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Optimistic Notes for the 'Yotes

November 13, 2018, 9:27 AM ET [2 Comments]
Jay Greenberg
Blogger •NHL Hall of Fame writer • RSSArchiveCONTACT
We are what we have lived.

When Rick Dudley coached the Sabres, he talked about his diverse qualifications for the job having played the 116-penalty minute fourth line agitator in Buffalo, becoming a 40-goal scorer in the WHA, and then the guy who checked the board to see if he was dressing when he went back to Buffalo. With an understanding that it took all types, what their mindsets and insecurities were, and having words of wisdom for all, Dudley lasted two years as the coach, failing to win a playoff round with what was considered a contender.

We count only seven of 31 current NHL coaches who ever were more than marginal NHL players. Playing experience at the highest level no longer is even preferred, let alone a priority. Still, we think of Dudley–now in charge of player personnel at Carolina–watching Rick Tocchet trying to at long last turn the Coyotes into a winner.

He made himself into almost everything you can be in the game, growing from gritty checker in Philadelphia into a 48-goal finisher for Mario Lemieux Scorer of 440 goals and 52 more in the playoffs. Whipping boy to Mike Keenan. Confidant-teammate to Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky. Assistant coach to Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, Traded five times. Won one Cup as a player, two as an assistant coach. Fired as an NHL head coach.

When Sault Ste. Marie GM Sam McMaster, sitting in on the Philadelphia table as a favor after the Flyers had recently fired their primary Eastern evaluator, talked GM Bob McCammon, who had never seen Tocchet play, into using a sixth round pick on a tough kid, skating in sand, who had gone untaken in the previous draft, who ever would have thought?

“You have to be lucky,” says Tocchet. “As much as its hard work, you also have to be lucky.”

But hockey’s Forest Gump, he is not, unless you think Keenan was doing Tocchet a favor taking him to the 1987 Canada Cup to be a grinder among stars. When Tocchet, who had to beg the doctor to play on a bad knee, scored the goal that ignited a comeback from an early three-goal deficit in perhaps the best game ever played, Keenan had done himself the favor.

Gretzky, who had twice beaten Tocchet’s Flyer teams in the finals, took to him personally, later brought him to Phoenix as an assistant coach. Lemieux called after Tocchet’s first head coaching job ended with a house cleaning dismissal after Steve Yzerman became GM, despite Tocchet having made the young Lightning competitive before their time. Who knows whether Tocchet would today be coaching a contender if the baby coach hadn’t been thrown out with the bathwater?

But of course, if he knew then what he knows now. . .

“I’m much more decisive than I was in Tampa Bay,” Tocchet says. “There was a lot of rocky (ownership) stuff going on and instead of just staying in my hockey world and being decisive I was part of that environment, part of the problem.

“I listened to too much outside stuff, didn’t go down swinging. That’s the main difference in me now but every experience adds something and some add more than others.

“When Mario called, I was lucky to go to where I could watch star players with a coach’s eye. Part of my job was to work with the callups but I had more things to teach them than ever, having watched the high-end guys, their differing personalities and different skill sets.

“There is only one Crosby, of course. But there are things that make him successful that can be taught. Body position. The way he moves his hips. The way he positions himself around the net. How he shoots it.”

Tocchet got remarkably improved at positioning himself around the net and how to shoot it after telling Keenan, his first NHL coach, that he could so much more than man the bedrock Flyer checking line with Ron Sutter and Lindsay Carson that helped the team to two finals in three years.

Hard as he pushed those young Flyer teams, and by whatever cringe-inducing methods, Keenan never foresaw Tocchet becoming what he did; most of the credit for the transformation going to the kid. But if Tocchet wanted to try, Iron Mike always was willing to push. Through F-bombs flying between them, Tocchet blossomed during the ’87 run.

It became a big career step, sure, when Gretzky’s eyes were opened as both finals foe and tournament teammate, but so were Tocchet’s as he would wait for a tap on the shoulder from some great minds.

“For preparation, practices, off-ice, the biggest influence on me was Keenan,” said Tocchet. “For bench coaching, it was Scotty Bowman. For a kind of fatherly approach it was Jim Schoenfeld.

“All three strong personalities, very much in their own way.”

In 2018, I think you need to be a little bit of everything. But first you have to be a communicator. Not sure you can be a coach nowadays if you aren’t. You are in charge of young kids who want to know why, “Why are we doing this, why are we doing that?’ If you don’t have answers for them you are in trouble.”

Dave Tippett’s respected work through his 8-year run notwithstanding, everyone who has ever coached the Coyotes through six owners, six general managers, and a bankruptcy has been in trouble. Most of their playoffs have been in Glendale City Council, fighting to stave off elimination and, we do mean elimination. One conference final run in 2012 is all the ‘Yotes have to show as glory days in 22 years in the desert, closing in on the all-time record set by the Israelites.

So forgive some much-abused fans, however many of them there are, for thinking, “we’ve heard it before.” After closing 19-13-4 last season, the Coyotes try to sell hope at 8-8-1.An impressive win at Washington Sunday was followed by a trip-closing 6-1 loss in Detroit,reason for cheer only from the standpoint that defenseman Jakob Chychrun,a big part of the plan going forward, made his season debut.

"Most games, we are defending our goal pretty well," said Tocchet. "That gives us a chance. Timely goals, that has to be our recipe now.”

Clayton Keller is a high first rounder with a lot of promise. Oliver Ekman-Larsson is an anchor defenseman or almost one and needs to show he hasn’t been in a losing situation for too long. Desperate for scoring, boy wonder GM John Chayka moved a former first rounder with grit, Max Domi, for another of skill in a deal with Montreal for Alexander Galchenyuk, a shooter who, for lack of a better alternative, is playing out of position as a No. 1 line center.

“Nobody in the conference is running away with it,” said Tocchet. “The biggest thing is avoiding long losing streaks; three or four in a row, that’s a killer."

The Coyotes have a lot of guys drafted pretty high – Lawson Crouse, Richard Panik, Dylan Strome–who need to show they will be anything more than just guys. The Coyotes play with defensive discipline, spent a little money on Michael Grabner and score a lot of shorthanded goals. Is that enough to be sustainable?

Maybe. All but six teams in the NHL are within four games of .500, so wild card possibilities abound, and yes, another Coyote ownership change is in the works.

Chayka, 29, shares a vision with a coach almost double his age –can that earnest kid from the west side of Toronto really be 54 years old now?–and the law of averages suggests the Coyotes eventually have to get it right. Tocchet has been in the right place at the right time before, mostly because he’s been the right guy for so many different situations.
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