Sep. 24, 2009

Great One never was right one to fix ugly Coyotes

By Wes Goldstein | CBSSports.com Staff Writer

The Great One has come undone.

Are you surprised? You had to know this was never going to end well, this disaster that was in the making the minute Wayne Gretzky signed on to become coach of the Phoenix Coyotes. And still it turned out uglier than anyone might have imagined.

Under Wayne Gretzky's watch, the Coyotes never turned the corner. (AP)

Logically taking over as coach would seem to have been against Gretzky's better judgment, if only because he is astute enough about the game to understand the pitfalls of the job for someone who had never done it. Gretzky may have slid easily into a management role with Team Canada for the 2002 Olympics, but putting together a gold medal contender when you have an abundance of talent to choose from is not quite the same challenge as turning around a Coyotes team that had missed the playoffs three of the four previous seasons.

Gretzky probably figured that out long before 2006 (when his choices for Team Canada ended up having a disastrous tournament in Torino) because he had already spent months trying to work with the hodge-podge collection of players Phoenix had coming out of the lockout. But as a managing partner of a franchise that was dying in the desert, Gretzky had to feel there was no other option than putting himself front and center when play resumed.

It was either that, or the NHL's greatest player figured pulling a rabbit out of a hat would be easy for someone who was a magician on the ice.

Ultimately, none of that really mattered. The magic touch Gretzky demonstrated in his record-smashing career was never apparent in Phoenix. It began when he joined the organization in an ownership capacity in 2000 and brought many of his old friends along for the ride. His former agent was a general manager until last season. His brother was scouting director. Several former teammates had consulting gigs and over-the-hill veterans like Brett Hull and Curtis Joseph were often given jobs when they had nothing left.

Through it all the team failed to make any real progress. In fact, the Coyotes have never won a playoff round since moving from Winnipeg in 1995. Is it any wonder then that Gretzky's presence behind the bench was just as futile as his administrative experience? More than anything, his hiring turned out to be a misguided marketing ploy that put nowhere near enough fans in the seats to keep Phoenix from losing $30 million a year.

Then again, Gretzky's actual coaching abilities didn't help either. Over the last few seasons his apologists claimed he was too nice, too much of a players' coach to succeed, and certainly too short of talent to succeed. But whatever his shortcomings were, the bottom line is Phoenix won less than half its games in four seasons under Gretzky.

The Coyotes did have some stretches of competitiveness after the lockout, but they finished in the division cellar three times and never got within 12 points of a playoff spot. Gretzky was supposed to guide the Coyotes through their rebuilding process the last few seasons, but several young players actually took steps backward last year. The organization even had to send down highly touted recent first-rounders Kyle Turris and Viktor Tikhonov to the minors this week.

So instead of being the white knight who saved the franchise, Gretzky's tenure will be remembered for coinciding with the time the Coyotes became the NHL's quintessential basket case and ended up in an ugly bankruptcy this spring. Much of what has happened in the desert sink hole was beyond Gretzky's control, including the hotly contested fight for the franchise between the NHL and Blackberry mogul Jim Balsillie, who wants to move the team to Hamilton, Ontario. The battle left Gretzky figuratively naked and stuck in the middle. It ultimately led to his resignation, although he surely received an appropriate settlement on his contract before leaving so diplomatically.

Gretzky been collecting on his $8 million salary despite staying away from the Coyotes training camp this month, which means that financially Gretzky hasn't had the rug pulled out from under him.

But for someone who has always been beyond reproach in the hockey world, this distasteful end to his coaching days in Phoenix is a lot worse. Gretzky didn't get to go out on his own terms and more important, he had his reputation tainted. In a poll last week in the Arizona Republic, more than 80 percent of those who responded said they didn't think the game's greatest player was the right man to coach the team.

He never was.