Larry Robinson’s final game behind the bench will come Saturday, when the San Jose Sharks play the L.A. Kings in a battle between two California rivals that won’t qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs.
With plenty of questions surrounding the current coaching staff in San Jose, Robinson, an associate coach on that staff who will move into a player development/consultant role while living in Florida next season, offered his take on the job Todd McLellan has done and what went wrong this season.
“He’s a great man. Todd’s a great man, he does a great job. I’ve never seen a coaching staff work harder, and put in more hours and prepare a team as well as this group does,” Robinson told the San Jose Mercury News.
“But sometimes it’s just not the hard work, it also comes down to your personnel. It’s just a case of, we’re a good team but, can we compete with the Anaheims and the Chicago Blackhawks? We’ve proven that that we can on any given night. But can we do it over a long series? I don’t know.
“We’ve had problems scoring at times, we’ve had bigger problems defending at times. So obviously, when you don’t make the playoffs, it means you’re not good enough.”