Burrows takes old lessons to new job
That Alex Burrows didn't get to play much on the power play during his days with the Canucks was always a talking point.
But that was also a statement about the depth of the team in his prime: he was the Sedins' winger but a spare part with the man advantage.
Still, he learned plenty as an observer in those days and, a decade later, he's applying those lessons in his new career as a coach with the Montreal Canadiens.
“I was always in those meetings, always talking,” he said Tuesday during a 49-minute Zoom session with the media from Vancouver and Montreal.
Hired to be an assistant coach with the Laval Rocket in 2018 — Montreal's AHL affiliate — after his retirement as a player, he was promoted to the big club late last month after head coach Claude Julien and assistant coach Kirk Muller were fired.
Interim head coach Dominique Ducharme brought Burrows in to work chiefly with the team's flagging power play. The Habs have scored five times in the six games since Burrows was handed the keys, after scoring 10 power play goals in the season's first 18 games.
The Canucks' current man in charge of their power play, Newell Brown, was also in charge of the power play for some of Burrows' time in Vancouver as a player.
Burrows cited Brown and Ryan Walter, Brown's predecessor, as important influences in his own coaching journey.
“(Newell) was one of the guys that I felt had a really good mind for the power play,” he said. “He had an open mind, we could talk to him, we could share ideas, plans, we could comment on some stuff. It was really working as a group. I really liked Newey as an assistant coach. We had Ryan Walter too, that was another guy we had some success with.”
Brown's strengths lay in how he prepared Burrows and his teammates.
“There weren't any grey areas. There were plans on the breakouts, in the end zone, on 5-on-3s, 4-on3s,” he recalled. “It made it easy for players to play, not always think, so it became second nature going on the power play.”
Daniel Sedin said he's not surprised that his old linemate, known for his charm and friendly personality, the kind of teammate everyone wants to have, has slid so smoothly into coaching.
“It's not a surprise for me, he's always been a student of the game. He understands all sides of the game ... He started as a fourth-liner and he moved up to be a scorer,” Sedin pointed out.
Burrows said he was always watching hockey when he wasn't playing. He joked to the media that he had a doctorate from the University of Hockey.
“He would have the highest marks,” Sedin said with a laugh.
Stephanie Maniago worked in the Canucks' communications department for 15 years until she was laid off by the team as part of a swath of COVID -19-induced cuts last fall. Her first season working with the team was 2005-06, which was also Burrows' rookie NHL season. That was also Kevin Bieksa's rookie season and Ryan Kesler's first full season as an NHLer.
“They made me feel so included. I feel like I've kind of grown up with those guys,” the North Burnaby native said. “They're like the brothers I always wanted but didn't need.”
Burrows, she said, had an encyclopedic knowledge of the sport, of its history, whether it was men's or women's hockey.
“He's a walking encyclopedia,” she said. “When Cassie Campbell used to come cover our games quite a bit (for Hockey Night In Canada), when she came in, he would always just go over, you could just tell about the amount of respect he had for her. It always made me smile, she was a hero to me too.”
Burrows' desire to learn was always obvious to Sedin and a big factor in how Burrows made himself into an NHLer after being a late bloomer in junior hockey and then working his way up through the minors.
“Sometimes he'd sit back and watch older guys and teammates. That's the biggest thing I think that gets overlooked about him. It's how you learn, you want to get better every day that goes by,”
Sedin said. He was a rare mix of late discovered talent coupled with a positive attitude.
“You wish that every player had that,” Sedin added.
Burrows was starting his third season when Mike Gillis took over as GM and he said the culture that Gillis and his colleagues built, one of trust in the players, where they would feel comfortable to share their own ideas and could trust that they would be part of the process and not betrayed, as often happened in the old days, was important to his own development as a player and as a coach.
“Mike was right, Mike did a lot of good things for this organization when I was here,” he said. “He had different ideas that were awesome for us as players, that we felt that gave us an advantage on other teams. When guys feel comfortable I think that's how you get the best out of players.”
When he's coaching, Burrows' energy remains obvious.
“I think it helps, especially maybe younger guys, it helps working with a guy who's just been removed from the game,” he said. “Everybody says the same thing, try to be yourself. I never really changed, I always tried to be a hard worker, to enjoy every day. Every day in the NHL is a great day.”
There weren't any grey areas. There were plans on the breakouts, in the end zone, on 5-on-3s, 4-on-3s.