Boughner rises to challenge
Coach’s style evolved along with his team
CORAL SPRINGS — An NHL head coach is part master strategist, part motivational speaker, part sports psychologist, part confidant to the world’s best players and part boss controlling their minutes and roles. It’s a lot to handle, especially for a firsttime NHL head coach such as the Florida Panthers’ Bob Boughner.
For Boughner, his development in the first year leading a NHL team has largely gone unnoticed or unrecognized as the Panthers make a playoff push in the final month. Players have lauded Boughner’s structured systems as a reason for their resurgence since the All-Star break. They’ve embraced his player-friendly style that welcomes clarity and conversation.
“If what you’re saying is meaningful and it’s the right thing and it’s said in the right way and said in a way that guys can understand it, you’re always going to get the right response out of players,” Panthers captain Derek MacKenzie said. “We’re all pretty honest with ourselves, and you don’t sometimes want to hear it. When you’re hearing the right things, it’s hard to argue with that. He’s got a great bead on all those things.”
Added defenseman Aaron Ekblad: “He’s not afraid to lay into some guys. He’s a good motivator in the sense that he knows when you’re down and you need to be brought back up. Or maybe you’re sitting too high and not doing enough, he knows how to knock you down. He’s got a great feel for how players need to be pushed.”
The Panthers entered Friday out of the Eastern Conference playoff picture. They trail both Columbus and New Jersey for the two wild card spots, but have played three fewer games than both. What once looked like a long shot is now a realistic goal, thanks to a 15-4-1 record since the All-Star break.
Florida will try to bounce back tonight against Boston after Monday’s loss to Ottawa. The Panthers have not lost back-to-back home games since early December.
Boughner deserves some credit for the turnaround.
He’s optimized his top two lines by splitting up Aleksander Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau to create more scoring depth. He compensated for a lack of forward depth earlier this season by allowing his best players — Barkov and Vincent Trocheck — to play the most minutes, even if Micheal Haley has only missed one game this season. He’s been careful with Roberto Luongo’s time on the ice, and generous with giving the 38-year-old maintenance days.
Plus, he stuck to his systems when the Panthers opened the season 4-8-2.
Boughner has been a head coach in the Ontario Hockey League, leading the Windsor Spitfires to two Memorial Cups. He was an assistant coach for a season in Columbus and two years in San Jose.
But he said he’s “probably learned the most” this season how to properly convey his message to players.
“It can’t be the same thing every day,” Boughner said. “You have to make sure that your adjustments to practice, to drills, to video, to meetings, those things, you got to make sure that it’s constantly a fresh message.
“Same thing with the guys. I think the guys are looking for answers, whether it’s a win or a loss or anything like that, you got to make sure that when you get in front of these guy, that the message is real clear.”