HOT CORNER: Golden Knights thriving under Gallant

It will be a year on the 27th of this month since Gerard (Turk) Gallant and Mike Kelly were let go as coaches of the NHL’s Florida Panthers.
Now, almost a year later, the move has been great for both Gallant and Kelly while the Panthers must be saying, “What if?”
What if the Panthers left Gallant alone, and let him coach the way that he can?
As we all know, he was let go mainly for not wanting to embrace the so called new way of coaching involving analytics. Gallant is an old-school coach who gets results and was coming off a club-record 47-win, 103-point season in 2015-16, and had the Panthers in a playoff position last year when he was dismissed.
The Panthers went on to miss the playoffs, and now sit in second last place in the 16-team Eastern Conference. Gallant, meanwhile, is the talk of the NHL where he has his expansion Vegas Golden Knights in fourth place overall in the 16-team Western Conference.
The Knights continue to surprise and play great hockey. It is incredible the job that head coach Gallant, assistant coach Kelly and the rest of the staff have done with the Knights. Taking 25 players who never played together, and barely knew each other, and turning them into a playoff-contending team in the best league in the world is nothing short of incredible.
The Associated Press article that appeared in both Island papers this week heaped high praise on Gallant, where Vegas players and management said some great things about the Summerside native and the way he coaches. It was a great article that made Prince Edward Islanders even more proud of one of our favorite sports personalities.
The ultimate prize in hockey is to win the Stanley Cup, and a lot has to happen for a team to win it. With so much parity in the NHL today, any team can win through time, and given enough time  and talent  it will not be a surprise to see Vegas win the Cup before most would think.

Analytics
Another team embracing the analytics way of building and coaching is the Arizona Coyotes. The Coyotes went out at the beginning of last year and hired John Chayka, an expert in analytics, to be their general manager.
He is the youngest GM in the NHL, and may be the worst. His team just earned its first regulation win of the season against Montreal on Thursday, and the Coyotes have the worst record in the NHL.
The lowly Coyotes, after 21 games, have accumulated only nine of a possible 42 points this season. Analytics, you say!  

Hall of Fame
Kim Dolan, Ken (Trixie) Dunn, Debbie MacMurdo and the 1964/65 St. Dunstan Saints are the 2017 inductees into the P.E.I. Sports Hall of Fame.
They will be honoured in Charlottetown on Friday night at the Rodd Royalty Inn. The Hall of Fame is based in Summerside and, in fact, was set up in the Eptek Centre on the waterfront before moving to Credit Union Place a few years back.
As it was last year, the induction ceremony and dinner are in Charlottetown. That is a bit of a head scratcher, especially with the beautiful Veterans’ Convention Centre right across the hall from the present location of the Hall of Fame.
The Veterans’ Convention Centre serves a meal as good as they come, and there is all kinds of room for attendees. It just seems like common sense to have the induction at the location of the Hall of Fame.

Welcome home Caps
The Summerside D. Alex MacDonald Ford Western Capitals return home on Saturday for the first time in 34 days when they host Pictou County.
The Caps did have a game rescheduled during that period, and lost over a couple of weeks to the Road to the Roar curling event.
The good thing is Caps’ fans will see a lot of their favourite team over the next couple of months. The Caps have six more home dates after Saturday before Christmas, and seven more home games in January.
Have a great week!

Joe MacIntyre is a Summerside resident. His column appears every Saturday. Comments and suggestions can be sent to [email protected].