Three reasons why Randy Carlyle is a bad fit for the Ducks

1. Puck Possession

Perhaps the biggest indictment on Randy Carlyle’s coaching career is how terrible his teams have been in terms of puck possession – shot attempts for weighed against shot attempts against. While there are countless variables in hockey and outshooting your opponent certainly does not guarantee victory, if a team outshoots their opponents long-term, that tends to lead to wins. On the contrary, if a team gets outshot by its opponents consistently, that tends to lead to losses. Let’s look at how Randy Carlyle stacks up against Bruce Boudreau.

Randy Carlyle’s peak (between 101 and 201 games coached) conveniently happened when, you guessed it, he had Pronger, Niedermayer, and Beauchemin. During that time, he also had a young Getzlaf, a young Perry, and a future Hall of Famer in Teemu Selanne, among other talented players. Eventually, the Ducks came back to earth.

After Carlyle’s one Stanley Cup run, the Ducks weren’t any better off with him than Boudreau. In fact, Boudreau took the Ducks farther than Carlyle did despite not having the most talented roster. Perhaps change was needed in Anaheim with Boudreau’s firing. If that is the case, Randy Carlyle isn’t the good kind of change. With coaches like Travis Green and Todd Reirden among the head coaching candidates available to them, it’s a bit confusing why Anaheim chose Randy Carlyle.