UTICA IS GROUND ZERO FOR THE REBUILD
So much has changed for him since he left this place, but the minute his car dips down into the Mohawk Valley, all is familiar again for Travis Green.
He drives past Delmonico’s Italian Steakhouse, one of his former haunts.
“I walk into restaurants here and they don’t even give me a menu,” says the Vancouver Canucks head coach. “They know what I’m ordering.”
He drives down Genesee Street, makes the right-hand turn just before the bridge and finds his favoured parking spot behind The Aud, just like he did almost every day for four straight years when he coached the American Hockey League’s Utica Comets.
He remembers arriving for his first day on the job when the The Aud was still being renovated. He remembers that first year when the team got off to a shaky start and there were questions if the Canucks had hired the right man to run their AHL affiliate. He remembers the run to the Calder Cup final the following year.
He remembers so many things about this place where he came of age as a head coach. How could he not?
“I have so many memories and I made so many friends,” he says in a private moment. “You think about those things when you come back to a place like this. Personally, I feel I owe this team a lot. I got a chance and the way I was treated, yeah, I have a lot of fond memories.”
Green was in his former stomping grounds this week for reasons other than a trip down memory lane. He watched Wednesday’s Game 3 of the Comets-Toronto Marlies’ playoff series, a 5-2 Comets win before a crazed sellout crowd at The Aud.
He was with team president Robert Esche and worked in time with Comets GM Ryan Johnson and head coach Trent Cull. We’ll get to the hockey aspect of his trip shortly, but Green’s fondness for this team and this place was evident as he chatted 4,800 kilometres away from that infernal podium at Rogers Arena.
“It’s amazing to see what they’ve done here,” he says of The Aud, the Comets’ home that seats just under 4,000, even though it sounded like 20,000 Wednesday.
“You want to teach your players to be NHL players and they’re treated as well here as NHL players. It’s first class all the way and the expectations are high all the way.
“I’m obviously here to watch our guys, but you can’t help but take in the atmosphere. It’s the fans and the noise they make and how they appreciate a diving play on a 5-on-3. It’s good for players to play in these situations, to feel the heat and know the fans are behind them.”
So what does he see with these Comets? Green offers thumbnail sketches of a couple of the prospects.
On Jonathan Dahlen, he says: “He definitely has skill with the puck and offensive instincts. And it’s a pretty direct nose for the net. There are going to be other things in his game that he has to work on. For me, that just goes with the territory.”
The two young defencemen — Jalen Chatfield and Guillaume Brisebois — caught his eye.
“They’re a little different. Chatfield’s engine runs pretty hot. He plays a hard game. Brisebois is pretty calm and cool and goes about his business. I’m anxious to keep watching those two play.”
And he watched Nikolay Goldobin closely, one of Green’s pet projects in Vancouver.
“He’s probably glad to be away from me,” Green says with a laugh. “No, Goldy made real strides this year and he plays in all situations here. It can only help him.”
OK, no blinding revelations there. But when the conversation turns to a more global subject — the Comets’ role in shaping the Canucks’ young players — Green speaks with more candour.
Player development has been a polarizing issue in the Vancouver market and it will draw increasing scrutiny next year when a wave of high-end prospects hits Utica. The parent club has demonstrated it won’t rush young players to the NHL.
Instead, the Canucks let them marinate in the AHL, believing the environment Johnson, Cull and others have built will produce, in Green’s words, “not just good hockey players, but winning hockey players.”
That philosophy doesn’t sit too well with a large portion of the Canucks’ congregation. Those fans have just endured three seasons in which the Canucks finished 28th, 29th and 26th and they’ve grown weary of watching mediocre NHL veterans.
Starting next season, the Canucks could be looking at four or five blue-chip prospects in their lineup, including Elias Pettersson, Olli Juolevi, Comets goalie Thatcher Demko, Hobey Baker winner Adam Gaudette and Dahlen.
Green is asked about the Canucks’ master plan.
“As a team that’s rebuilding, the timing is so crucial when you bring in these young players,” he says. “You don’t want to make a mistake and give the player his so-called shot at the wrong time.
“You can give a player a chance and if he’s not ready for it, he loses confidence and you lose confidence in the player. Then it’s an even bigger grind to make it. It can be really detrimental to his development.”
In another lifetime, Green was a 20-year-old rookie enjoying a productive season with the Capital District Islanders in the AHL. He felt he was ready for the NHL. The 47-year-old Green knows better.
“I was like second in the AHL in scoring,” he says. “How could I not be ready? That was my rookie year and I didn’t get my chance until my third year. I look back at that and I wasn’t even close. I might not have ever made it.
“You tell players down here when you get your chance is as important as if you get your chance.”
To that end, he enjoys a good working relationship with Cull. The pair first met three years ago in Lyon, France, of all places when the Comets met the Syracuse Crunch, with whom Cull was an assistant, in a pre-season exhibition series.
Cull succeeded Green in Utica this season.
“I think Trent has a good understanding of what it takes,” Green says. “He’s seen a lot of good young players come in and make it and he’s seen a lot of good young players come in and not make it.
“He values a lot of the same things I value in the game and that’s so important.”
So is this relationship for a team that finally seems to be, say it with me, rebuilding.