Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

Leafs Waiting For April?

11/21/2014 at 7:16pm EST

from Cathal Kelly of the Globe and Mail,

You can understand why Shanahan is keeping out of this. This season was always lost. All he wants to do is get to April. By then, he can torch Carlyle and maybe Nonis, and hire Detroit head coach Mike Babcock.

Babcock is his finish line. In the interim, he needs Carlyle and Nonis to wear this wretched season, but he also needs them to survive it.

Those two objectives only align if the team is mediocre, rather than embarrassingly awful. They’re sliding from the former to the latter.

The pressure is mounting on Shanahan to do the thing he least wants – give in to public frustration and fire Carlyle now.

Then he’d have to hire an interim coach. What if that guy won? And the fans fell in love with him? That would screw everything up.

So Carlyle is left dangling, with no word at all from his bosses. Shanahan can’t be seen supporting or denying him. Any presser he holds right now is going to be perceived as a vote of confidence or a kiss of death. Probably both. It’s an impossible bind.

In the end, all Shanahan can do is hide.

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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