“Very well deserved, I think he did a really good job, I mean we were really prepared and I think they did a great job of making adjustments on the fly, it was real impressive,” Zach Parise told the Minneapolis Star Tribune‘s Michael Russo. He is of course reacting to the news that the Minnesota Wild negotiated a 3-year contract extension for Head Coach Mike Yeo that is reportedly in the neighborhood of around $3 million. Yet back to the above quote, that’s a pretty nice endorsement for a guy who has played under some terrific coaches in his career. Yet, do Wild fans agree? Coaches in any sport these days often are ravaged via social media and team focused message boards and Mike Yeo is no different. The “Fire Yeo” topic on the wild.com message boards has 504 posts and 11,449 views. That far more activity than most of my articles get, but it kind of goes with the territory. The decision-maker in anything is often the most critiqued, analyzed and often pilloried personality on any team. A coach can go from being paraded in the streets to having a lynch mob waiting outside the arena after a 6-game losing streak and Coach Yeo experienced as much this season alone. Michael Russo, as did most Wild fans realized that the expectation level of the fanbase and team ownership was going to increase considerably when the team made the move to spend $198 million to bring in Parise and Ryan Suter into the fold.
After limping into the playoffs in 2012-13 where the team won via tiebreaker versus Columbus (who was ironically being led by former Wild coach Todd Richards) Yeo knew the team couldn’t afford such a mediocre entry into the post-season. He knew the expectations had risen, just getting to the playoffs would not be enough. He had to show progress and demonstrate the team could win once it got there. It did just that as they rallied back from a 3-2 series deficit to earn a Game 7 win over the Colorado Avalanche. Its my guess, that’s shortly before the team started to put together a proposal to extend his contract. Yet is it the right decision?
At first I was kind of surprised they made it a 3-year deal, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the team is stuck with him for the next 3 years. How many times do we see where a coach who is given a contract extension is then suddenly let go during a rough season years before their contract was set to expire. The length of the deal is really meaningless and if Mike Yeo stumbles badly, the axe will fall right away instead of waiting around for his contract to end. A 3-year deal at least from the outside appears more as an endorsement of approval from the front office than a one or two-year deal would have. So in retrospect a 3-year deal makes sense. However that still doesn’t answer whether he’s earned it. Also, it appears so far that Yeo’s coaching staff of Daryl Sydor, Rick Wilson, Bob Mason and Darby Hendrickson are likely to return and also be offered contract extensions in the next week or so. So to maybe address this question, perhaps its best to look at in a point / counterpoint style.
Point: Mike Yeo’s leadership hasn’t won nearly enough despite a fairly talented roster.
Mike Yeo is 104-82-26 (.490 winning percentage) in 3 years at the helm of the team, does that really sound all that impressive to you? He’s had a sub .500 record over that time even with a roster that included the likes of Zach Parise, Ryan Suter, Dany Heatley, Devin Setoguchi, Matt Moulson, and Jason Pominville on its roster over that time. Is the Western Conference really that tough that despite that many decent players a near .500 record is considered good enough or should we be expecting so much more? I would agree the Western Conference is very tough and with division re-alignment that the Central Division is quite strong with Chicago, St. Louis and an up and coming Colorado team battling for space along with Minnesota near the top. Yet the team finished with a worse record in what was a very decidedly weak Northwest Division. This is the same division that produced the last two teams that earned the 1st Overall pick (Edmonton and Colorado respectively) for being so awful. 24th in goals with this collection of talent?
Counterpoint: Mike Yeo managed to overcome a great amount of injuries to key players to get into the playoffs twice in the last 3 seasons.
Oddly enough, the Wild at times were their best when some of their star players were injured. This was especially true in goal where the team managed to roll off some impressive winning streaks even though it started 4 different goaltenders over the course of the season. Even though the team got off to an ok start thanks to some phenomenal goaltending by Josh Harding the team did not exactly go into a death spiral when he had to leave the lineup to adjust his medication for Multiple Sclerosis. Other players stepped up, which is a testament to the depth of the organization but its also a testament to the Wild’s coaching staff’s ability to get players up to speed and knowing what they need to do despite an increase in their normal responsibilities. It would be one thing if Mike Yeo just had the goaltending injuries to deal with; but the team survived long stints where Zach Parise and Mikko Koivu were injured and not only managed to hold their ground but actually climb in the standings during that time. Resilience is modeled by their coach, and while he praised the team they no doubt drew strength from his example. The injuries also proved in some ways to be a blessing in disguise as Mike Yeo was forced to make some roster moves that emerged to be very effective combinations for the team (i.e. Mikael Granlund centering Parise and Pominville).
Point: The team’s offense is still near the bottom of the league and the power play and penalty kill were terrible.
The power play finished 16th, finish at a 17.9% rate but most fans would remember it as being horribly inconsistent and in some cases demoralizing to the team. Fans at home had little patience for a bumbling performance on the man advantage and after the first failed attempt they’d often boo if poor play continued. Yeo’s resistance to keep a non-shooting Mikko Koivu off the power play often doomed it to slow, predictable puck movement that made it easy to stop. As bad as the power play was, the penalty kill was even worse finishing 27th in the league at a paltry 78.8%. The penalty kill’s struggles were particularly baffling considering how good the team is defensively 5-on-5 and far too many times a few penalties stung the team on the scoreboard. A big reason for this was a lack of physical play near the crease so opposing forwards were allowed to screen the goaltender without consequence and some of this may be due to personnel, but coaches help instill what sort of mentality their defenseman have. Special teams must improve if the team is going to stay among the top teams in the Western Conference.
Counterpoint: Young players showing lots of promise throughout the season as Mike Yeo showed a willingness to put the teams’ youth in key roles.
The easy move would’ve been to have stuck with the veterans, but Mike Yeo started to demonstrate a greater level of trust in the teams’ younger players. While injuries certainly forced Yeo’s hand to a degree, but after experiencing success with some of the teams younger players he’d show a willingness to experiment with these players playing on lines with their key veterans. Nino Niederreiter, Charlie Coyle, Erik Haula, Justin Fontaine and especially Mikael Granlund all shown flashes of terrific potential and at times Yeo gave these players the opportunity to carry the team. This not only gave these young players the chance to showcase their talent but it also helped rest up veterans by not rushing them back before they were completely healthy or preventing them from being too warn down. The youngsters brought speed, energy and a dose of creativity that helped keep the Wild’s playoff hopes alive. Yeo would continue to tweak with the lineup throughout the rest of the season and often time he’d group the younger players together to maximize their speed and creativity. Haula, Coyle, Granlund and Niederreiter all had their moments in the sun in the playoffs as the exhibited more confidence and that can only be a good thing for the Wild. In fact, their promise seems to possibly have cooled the Wild down from what looked to be the franchise’s entry into the Thomas Vanek sweepstakes that will occur this summer.
Like it or not Wild fans, Mike Yeo will be back for the 2014-15 season. He still has some improvements to make, but it is not as though the team has not seen any progress at all. Mike Yeo is the first Wild Head Coach to be given a contract extension since Jacques Lemaire. Lemaire, an NHL hall of famer as a player and Stanley Cup winning coach was practically giddy in talking with Wild.com’s Kevin Falness in a pre-game interview and he seemed absolutely delighted at trajectory of this franchise. That is pretty high praise from a guy who does not just dole it out just to be nice; it is praise that he felt the team has earned. So even for those fans that were hoping the team would send Mike Yeo packing, perhaps that endorsement from Lemaire can help tide them over a little until the start of next season.
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