Stars coach Glen Gulutzan's job may not be safe, with the club looking at a shake-up after another season out of the playoffs.

End is probably near for Stars coach Gulutzan; GM’s days numbered, too

Published: 25 April 2013 01:53 AM

It ended so quickly. It ended in a blur of chaos and confusion although in some respects you could see it coming. And if you couldn’t actually see it coming, you could hear it in the voices of Ralph and Razor, the worried tones suggesting the Stars were losing their grip one final time.

After trailing for more than 34 minutes, the San Jose Sharks scored goals 30 seconds apart late in the third period Tuesday night. Ultimately, it was just one more defeat for the Dallas Stars but, in this case, a team that had a chance to skate onto the ice with control of its destiny Thursday night saw its playoff hopes all but vanish.

Actually, Hockey-Reference.com says the Stars maintain a 6.6 percent chance of making the playoffs after Tuesday’s crushing defeat. To think they will still make it, beyond anticipating Stars’ victories over Columbus and Detroit, you have to believe that the downtrodden Nashville Predators will care enough to win at Columbus on Saturday night.

Among other things.

The Stars were making the most improbable run toward the playoffs when they left town last week following a 5-1 defeat of the Vancouver Canucks. A team that had jettisoned the contracts of captain Brenden Morrow and Jaromir Jagr and Derek Roy for future help was somehow playing its finest hockey of the season.

It unraveled on the road where the Stars registered a single point in games at St. Louis, LA and San Jose. Even three points would have kept their goal in sight, but it’s no surprise the Stars eventually surrendered to their lack of experience.

So what now?

Assuming their 1-in-15 long shot hopes fail to come in this weekend, where do the Stars go from here?

Five straight failures to reach the Stanley Cup playoffs are three or four beyond anyone’s idea of what is acceptable. Of course, no one still here is directly responsible for all five.

You can be all but certain that coach Glen Gulutzan will be moving on. He has no contract beyond this season. While I think he managed to get inspired play from his young team down the stretch and the power play was not the disaster it had been a year ago (better players and assistant Curt Fraser had something to do with that), Gulutzan’s unlikely to be invited back.

Owner Tom Gaglardi has been relatively quiet and behind the scenes since lifting the burden of the Hicks years from this franchise. I don’t expect that to be the case this summer.

A year ago, with a lockout approaching, it made sense for him to sit back and wait. He gave general manager Joe Nieuwendyk the authority to provide stopgap help with short-term deals to veterans. Most of that help disappeared just before the trade deadline three weeks ago.

I think there are reasons to give Nieuwendyk another year to see if this team can get over the hump. The problem is that Nieuwendyk already has been trusted with two coaching hires. He replaced Dave Tippett with Marc Crawford the first time. He passed on Ken Hitchcock (who wanted to return) in favor of Gulutzan the second.

The Alex Goligoski for James Neal and Mats Niskanen trade continues to haunt this team to a certain degree although I would say the acquisition of Kari Lehtonen makes up for it.

Still, I’m not sure how Gaglardi will view Nieuwendyk’s past coaching moves when he looks at the future of this franchise. I also don’t know if Gaglardi sees his good friend, Mark Recchi, as a confidante, a consultant or a general manager-in-waiting.

Personally, I think Stars fans would applaud the hiring of Guy Carbonneau as this team’s next head coach, regardless of what Gaglardi does with the GM position. That possibility was never even in play as long as Morrow, Carbonneau’s son-in-law, was captain of the team.

Carbonneau was a fan favorite, and deservedly so, when the Stars were relevant in this town. In his first head coaching stop, he was a finalist for the Jack Adams Trophy in Montreal when the Canadiens won a division title in 2008.

I’ve always been told that a Nieuwendyk-Carbonneau pairing would never happen although I’m not sure why. But as long as Bob Gainey remains a consultant here, his elevation to interim GM with Recchi as assistant GM and Carbonneau as head coach is a scenario Gaglardi would at least need to consider.