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Number To Know — Oct. 7, 2014

It may only be a couple branches, but today’s Number To Know show that Mike Babcock’s coaching tree has been successful.

By Cory Lavalette
Number To Know

102 — Points per 82 games averaged by San Jose coach Todd McLellan and Ottawa coach Paul MacLean — two former assistants of Detroit head coach Mike Babcock — in their tenures as head coaches. Carolina's new head coach, BIll Peters, is the third former Red Wings assistant under Babcock to earn an NHL head coaching job.

McLellan’s Sharks have registered 599 points in 458 games (1.308 per game, a touch more than 107 points in a full season) since he took over, while the Senators have 234 points in 211 games (1.109, nearly 91 points) since MacLean became their bench boss.

Both coaches also improved their teams in their first year behind the bench. San Jose improved by nine points in 2008-09 in McLellan’s first year, finishing with 117 points and first in the NHL.

MacLean’s arrival boosted Ottawa even more: the Sens went from 13th in the Eastern Conference to the eighth playoff spot by improving 18 points in 2011-12 (note: The Hockey News picked Ottawa to finish dead last in the Eastern Conference that year). MacLean then won the Jack Adams Trophy as the league's best coach the following year when Ottawa went 25-17-6 in the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season despite being without star defenseman Erik Karlsson for all but 17 regular season games.

Comparatively, Kirk Muller’s Hurricanes teams managed exactly one point per game in 187 contests for a .500 record.