Though he’s quite happy with the way things have shaken out for his team, St. Louis Blues right-winger Jamie Langenbrunner still figures that National Hockey League coaches often don’t get a fair shake from their employers.

“These things happen a lot quicker than they used to,” Langenbrunner said of NHL coaching changes, of which there’s been seven so far this season.

“In a lot of cases, it’s very unfortunate. I’ve been through a few of them the last few years, and sometimes, guys aren’t getting a fair shake.”

He’s got a valid point there.

Even though it’s worked out well for the Blues since they fired Davis Payne in favour of Ken Hitchcock, overall, changing coaches rarely leads to a change in fortune for a team.

“I think that we get too much credit, and we get too much blame,” said Hitchcock, whose club is 23-6-6 since he took over, and contending for first overall in the league, despite a 3-1 loss to the Detroit Red Wings Monday at Joe Louis Arena.

“When a team isn’t going well, it’s usually a lot deeper than just the coach. When the team is going well, it’s a lot bigger than the coach.”

Regardless, Hitchcock isn’t looking for kudos.

He realizes that in today’s NHL, a coach is only as good as his recent results.

With the salary cap and no-trade contracts virtually eliminating the old blockbuster trade, and the waiver rule making wholesale roster changes from within relatively impossible, there’s only one fellow available for scapegoating when things go south.

The guy behind the bench.

“Unfortunately, for them, it has turned into that,” Langenbrunner admitted. “The pressure to win, the idea that everyone is so close, everyone thinks they can.”

That, figures Red Wings coach Mike Babcock, is a big part of the problem - delusional owners and managers who are of the belief that their team is all that, when it’s clear to insiders that they aren’t.

“Everybody in today’s NHL - owners, management – thinks they have a team that can make the playoffs,” Babcock said. “I hate to break the news, but for some teams, it’s not true.”

With 1,042 NHL games under his belt, Hitchcock is of the belief that there are only a pair of legitimate reasons to administer a coaching change.

“If a team doesn’t have energy, and it doesn’t have spirit, there’s been a breakdown along the way,” Hitchcock said. “When there’s no structure and it’s just drop the puck and it’s summer hockey, that’s our responsibility.

“When a manager doesn’t see those two things, that falls on our lid.”

The Blues don’t feel that was the case when Payne was let go.

“I think we weren’t too far away, and then Hitch’s experience kind of put us over that edge,” Langenbrunner said. “He instilled confidence in the group.”

The results insist that in this case, the change did a world of good.

In the other cases, not so much.

Entering play Monday, four of the seven teams that made coaching changes – Montreal, Columbus, Carolina, and Anaheim – remained playoff outsiders. Washington was the eighth seed in the East, Los Angeles the seventh seed in the West.

“It’s a hard business,” Babcock said. “There’s lot of coaches that have done excellent jobs.”

There’s also a lot of coaches out of work.

While it may not always be the move that’s in the best interests of the team, the sad reality remains that in today’s NHL landscape, it’s really the only option for change left at a team’s disposal.