After the first month of UNO's hockey season, I figured I was going to be writing a post with this title about this time. I don't believe anything is gained by firing a coach during the season, so I was just watching the season play out. (Did firing Scott Frost make Nebraska football better in 2022? I don't believe you can say that with a 4-8 final record.) UNO opened the season by getting swept by Niagara, a school that went 11-22 the previous season, then split with Alaska-Fairbanks and Lake Superior State. A bad start against bad competition.
So no need to jump on the bandwagon. And when the UNO hockey season started to turn around, the "going to have to fire Mike Gabinet" hot-take started to look rather premature. Some of that was because the NCHC is having a bit of a down season. North Dakota ended up being a .500 team in conference and Minnesota-Duluth ended the season with a losing record. And more importantly, freshman goaltender Simon Latkoczy shook off some early season struggles and found a groove in December and January. And UNO found themselves in the upper half of the NCHC for the first time in years.
A sign of progress? Absolutely. So would I still be calling for Mike Gabinet to be fired at UNO with what finally looks like some progress? Probably not.
Of course, the whole discussion became moot when UNO extended Gabinet's contract in January.
Unless it lowers UNO’s buyout of Gabs… https://t.co/ay7IFIqzNU pic.twitter.com/31KMw3k00M
— Husker Mike (@Husker_Mike) January 14, 2023
So firing Mike Gabinet now is off the table. Does this mean I'm wrong about Gabinet? Not ready to admit that yet. Did you watch North Dakota end UNO's hockey season yet again in the first round? UNO's 2-1 victory over the F'n Hawks was Gabinet's FIRST and ONLY postseason victory of his career. He's now 1-10 in the postseason. UNO is the ONLY NCHC school who hasn't played in the NCHC's Frozen Faceoff.
The ONLY school.
I've heard excuse after excuse after excuse for Gabinet's struggles. First, it was the fault of former head coach Dean Blais. You know, the guy who recruited Jake Guentzel to UNO and led the Mavs to a Frozen Four in 2015. Then, it became the fault of one of Gabinet's first assistants, Peter Mannino, who curiously abandoned Gabinet after just one season to take an assistant job at Miami under Rico Blasi, who was on the hot seat with the Redhawks. (Predictably, Blasi and thus Mannino were fired one year later. And this weekend, Mannino will be at the NCHC Frozen Faceoff, now as an assistant coach for Colorado College.)
Six seasons. ONE single postseason victory.
This was all so predictable. Gabinet had only ONE year of head coaching experience at the Canadian equivalent of the NAIA before coming to UNO as an assistant coach. That was probably an OK move, but giving him the keys to the program one year later was a mistake.
A mistake that nobody at UNO is willing to admit. In fact, they've doubled down on the bet with this contract extension. So this gamble continues on. I should have seen it coming; some tried to argue that Gabinet faced a "seven year rebuild"...well, next season is year seven.
How long does Mike Gabinet get a free pass? Dean Blais faced quite a bit of criticism his last few years from some of the biggest self-proclaimed fans out there. Today, crickets. I get that; it's a young team who outperformed expectations in 2022-23.
Still... it's yet another March failure. UNO and Mike Gabinet did it again.
It's so friggin' frustrating. Most coaches don't get nearly as much leash to prove themselves as Mike Gabinet has received from his alma mater. Not to mention the puffery that gets thrown Gabs way. Remember the end of the 2020 season? Before COVID shut everything down, Gabinet bragged about the "momentum" that a win over North Dakota gave the Mavs. What Gabs didn't say? That single victory was sandwiched between three other games where the Mavs failed to score ONCE. So when Mike Gabinet gets praised for the progress he's making, remember that it's based on an extremely low threshold.
Mike Gabinet isn't going to be fired this spring. But at some point, Gabinet has to start winning games in March. Next year is "Year Seven" of the "seven year rebuild" at UNO. Time is running out.
