Vegas Golden Knights: Three talking points from McCrimmon’s briefing
It has been a dramatic day in the history of the Vegas Golden Knights following the exit of one Head Coach and the hiring of another.
Gerard Gallant was dismissed as the Head Coach of the Vegas Golden Knights earlier today, with the front office rapidly turning to Peter DeBoer to be their new bench boss.
The former San Jose Sharks coach will take charge of his new team on Thursday night against the Ottawa Senators, where he will also speak to the media for the first time.
The media did get to speak to Vegas General Manager Kelly McCrimmon though, who spoke about the decision to fire Gallant and move on to DeBoer.
As expected, there were some interesting nuggets to come out of the media conference and we pinpointed three talking points that caught our attention…
1. This team needs to win now
It quickly became apparent that firing Gerard Gallant was somewhat of a panic move by Vegas General Manager Kelly McCrimmon and President of Hockey Operations George McPhee.
From announcing the appointment of Peter DeBoer along with Gallant’s dismissal to McCrimmon’s quotes, it is abundantly clear that the front office panicked after seeing this team go on another four-game losing streak.
It seems crazy considering that this is a third-year expansion team but the tone is set from the top down, with owner Bill Foley adamant since day one that he wanted this team to win a championship within five years.
As such, McPhee and McCrimmon have constructed what they thought was a Stanley Cup caliber roster, and firing the Head Coach was the only move they could really make
This team as it is currently constituted has to win now after some of the big contracts handed out to the likes of Max Pacioretty and Mark Stone.
There are no excuses anymore.
And this desperation to win, and win soon, was reflected in McCrimmon’s quotes, which you can read below:
"“As a manager, sometimes you have a feeling that something isn’t the way you need it to be or want it to be. We feel we’ve underperformed a little bit, and that’s not to pile at the foot of Mike and Gerard, but sometimes you feel a change is needed. That’s what went into the decision.”"
The fact that the Golden Knights were so quick hiring Peter DeBoer also tells me that this was a panic move and they were desperate to bring a winner in behind the bench.
It is a gamble and we’ll see if it pays off.