The pressure around an NHL coaching staff can get heavy fast, and when the rumors start swirling, everybody in the room knows it. That was the backdrop for a recent discussion on Daily Faceoff LIVE, where former NHL coach Steve Peters laid out what it feels like when a firing starts to look inevitable.
The conversation centered on Winnipeg, where Scott Arniel has been coaching the Jets since 2024 and still appears to be on shaky ground despite a pair of wins. Winnipeg’s recent stretch included a historic four-goal comeback against the Montreal Canadiens, followed by a dominant home victory over the Vancouver Canucks, but the noise around Arniel hasn’t gone away.
Asked by Carter Hutton what it’s like for a staff when the pressure keeps building and everyone is waiting for the move to come, Peters described a tense, uneasy atmosphere.
"it’s really hard because you read it in the media. Like right now in Winnipeg, they’re talking about Arniel.
You know it. You walk in, but don’t talk about it, and you kind of pretend it’s not there, but there’s just this dark cloud, and you are extremely worried because it’s nothing that you, especially as a lower-level video coach, can control, but you know it’s there, and you’re just wondering if it is going to be that day?"
Peters said he had only been around one midseason coaching change, when Bobby Francis was fired and Rick Bowness took over. In his telling, the signs were obvious long before the move actually happened.
"I’ve only been around once when a coach was fired in the middle of the season: Bobby Francis, and Rick Bowness took over, and you knew it. Everybody in the locker room knew it was coming.
It was just when? You just knew it was coming; there was just this terrible feeling.
You read it in the media; you couldn’t stop the bleeding, and eventually, the shakeup came."
He also said that once the change finally arrives, there can be a bit of relief attached to it, both for people who survive the shakeup and for those who are about to see something different.
"When you get that change, it does give you just a little sense of relief. One, if you survive it, and two, that you’re going to get a little bit of a change.
I do think it’s too early in Winnipeg. I don’t think the Winnipeg Jets, with the construction of their roster, are good enough to really throw Arniel under the bus."
Peters closed by describing the emotional toll inside a staff room when everyone is operating under that kind of uncertainty.
"But yeah, inside the room, it’s tough; it’s dark days, and I guess think about it. If it’s your job, whatever that job may be, you go in every day during a reorganization thinking, am I going to survive? Those kinds of things are real, and it’s scary."
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