Ted Nolan out as Islanders head coach

New York Islander Fan Central | 7/14/2008 02:05:00 PM | | |













Islanders website: Report the New York Islanders on Monday announced Ted Nolan will not return as coach for the 2008-09 season with comments from General manager Garth Snow and Ted Nolan with both citing philosophical differences.

Newsday: Greg Logan in the Islanders Newsday blog which was a repeat of what was in the paper here also reports on the dismissal of the head coach with Garth Snow's comments that it took over three months because it was a difficult decision for him and for Ted Nolan, because of the owners desire to give Ted Nolan the opportunity to coach in the NHL and because of his loyalty to those he hires and explains further he will take the criticism and that arriving on this decision was a process as he spoke with the now former coach regularly following the season and when the draft and free agency ended. Ted Nolan was not available for comment in Mr Logan's blog.

Mr Logan has a lot of his own speculation that has been repeated here several times as his reasons for the change but added a few more today on the teams defensive system vs playing veterans vs prospects.

John Tortorella, Paul Maurice, Bob Hartley are the early speculation for a replacement and that executive director of player development Bryan Trottier, commentator Butch Goring or Bridgeport coach Jack Capuano are not in the running for the head coach position.

Newsday: Anthony Riber plays the shock jock game reminding us how he and Jim Baumbach made this a big issue back in early April and of course writes the Isles are a Mickey Mouse organization that once again has proven it has no clue and is critical of the timing because of all the good coaches that have been hired.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
They sat on that stage together and lied to us.

The season ended back in early April, it took over three months of articles with both of them appearing at team functions taking questions from fans where the next day the one story would be reported with the quotes from the people involved the exact opposite or they outright denied they had problems?

Ted Nolan back on April 15th in the Times and Transcript said he intends to be back and talked about his team here as he denied he wanted to return to Moncton, Garth Snow said there was no reason Nolan would not return on April 10th.

After this dance for that went on for three months they both finally came to realize they could not get past their philosophical differences? It's insulting to this fan for both Garth Snow and Ted Nolan to let this go on for as long as it did and a waste of everyone's time.

Garth Snow wants to make it about the owners loyalty? To me that is a lot of nonsense. You say someone is your coach on April 10th you keep him or end the speculation and make a change if you do not think something will work out or the owner steps in and settles it once and for all, you do not tell us your relationship is great when it's not.

This was handled very poorly all around. Mr Botta in his blog thought Ted Nolan had problems not only with the general manager but with the veteran players. His speculation about how the coach said things to separate himself from the club speaks for itself and he knows when a coach feels like an outsider or for himself.

Bottom line a qualified well-respected players coach is gone, he helped provide the franchise credibility with the public and a belief in what they were trying to do and the Isles are going to have to take the hit with the public, you look at a coach like Nolan and despite the roster you feel he is part of the long-term answer.

I was frankly surprised his comments on May 2nd in the Saint Sault did not get him fired saying how difficult the coaching circumstances would be on a one-year contract after the organization's stance back in April was they do not comment on contracts.

My impression was Ted Nolan drew a line in the sand when he said that.

On the ice we could make a lot of discussion the injuries were too much but when your team scores two goals fourteen games in a row when healthy some of that has to go on the coach who obviously from watching games preferred the veterans to the prospects because a coaches job is to win. That also has to go on the general manager because he was part of getting those players along with Ted Nolan.

If this coach wanted to go with veterans over the prospects he was the wrong fit for this team moving forward and if he did have damaged relationships with veterans which Mr Botta also touched on where do you go?

Which is something that should have been decided in early April because no games have been played since.

Both the general manager and the coach put on a very poor show for us, the owner deserved better from both of them who he gave this opportunity to but he's hardly blameless doing an interview and the first words out of his mouth were I told you so to the coach about playing prospects.

For those who will write me and say Newsday/Greg Logan were correct and I was wrong writing a blog about Newsday/Greg Logan on the Grassy Knoll I'm afraid you would be missing the point entirely.

I commented a bunch of times over the weekend Ted Nolan could be fired immediately but if the speculation from both Greg Logan and Katie Strang contradict the quotes from both Garth Snow and Ted Nolan and even the two Newsday reporters are contradicting their own stories to go with retractions then the coverage is also a problem.

This was my primary issue with their coverage and I stand by every word I have written on this subject. I have no doubt this level of reporting did not help their working relationship either because obviously the communication between both of them was terrible. Also it's painfully clear the working relationship between Newsday and the club is also not very good also when there are retractions combined with Mr Logan complaining about not being consulted about injuries in the paper despite all his vacation time.

These man obviously had differences, they did not need Newsday to get behind and give it a push. For myself the disconnect between Newsday and this franchise may even be deeper than anything between Nolan or what now is his former general manager.

Very sad to me a man who pulled his car over in tears upon learning Peter Laviolette would be named Islander coach for 2002 wondering what it would take to become an NHL head coach again and wanted to be part of a club that had missed the playoffs seven years in a row had philosophical differences that could not be worked out. He had no problem coaching prospects in Moncton, why was it a problem now?

I thank Ted Nolan for Al Arbour night and the class he showed, I thank him for coming here and being the teams coach for two years but I do have bitter feelings about his part in how he sat on that stage and denied there were problems with the general manager, that to me is not honest on his part or Garth Snow and upper management.

Good day for the prospects to show up for mini-camp and be presented with this, not a good first impression at all?

I know Bob Hartley had a lot of good things to say about Garth Snow when he was hired as general manager, that would be the first person on my list but you need a coach who will want to be part of a youth movement.

This is one Garth Snow needs to make a quick decision on if it's his call.

So what happens now?
I put up all the articles critical of the club, regardless of whether it is fair or reasonable or comes from someone who follow the club or just shows up once a year to bash the New York Islanders.