TASK IS TO WARD OFF MEDIOCRITY
Flames’ new associate coach brought in to revamp club’s woeful power play
As part of his daughter’s graduation, Geoff Ward spent Thursday afternoon with his wife in a Boston suburb, watching a traditional prom stroll outside old city hall.
It wasn’t a parade, but you can bet some fans in Calgary will want to throw one for Ward if he’s able to proficiently tackle the job handed to him by the Flames: to fix their power play next season.
Named one of Bill Peters’ assistants alongside former Stockton bench boss Ryan Huska on Thursday, the 56-year-old Waterloo, Ont., native was snagged from the New Jersey Devils with an eye on improving one of the team’s biggest woes last year.
“I’ve done the power play every stop along the way in the NHL,” said Ward, whose 10 seasons as an NHL assistant include seeing his Devils finish top 10 among the league’s power-play units in two of his three seasons there.
“I think over time I’ve gotten a lot better at it. You’re constantly learning and striving to pick up new things. I’ll take the point, but we’re going to approach this from a team perspective, all of us coaches.”
One of the things he’s picked up over the years is a powerplay philosophy that he said Mike Babcock implemented in Toronto.
“I think what the Leafs did with Babcock affects greatly how the power plays are run in the league,” he said.
“When he took over, he used players on their strong side a lot and got players and pucks to the crease. It’s different from what Washington does. They use onetime shooters more.
“I’m a big believer in taking the game to the goaltender and making him make not only the first save, but the second save.”
Ward has no previous ties with Flames GM Brad Treliving, Peters or Huska, making it clear he was hired entirely on merit, not relationships.
He’ll need time to become familiar with the city, his colleagues and his players as his life has been spent in the east where he coached the Ontario Hockey League’s Kitchener Rangers for four years and the Guelph Storm for another. He had American Hockey League stints in Toronto and Hamilton, Ont., where he was named coach of the year for taking the Bulldogs to the Calder Cup final in 2003.
His lone exposure to the west was as Edmonton Roadrunners coach in 2004-05.
“Obviously being in the east and being immersed out here, I have to get my hands dirty and start jumping into the power play and what we’re going to do,” said Ward, admittedly unfamiliar with a Flames roster he only saw twice a year.
“Where we need to begin from and what sort of philosophy we’ll have all comes down to the strengths of your people. Over time it evolves.”
Treliving had to ask New Jersey for permission to talk to Ward and was only able to hire him on the basis of giving him an associate coach title, which is seen as a promotion from assistant. Treliving sought out Ward for his prowess with power plays, as well as his ability to help turn Taylor Hall into a Hart Trophy finalist last season.
In seven years as a Bruins assistant, Ward helped guide Boston to a Stanley Cup championship (2011) and another trip to the final (a loss to Chicago in 2013). It was then his family of six fell in love with Beantown.
After a one-year head-coaching stint in Germany where he was coach of the year and won a championship with Adler Mannheim in 2014-15, he signed on with New Jersey while his wife and four kids returned to Boston.
The two kids who aren’t attending university next year will join him and his wife in Calgary, a city he’s vaguely familiar with having been here several times to attend high-performance coaching sessions with Hockey Canada.
“I haven’t spent a lot of time there, but I really like the city,” said Ward.
“I don’t know Ryan, but I think it’ll be a good fit. I visited Bill in Raleigh and while I had met him in passing before, it was the first time I really sat down and talked hockey with him. I was really impressed. He’s detailed, he has great structure and his teams are disciplined.”
And Peters will no doubt count heavily on Ward to lead the Flames’ power play to somewhere better than 28th in the league as it was last year under assistant Dave Cameron.
“It’s an ever-changing animal,” Ward said of the power play.
“When it’s going bad, everybody lets you know. And when it’s good, they want it better. It’s fluid and always the topic of conversation.”
And it’s in desperate need of repair.