FanHouse RonWilson

In the NHL, coach firings are as common as parking tickets in New York City. Throughout the NHL season I'll be taking a bi-weekly look at five coaches who are the most likely to get fired. Be advised your local coach may be axed at any moment. Consider this fair warning.

Things have changed quite a bit since our last look at coaches with warm cushions. For one, the Lightning are making me look bad at 3-1-3 since the last installment. The Leafs have won a few games and things have gone from bad to an Alexander Daigle brand of awful for the Hurricanes. We'll take a look at all of that and more after the jump.

Doesn't that sound like a juicy headline?

It probably does and has probably left you wondering who it was taking on the Toronto coach. Was it Joe Thornton? Maybe Evgeni Nabokov or Olaf Kolzig? Well, the answer is none of the above. The former player who laid into Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Ron Wilson on TSN's Off the Record this week was Jim Thomson.

If you just said 'who?' you're not alone.

Thanks to the events of Tuesday night, as the Capitals and Hurricanes advanced in their game 7 victories, the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals will be taking part in a playoff series that could very well consume us all. We've seen playoff series' get hyped before, but nothing will come close to the tidal wave of Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin coverage that is about take the NHL by storm. Consider yourselves warned.

Before we look ahead to the madness, let's take a few minutes and remember the glory days of one of the best playoff rivalries the 1990's ever produced.

On Monday, we showed you the video of Ottawa Senators forward Jason Spezza getting busted with an illegal stick. It's not something that happens all that often, and it was certainly a gutsy call by Toronto Maple Leafs coach Ron Wilson to ask for the measurement late in a 2-1 hockey game. Actually, it was a brilliant call, even if the Maple Leafs failed to take advantage of the ensuing power play.

The Senators, however, don't feel Spezza's stick broke any rules and would like to have some clarification on what is legal and what is not. Here's some help, guys.

Monday's game between Toronto and Ottawa had no impact on the NHL's playoff race, but it still managed to make some headlines thanks to the stick of Senators forward Jason Spezza.

With Toronto trailing, 2-1, late in the third period, the Maple Leafs felt there was something suspicious about the stick Spezza was using.

Tonight in Minnesota, Toronto Maple Leafs rookie goalie Justin Pogge got his second start in the NHL, and it was certainly a night to forget for the 22-year old as he yielded all six goals in a 6-1 defeat at the hands of the Minnesota Wild. After the game, Toronto head coach Ron Wilson, who upset some locals at the beginning of the season when he said publicly that this Leafs team wouldn't win the Stanley Cup, playfully poked the press gaggle in Toronto again with his postgame comments about how Pogge would handle tonight's loss. Enjoy.

Typically in sports, coaches get way too much credit and way too much blame.

In the end, the good ones are going to have large egos. They're shown on camera a lot, they get tons of credit in the media, and fans eat that kind of stuff up. The coaches parlay the positive attention into lucrative contract extensions, often even before they've proven their long-term worth.

It's likely that Todd McLellan will someday be fired from a coaching job in the NHL. Coaches are, after all, hired to be fired. But having watched the Sharks a few times in the last couple weeks, I have a hard time believing it will happen anytime soon, with the Sharks setting a record last night for most points in a 30-game start (52).

After some up-and-down times in recent years under current Toronto boss Ron Wilson, the Sharks appear to be firing on all cylinders right now. From a distance, it's hard not to give a ton of credit for that to McLellan.

The San Jose Sharks continued to distance themselves from the rest of the National Hockey League on Monday night, as they beat Nashville, 4-1, to improve to 16-3-1 on the season. The Sharks have earned at least a point in 11 of their previous 12 games, as they now have an 11 point lead over second-place Anaheim in the Pacific Division.

Brian Boucher started in goal for the sixth consecutive game in place of the injured Evgeni Nabokov, stopping 32 of 33 shots for the win. San Jose received goals from Devin Setoguchi, Jody Shelley, Patrick Marleau, and Thomas Plihal, while David Legwand added a shorthanded goal for Nashville midway through the third period.

Setoguchi has 22 points in the Sharks first 20 games, while he's also filled the net four times in his previous four contests. As a team, the Sharks have a league-high 73 goals, seven more than second-place Detroit. Meanwhile, Boucher continued his solid play in net, as he's now 6-1-1 on the season, including 4-1-1 since taking over for Nabokov.

Perhaps the most newsworthy item from the game, aside from the Sharks continuing to systematically dismantle whatever team lines up across from them, was the fact Nashville's Jason Arnott had to be carried off the ice on a stretcher when he was knocked into Boucher during the first period. According to the AP game report, Arnott was taken to a local hospital and is being held for precautionary reasons.

If the Toronto Maple Leafs are ever going to return to relevance in the NHL, it's going to be because of guys like No. 5 overall pick Luke Schenn. The 18-year old defenseman is currently logging over 20 minutes of ice time per game, and was recently pointed out by coach Ron Wilson as an example veterans Tomas Kaberle and Pavel Kubina could learn a thing or two from. High praise for a rookie after just a handful of games.

So, it's no surprise that the first-year Leafs coach came out today and announced that Schenn will be staying in Toronto for the foreseeable future, as reported by TSN.

After making the announcement, Wilson was apparently asked if the Leafs would allow Schenn to play for team Canada in the World Hockey Championships, a suggestion that Wilson quickly dismissed.

When asked if Schenn would be released to play for Team Canada at the World Hockey Championship in Ottawa, Leafs head coach Ron Wilson gave a quick and concise answer. "If he's playing in the best league in the world, why would we have him go play in a teenage tournament?" Wilson said after practice on Monday.

Schenn is currently second among all rookies in terms of ice time, behind only Kings defenseman Drew Doughty. Only Kubina and Kaberle are averaging more ice time for the Leafs.

Last summer the Toronto Maple Leafs made free-agent winger Jason Blake a very, very rich man by signing him to a 5-year, $20 million contract. Thus far, the Leafs aren't getting quite what they bargained for, as the speedy forward tallied only 15 goals a year ago (down from the 40 he scored the previous season with the Islanders).

Through the teams first six games this season, Blake has tallied only three points, and as first-year coach Ron Wilson explains, he's not doing much else, either. Which is why he's going to be a spectator tonight when the Leafs travel to Boston.

"I'm not going to compromise how I coach the team for the wrong reasons," Wilson said this morning when explaining Blake's benching. "He's not scoring, he's not back checking, he's not doing this or not doing that (so) we're going to keep him in the lineup until he catches a lucky break? That's not how I coach. "Everyone on the team has to understand that if you are not performing up to your ability, if you are not doing certain things that we as coaches expect everybody to do, you run the risk of not being in the lineup," Wilson said. "It's not the end of the world. This is our seventh game. If you are going to get people on their toes, you might as well do it early in the season."