fans think he wasn’t. The situation was something along the lines of him living in California at the time, leaving practices to his assistants and flying out to take the bench for home games. I don’t remember all the details of that though.

It was a pretty dark time in Coyotes history. We called it the “friends of Gretzky” years. There was also a running joke afterwards that Arizona was the only market in the league where Gary Bettman would get cheered and Wayne Gretzky would get booed.

 

[TheBeastCoast]

Because he is a dumb gambling addict and alcoholic lol

 

[Breakers]

Not a strong enough voice

Even more true today
He has to have his wife and children and buddies fight his battles instead of speaking up

 

[Bruce Granville]

Didn't know how to explain his otherworldly hockey iq and vision to others

Yeah, Olli Jokinen once explained this.
He was coached by the Great One, moving up the ice in practice, head on a swivel, looking to pass to a teammate.
Afterwards Gretzky asked him, why didn‘t pass to the 4th guy who just stepped on the ice and was out of sight, exactly behind him crossing the blue line.
“Coach, I didn’t see him, even if I tried.”
Gretzky looked puzzled…”Yeah, but didn’t you KNOW where he was?”
It was OJ’s turn to look puzzled. But at least he realised that Gretzky has an otherworldly vision and IQ.
You just can’t teach it. And if you are not able to understand the limitations of your players, you become a shitty coach.

 

[Jacob]

Great players tend to make poor coaches. The game probably came too easy for them. Not that he didn’t work hard, just that you can’t really teach or coach that level of hockey IQ, and being a HOFer it’s probably hard to connect with the average NHLer, who have to work their way up through the minors.

 

[D Wakaluk]

He didn't have the set of skills that make a good coach.

 

[IWantSakicAsMyGM]

Great players tend to make poor coaches. The game probably came too easy for them. Not that he didn’t work hard, just that you can’t really teach or coach that level of hockey IQ, and being a HOFer it’s probably hard to connect with the average NHLer, who have to work their way up through the minors.

It's the difference between Mozart and a guy who spent years learning to play the piano like Mozart. Only one of them can tell you what he did to get that good.

 

[NVious]

He kept yelling at the players "JUST PUT THE PUCK IN THE NET THATS THE GAMEPLAN YOU IDIOTS, WHY ARE YOU SO STUPID AND BAD???"

 

[Korpse]

Red wine.