As I said yesterday, I had no opinion on Jamie Kompon being hired as an assistant. I got a little nervous when seeing the long, previous relationship with Quenneville. But again, a Cup shouldn’t hinge on your assistant coach. The buck stops with the head coach. But I thought I’d do a little more than that and get the insight of someone who had dealt with Kompon as an assistant. And any chance I get to talk with our buddies over at The Royal Half.com, I’m going to take. What they told me will probably not make your pork loin sandwich taste any better today:
I’ve never seen an Assistant Coach as much maligned as Jamie Kompon was by Kings fans. His main priority was the Power Play.. which besides that playoff series against the Canucks in 2010… has been awful. Now, I’m of the belief that at the end of the day, the Head Coach is just as responsible for any deficiencies with the PP as the Assistants are… but try telling that to the fans that have been screaming for Kompon’s job for the last few seasons.
When Darry Sutter took over, the first thing he did was bring in Bernie Nicholls in a “consulting” role for the Power Play. It didn’t help much, but it was fun watching Kompon sit quietly while Nicholls took over practices. Kompon was pretty much a lame duck since February.
He’s a weird looking dude with a skinny head that skates really weird…. up and down and always has his knees bent like he’s sitting in a chair. It’s like he went to a hockey school and never changed his stride ever since.
Good God, does that sound familiar.
As my compatriot Matt McClure said, it looks like Q has hired his own personal Bob Babich. In fact, he’s got two of them now, and I’m kind of worried we’ll be treated to the site of two assistants staring blankly out at two dysfunctional special teams. Or we will through December until Stan gets his wish and cans their ass. At least that’s my theory.
Whatever’s going on here, something is amiss, and I’m kind of tired of writing about that about the Hawks front office. There’s my theory that Stan wanted to either fire Q after last season or at least let him talk to Montreal and let him leave and was rebuffed, and now he’s just going to let Q hang himself on his own rope with his own assistants and no excuses. Don’t for a second start complaining about the roster, because there’s enough on it right now to have a dynamic power play and gather 101 points without its captain for six weeks and being pretty mismanaged. Should it happen again in the beginning of the season, you better believe axes are going to get wielded. If that’s a word. They’ve already axed one assistant, and you don’t get to do it a second time.
The other possibility is that with the 2010 triumph, Quenneville has ingratiated himself so deeply with McDonough and Rocky that he’s untouchable. However, it’s looking more and more like Sid Barrett in his current state could have guided that squad to a win, and Quenneville’s lofty regular season win total but one Final appearance would seem to suggest that even more. Whenever this season begins, there’s going to be some good watchin’ to be had.