News item:

Portland Winterhawks head coach Mike Johnston has stepped down as head coach of the team after 13 seasons, the team announced Monday. Longtime assistant coach Kyle Gustafson will take over as head coach.

Johnston will focus on his front office duties as team president and general manager after signing a four-year contract extension to remain in those two positions. Johnston will increase his focus on the development of Winterhawks’ players and prospects.

Is he the most successful coach in Winterhawks’ history?

His competition is Ken Hodge and Brent Peterson, who both won league titles (and Memorial Cups) while he never did. But he’s probably the most successful coach anyway.

He never won the league title, but he made the league final four times, in an era where it was a lot harder to make the league final than it was with Hodge and Peterson. More than that it was about the consistency. With the exception of his first season, when he took over a team at the bottom and had them in the race as late as February, his teams made the playoffs every season, and never were in danger of missing.

He won a playoff series every year there were playoffs except one, which is extraordinary. He’s been so successful there that it’s taken for granted now that the Winterhawks will make some kind of playoff run.

And you have to give him some credit as coach for the league title in 2013, although he wasn’t there, suspended due to some murky league politics that either unfairly sidelined him or prevented a larger punishment.

So I think he’s there. With a little more luck, it wouldn’t even be a discussion. In his four league final appearances, he lost two Game 7s, and had home ice advantage in the other two finals. He could just as well have won two or more, which would mean argument over.

In his tenure, the Winterhawks won five playoff series where they didn’t have home ice advantage, and lost five where they did. Out of ten seasons where they were in the playoffs, those seem like high numbers on both sides.

Of course he had two stints as coach, sandwiching around a year-and-a-half coaching the Pittsburgh Penguins. In his first stint, Portland consistently ran over the Western Conference, up until they got to the final. The second stint, with a little less talent, was a little more frustrating. The Winterhawks never got out of the second round until this most recent season. They got into a cycle where they would try to trade their way into contention, which would always leave them just short for the next season, and they’d try to trade again. COVID got them at a bad time, but Everett and Spokane could say the same. It finally came together last season.

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It wasn’t a shock to see him step down. At the end of the season I thought there was a 75% chance of it happening. The chances got a lot lower as we moved into late July without an announcement, but it’s obvious that this was decided way earlier and was only announced now. It’s the natural spot in the cycle for him to go. The Winterhawks graduated half the team, and they’re starting a rebuild/reload.

There was always going to be a lot of uncertainty with the roster going into next season, and now the uncertainty is going to be ramped way up. Kyle Gustafson has had a lot of time to learn, but he hasn’t run a team on his own in over 20 years, and we don’t know how that will work out, especially if things don’t start well. The rest of the coaching staff will be brand new. And we have a fan base and ownership who aren’t used to struggling, so there’s uncharted territory there (the fan base wasn’t terribly patient reacting to minor struggles in 2016 and 2023, it must be said). We’ll see how it goes.