Mike Keenan

Mike Keenan
Born	October 21, 1949 (1949-10-21) (age 62) Bowmanville, Ontario
Occupation	Former NHL hockey coach

Michael Edward Keenan (born October 21, 1949) is a former head coach in the National Hockey League (NHL), most recently with the Calgary Flames, and former General Manager of the Florida Panthers. He is currently working as an analyst for the New York Rangers on MSG Network.

Keenan was a player for the St. Lawrence University Skating Saints (1969–72), the University of Toronto Varsity Blues (1972–73), the Roanoke-Valley Rebels (1973–74), and his native Whitby Warriors (1976–77).

Coaching career

His first coaching job was at Forest Hill Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Ontario, where he coached the varsity hockey team. In 1977 he became the coach of the Oshawa Legionaires of the Metro Junior B Hockey League, where he led them to back-to-back championships in 1979 and 1980. The following year he began his junior coaching career with the Peterborough Petes before moving on to the Rochester Americans, which he guided to the American Hockey League championship in 1983. He returned to University of Toronto to lead it to the CIAU title. He then landed his first high-profile job with the Philadelphia Flyers in 1984, then the Chicago Blackhawks in 1988. In 1993, he took the job as New York Rangers head coach, and led the franchise to its first Stanley Cup win since 1940. Prior to the 1993 season, he was also a candidate for the Detroit Red Wings head coaching job that eventually went to Scotty Bowman.^[1]

The 1994 season saw Keenan become the first to coach two different teams to a Game 7 Stanley Cup Final, having previously coached the Flyers in a losing effort against the Edmonton Oilers in 1987. He was followed in this feat in 2009 by Mike Babcock of the Detroit Red Wings.^[2] In winning the 1994 Cup final, Keenan managed to avoid becoming the first coach in NHL history to lose a Game 7 Stanley Cup Finals with two different teams (the fate which would befall Babcock in losing to the Pittsburgh Penguins.^[2]).

After leaving the Rangers Keenan went on to serve as coach and general manager of the St. Louis Blues (1994–96),^[3] and coached the Vancouver Canucks (1997–98), and the Boston Bruins (2000–01). While coaching the St. Louis Blues, he refused to dress his team in a newly designed alternate jersey because of how horrible they looked. He was named head coach of the Panthers on December 3, 2001, before becoming its GM. On September 3, 2006, Keenan resigned his position and was replaced by head coach Jacques Martin.

On April 24, 2007 Keenan would take his next role as Senior Advisor to the Swedish Ice Hockey Association. This role would not last long as he was named head coach of the Calgary Flames on June 14, 2007. Keenan would go on to pass Patrick Quinn for 4th on the all time NHL coach win list (648 wins) on February 12, 2009.

Currently, he is 5th all time in National Hockey League wins. Keenan's teams never missed the playoffs until 1998. His tough coaching style and attitude towards his players have earned him the nickname "Iron Mike".

On May 22, 2009, after two consecutive first round playoff losses, Keenan was fired as Head Coach of the Calgary Flames, he had one year left on his contract.^[4] He recorded his 600th win as an NHL coach with the Flames.^[5]

On Thursday, October 1, 2009, MSG Network announced Keenan would join the Rangers broadcast team on MSG Network of Sam Rosen, Joe Micheletti, Al Trautwig, John Giannone, Dave Maloney, Ron Duguay as a regular guest analyst for pre-game, intermission and post-game reports on the network. He's also an analyst on MSG Hockey Night Live with Trautwig, Duguay, Maloney, Ken Daneyko, and Butch Goring.

Derek Keenan, the head coach/GM of the Edmonton Rush of the National Lacrosse League, is Keenan's second cousin.

Controversy

Despite Keenan's coaching record, his inability to maintain working relationships with players and team organizations has resulted in a lack of long term coaching positions. His coaching resume includes abrupt terminations or resignations from coaching or general manager positions, sometimes at bafflingly inopportune, or peak, moments of his career.

Keenan was unceremoniously dismissed from the Philadelphia Flyers a year after leading them to the 1987 Stanley Cup Finals. After taking the Chicago Blackhawks to the 1992 Stanley Cup Finals, Keenan was forced to focus solely on his GM duties when longtime Blackhawk player and assistant coach, Darryl Sutter, was being courted by other teams to be their head coach. Owner Bill Wirtz did not want to lose Sutter, especially since Keenan had stated, in July, 1992, that he wished to focus solely on his duties as general manager after the 92–93 season. Keenan lost a power struggle with Senior V.P. Bob Pulford after the 1992–93 season, resigned his position, and was soon hired by the New York Rangers. Incidentally, Darryl Sutter resigned as head coach of the Blackhawks in 1996 after Jeremy Roenick made derogatory and well-publicized comments on a local sports-radio show. Keenan managed to coach the Rangers to the Stanley Cup in his first and only year as head coach, but was unable to coexist long enough with general manager Neil Smith and resigned weeks later, citing a violation of his contract by the Rangers.

Stops in St. Louis and Vancouver saw conflict with team stars; both Brett Hull^[3] and Trevor Linden^{[citation needed]} had major personality conflicts with Keenan.

In September 2006, Keenan again attracted headlines when he abruptly resigned as general manager of the Florida Panthers. Keenan's resignation came shortly after he dealt Florida Panthers' franchise goaltender Roberto Luongo along with defenceman Lukas Krajicek and Florida's 2006 sixth-round draft pick (Sergei Shirokov) to the Vancouver Canucks for struggling forward Todd Bertuzzi, goaltender Alex Auld, and defenceman Bryan Allen. It was speculated that Keenan had lost a power struggle with head coach and longtime friend, Jacques Martin, over personnel decisions. Martin succeeded him as general manager upon his resignation.

"Iron Mike" was also notorious for pulling or switching his goaltenders, sometimes multiple times in a period. In game 4 of the first round of the 1987 playoffs, Keenan pulled his goalies, Ron Hextall and Glenn Resch, a total of five times in a single game (the 5th time to gain a man-advantage in the last minute of play).

Goaltender Roberto Luongo said the following regarding Keenan's penchant for pulling his goalies while a member of the Florida Panthers in 2002:

"Not a big deal. [Keenan] does it so much that we expect it. If he's your coach and you're an NHL goalie on the bench, you have to be ready, just in case."^{[citation needed]}

Career record

Regular season points (Pts) contained in brackets () denote the team's standing after the full season, not the amount of points accrued at the time Keenan was fired.

Team	Year	Regular season							Post season
		G	W	L	T	OTL	Pts	Finish	W	L	Win %	Result
PHI	1984–85	80	53	20	7	–	113	1st in Patrick Division	12	7	.632	Runner-up
PHI	1985–86	80	53	23	4	–	110	1st in Patrick Division	2	3	.400	Preliminary round
PHI	1986–87	80	46	26	8	–	100	1st in Patrick Division	15	11	.577	Runner up
PHI	1987–88	80	38	33	9	–	85	2nd in Patrick Division	3	4	.429	Division semi-finalist
PHI Total		320	190	102	28	–	408		32	25	.561	4 playoff appearances
CHI	1988–89	80	27	41	12	–	66	4th in Norris Division	9	7	.563	Conference finalist
CHI	1989–90	80	41	33	6	–	88	1st in Norris Division	10	10	.500	Conference finalist
CHI	1990–91	80	49	23	8	–	106	1st in Norris Division	2	4	.333	Division semi-finalist
CHI	1991–92	80	36	29	15	–	87	2nd in Norris Division	12	6	.667	Runner up
CHI Total		320	153	126	41	–	347		33	27	.550	4 playoff appearances
NYR	1993–94	84	52	24	8	–	112	1st in Atlantic	16	7	.696	Won Stanley Cup
NYR Total		84	52	24	8	–	112		16	7	.696	1 playoff appearance 1 Stanley Cup Championship
STL	1994–95	48	29	15	5	–	63	2nd in Central	3	4	.429	Conference quarter-finalist
STL	1995–96	82	32	34	16	–	80	4th in Central	7	6	.538	Conference semi-finalist
STL	1996–97	33	15	17	1	–	(83)	4th in Central	–	–	–	(Fired)
STL Total		163	75	66	22	–	172		10	10	.500	2 playoff appearances
VAN	1997–98	63	21	30	12	–	(64)	7th in Pacific	–	–	–	Missed playoffs
VAN	1998–99	45	15	24	6	–	(58)	4th in Northwest	–	–	–	(Fired)
VAN Total		108	36	54	18	–	90		–	–	–
BOS	2000–01	74	33	26	7	8	81	4th in Northeast	–	–	–	Missed Playoffs
BOS Total		74	33	26	7	8	(88)		–	–	–
FLA	2001–02	56	16	29	8	3	(60)	4th in Southeast	–	–	–	Missed playoffs
FLA	2002–03	82	24	36	13	9	70	4th in Southeast	–	–	–	Missed playoffs
FLA	2003–04	15	5	8	2	0	(75)	4th in Southeast	–	–	–	(Resigned)
FLA Total		153	45	73	23	12	125		–	–	–
CGY	2007–08	82	42	30	–	10	94	3rd in Northwest	3	4	.429	Conference quarter-finalist
CGY	2008–09	82	46	30	–	6	98	2nd in Northwest	2	4	.333	Conference quarter-finalist
CGY Total		164	88	60	–	16	192		5	8	.385	2 playoff appearances
Career Total		1386	672	531	147	36	1,429		96	77	.555

References

1. ^ http://espn.go.com/blog/nhl/post/_/id/1616/jim-devellanos-vision-created-a-dynasty
2. ^ ^{a b} Dye, Dave (June 13, 2009). "Broken Wings". Detroit News: p. B1. 
3. ^ ^{a b} Gordon, Jeff (2008-12-17). "The truth about Mike Keenan". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/hockey-guy/hockey-guy/2008/12/the-truth-about-mike-keenan/. Retrieved 2010-02-02. 
4. ^ Buffery, Steve (2010-01-27). "Keenan hopes for NHL return". Toronto Sun. http://www.torontosun.com/sports/hockey/2010/01/27/12639471-qmi.html. Retrieved 2010-02-02. 
5. ^ Brehm, Mike (2007-12-20). "The passion has returned for Calgary coach Mike Keenan". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/hockey/nhl/flames/2007-12-20-keenan_N.htm. Retrieved 2010-02-02. 

External links

• Mike Keenan's career stats at The Internet Hockey Database

Persondata
Name	Keenan, Michael Edward
Alternative names	Mike
Short description	Canadian ice hockey coach and general manager
Date of birth	October 21, 1949
Place of birth	Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada
Date of death
Place of death