LONGTIME NHL COACH, GM
Bryan Murray, a longtime NHL coach and general manager who helped turn around the Washington Capitals and took the Ottawa Senators to the Stanley Cup Final, has died at 74.
He was diagnosed in 2014 with colon cancer that he was told was incurable and became an advocate for awareness and early detection. Murray worked that season and another as general manager of the Senators, who confirmed his death Saturday.
Murray served as general manager in Anaheim, Florida, Detroit and Ottawa and coached in Washington, Detroit, Florida, Anaheim and Ottawa. He won the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year with the Capitals in 198384 and reached the Cup Final with the Senators in 2007.
The Capitals had not been to the playoffs in their first eight years of existence before making seven consecutive postseason trips under Murray. Former player Craig Laughlin described Murray as a players’ coach with an oldschool approach and a knack for managing personalities.
“He was an absolute players’ coach that in my career you would go through the wall for because of your respect for him as a person and as a hockey coach,” Laughlin said. “He was just an unbelievable guy where as a player you could sit down and have a beer with your coach and talk hockey, talk family, talk sports, talk anything and he was a guy that was there for you.”
David Poile, now Nashville’s GM, inherited Murray as coach when he was GM of the Capitals and said he learned more from him than he taught. Murray began his adult life as a gym teacher, and that translated well to coaching.
“He really saw basketball in terms of a lot of the plays that they used that could be inte- grated into hockey,” Poile said. “He really loved just the daily interaction with the players, being on the ice, being behind the bench, setting the strategy for the game and how the team would play. I really think that if there’s such a thing as what you’re born for, I think Bryan was born for coaching.”
Murray coached 1,239 regular- season and 112 playoff games over parts of 18 seasons. Murray made the playoffs in 12 of his 13 full seasons as head coach.
He last coached in 2007- 08 and was Ottawa’s GM until stepping down to an advisory capacity last season because of his health. Murray worked in the NHL in some capacity for 35 consecutive seasons, making far more friends than enemies along the way.
Trading barbs with referees was a particular habit of Murray’s, though it had a purpose.
“He sort of tried to take the pressure off the team by doing stuff and yelling and screaming at the referees and hav- ing fun with them to alleviate some of the pressure that we had,” Laughlin said.
Murray said he wanted his legacy to be cancer awareness. When his fellow GMs honored him at a meeting in March 2015, nephew Tim Murray and others said they went to get a colonoscopy after learning about Bryan’s diagnosis.
Laughlin said Murray was one of the first player- friendly coaches at a time when others were “flexing their muscles” as strict tacticians.
Even opponents and rivals respected Murray, who said in 2014 he felt bad that he couldn’t respond to colleagues’ messages about his cancer diagnosis fast enough.
” While his warmth and dry sense of humor were always evident, they were accompanied by the fiery competitiveness and determination that were his trademarks,” Bettman said. “As we mourn Bryan’s passing, we celebrate his many contributions to the game — as well as his courage.”