Coach sees validation
WASHINGTON — The text message lit up Troy Mann’s phone the morning after the Capitals eliminated the Penguins with a patchwork lineup featuring five rookies. It came from Barry Trotz.
“Thanks Manner for having all those rookie Caps ready,” Trotz wrote. “They all played well — you own a piece of this win last night.”
Mann beamed with pride when more than a halfdozen players he coached with the American Hockey League’s Hershey Bears contributed to the victory that got the Capitals into the Eastern Conference final. Many of those players are still playing key roles for athe Caps in the Stanley Cup Final against the Golden Knights — more than a month after Mann was fired from his job as Hershey’s head coach.
This is a bittersweet time for Mann, who had a hand in the development of Jakub Vrana, Chandler Stephenson and Christian Djoos as coach and was an assistant when Braden Holtby, John Carlson, Dmitry Orlov, Andre Burakovsky, Jay Beagle and Tom Wilson went through Hershey on their way to the NHL. Considering the success of those players and Hershey products Nate Schmidt and Cody Eakin contributing for the Knights, the final is a validation of Mann’s methods of getting prospects ready for the next level.
“I called Troy Mann the other day and thanked him for producing a lot of good players,” Trotz said. “All the players he had the last couple of years are all playing in the Stanley Cup Final. Guys who haven’t played a (playoff) game before. They’ve brought some of that winning tradition that they had in Hershey.” Game 1 Game 2 Game 3 Game 4 Game 5 Game 6* Game 7* After giving Vrana some tough love by scratching him in the playoffs a year ago, Mann notices the 22year-old winger getting between the faceoff dots to create offense like he asked. He watches Stephenson playing with the consistency that was sometimes lacking in Hershey, which was all part of the plan.
“We talked a lot during our time here about what they needed to do at the NHL level to be successful,” Mann said. “The thing we’ve seen the most with our guys is just the improvement level from year to year and month to month.”
As much as Mann notices the improvement from afar, the players feel it, too, and credit him for giving them the playing time to grow their games.
“He just gave us a chance,” Stephenson said. “The type of franchise that Hershey’s been and having so many Calder Cups and things like that, he put a lot of faith in the younger guys and just trusted us.”
But after three playoff appearances including a trip to the Calder Cup Final in 2016, missing the postseason this year led to the Capitals not renewing Mann’s contract.
That stung for Mann, who worked eight of the last nine years in the Capitals’ system, made Hershey his home in that time and believed he did his job.
“I think it’s very difficult for anybody to tell me that I haven’t done my job here,” Mann said. “I’m very grateful they gave me my first opportunity. As much as I’d love to be the head coach of Hershey next year, the only thing I can hope for now is that other NHL teams are recognizing the work that we did here and that’ll help pay off in the next few weeks here of securing another opportunity.”