BOUCHER’S FUTURE RIDES ON LESSONS FROM PAST
Senators coach has plenty of experience working with young players, just not in NHL
During Guy Boucher’s two seasons as Ottawa Senators head coach, it has never taken much prompting to get him to talk about his experiences working around young players.
Indeed, for anyone who has been around to listen, Boucher has often freely volunteered the information about his days with P.K. Subban in Hamilton of the AHL, riding the buses with Derick Brassard and Mike Hoffman in Drummondville, and being an assistant with Rimouski of the Quebec League during Sidney Crosby’s domination of that circuit.
If you have the time, Boucher will even take you all the way back to the mid-1990s when he got his coaching start at McGill University.
Without being a fly on the wall during Monday’s meeting with general manager Pierre Dorion and assistant general manager Randy Lee, we’re only guessing Boucher talked positively about that past to maintain a future with the organization.
Whatever was said, Dorion was buying what Boucher was selling. At least for now.
On Tuesday, the general manager ended four weeks of speculation about potential coaching changes by announcing no changes to the status quo.
(The pessimists, and we’ve already heard from them, believe having Martin Raymond go from the bench to the press box, swapping spots with Rob Cookson, is simply a case of shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. Boucher will also take full responsibility for the power play, which has been as unsuccessful as it has been predictable under both Raymond and Marc Crawford).
How long the head coach and assistants stay will largely depend on how well the club’s wave of prospects respond and develop with Boucher’s message.
It will be a marked change in direction for Boucher, whose successful stints in the NHL, with Tampa in 2010-11 and with Ottawa in 2016-17, have come while riding on the backs of veterans.
For what it’s worth, Boucher has changed his tune in at least one regard in the NHL. In his first year with Tampa, Lightning veterans went public with concerns that Boucher was pushing them too hard, not giving them enough rest during the grind of the long NHL season.
One of Dorion’s chief concerns about the Senators last season was that the club didn’t practise nearly enough and opponents had more stamina and energy to get through games.
In an interview on TSN 1200, Dorion says Boucher now understands the need to be on the ice more often.
The one organizational move the Senators did make was not renewing Kurt Kleinendorst as coach of the American Hockey League’s Belleville Senators.
Considering the Senators will likely have an improved pool of prospects in Belleville next season, expect the club to hire a younger coach to take his place.
Troy Mann, fired as head coach of the AHL’s Hershey Bears last week, is a potential candidate.