TAMPA, Fla. – Everyone knew that Steve Yzerman’s name carried with it a large amount of cache. Who knew it had enough to pull someone away from possibly the most iconic franchise in the annals of the NHL.
Tampa Bay Lightning rookie General Manager Yzerman began the rebuilding of the team Thursday morning by raiding the system of the Montreal Canadiens, enticing Hamilton Bulldogs’ coach Guy Boucher to head south to become the Bolts’ eighth head coach as well as the youngest man presently at the helm of an NHL squad. He replaces Rick Tocchet who was let go following last season by new owner Jeff Vinik.
“Obviously, everybody knows the reputation that Mr. Yzerman has in the hockey world as a player and as somebody who’s been managing for the last (couple of) years with Team Canada,” Boucher said at the press conference introducing him to the Tampa media. “For me it all starts with values. I felt that I needed to feel that alignment between the ownership and the GM and me as a coach and obviously with the captain and the rest of the team. That alignment for me, from my first meeting with Steve, felt that it was right in line with my values. I think that behind that legend of a hockey player there’s a lot more and I think you can’t find anybody in this world right now that can say something negative about Mr. Yzerman.”
Since his hiring, Yzerman has been continually talking about “changing the culture” in Tampa, which has been in a freefall since winning the Stanley Cup in 2004. His excitement about the hiring of Boucher was evident from the outset of the press conference.
“He’s had a tremendous positive impact on every organization he’s been involved with – not only the organization on the ice but the people, the players he’s coached, the people he’s coached with, everyone in the organization. He’s a strong charismatic leader with a tremendous work ethic and passion for the game and an extremely knowledgeable hockey person,” Yzerman said. “I am very confident that he is the right person to lead our team on the ice and off the ice. He will create a culture, a winning environment much like he’s done at every stop of his coaching career. I have no doubt that Guy is the right person to lead our team for the upcoming season and improve our team to get us to our stated goals of becoming a championship-caliber team over a period of time.”
The 38-year old Boucher brings with him a resume that is short on professional coaching experience but long on success. The McGill University (degrees in history and biosystems engineering) and University of Montreal (Master’s in sports psychology) built the Quebec Major Junior’s Drummondville team into a championship squad and last season took the Bulldogs and guided them to the best record in franchise history. He also has plenty of assistant coaching in his background, including stints with Canada’s gold medal-winning under-18 international team (2008) and under-20 world championship squad (2009).
Yzerman said that he had no problem hiring Boucher to lead the Lightning despite the lack of pro experience.
“There was absolutely no reservation on my part. Guy coached one year in the American Hockey League, was the head coach in Drummondville for four years and a very successful coach there. He’s been a part of winning programs for a long time,” Yzerman said. “Watching his coaching career, listening to him talk, talking to people that worked with him – experienced NHL people that have worked with Guy and colleagues of mine that I played with that have also coached with Guy – again in my discussions, not one reservation. He’s ready to coach in the NHL. There’s no question in my mind about that.”
The hockey world took real notice of Boucher when he skippered Hamilton to the Calder Cup western conference finals this past season. Along the way, the Bulldogs won 52 regular-season games and set 31 new franchise marks. For his part, Boucher was named AHL Coach of the Year.
Boucher’s coaching system in Hamilton was based on an all-out attack, putting constant pressure on the opposing team’s defense. It helped the Bulldogs to score 271 goals in 80 games, third-most in the AHL, while allowing just 182 goals against which led the league in fewest scores given up.
Boucher indicated that the team he puts on the ice in Tampa will play a style that is best suited to the makeup of the roster, maximizing what talents there on the bench.
“When you talk about systems, it’s a number of things that come into play. For me, I’m not coaching systems. I’m coaching individuals and managing people comes first on my list before managing either the group or systems. If I’ve got 24 players on my team, I need 24 ways to coach and that’s the way I approach the game. My systems change every year and I adapt myself to the kind of players I have,” Boucher said. “Right now we’re obviously looking at the roster that we’ve got and the possibilities and therefore all summer I going to prepare for the type of players that we’ve got. When you look at the players we’ve got, we’ve got (Martin) St. Louis, (Vinny) Lecavalier and (Steven) Stamkos. They’re offensive players and that certainly goes along with my philosophy of fast-paced hockey, very aggressive offensively and defensively, and they’ll fit right in to what I would like to do. It starts with what I’ve got in the room and I adapt to what we’ve got rather than trying to get those guys to adapt to me and everything I want to do.”
That willingness to be flexible is something that Yzerman thinks will serve Boucher well when he gets to training camp in September.
“Guy’s an intelligent, well-educated guy but he’s an intelligent hockey person as well. He knows the game. He has ideas. You’ll ask him about it and you’ve read about his systems and what-not but as Guy said his systems change. He’s going to adapt. That’s what has made him successful,” Yzerman said. “It worked in major junior hockey. It worked at the AHL level. He’s adapted, he’s changed. He’s adapted to the players he’s had and the personnel he’s had and to the league and the level of play and he’ll continue to do that.”
The other thing that sets Boucher out from the crowd is the way he seems to connect with the players. His individualistic approach appears to get – and keep – the attention of this new generation of players, something that seemed to at times escape Tocchet and his predecessor Barry Melrose.
“As a player, I played for a different type of coaching. It was a real tough type of coaching where sometimes you were left on your own to figure it out so you had to be really tough mentally. Over the years, it has changed because the players have changed in their way of seeing life in general has changed. We call it the ‘why generation’ as in why this or why that. They ask a lot of questions. They get a lot of information in today’s world and they need to know,” he said. “They need to know why things are happening. They need to know what your plan is and why you’re doing it. They certainly need to know what’s in it for them personally. I think as coaches we need to adapt to that and over the years obviously I was able to be around people that helped me a lot. I believe we are the product of the people we meet in our lives. I was fortunate to have people who were good at that mad made me understand that the person comes first. Now with this new generation, there’s an approach that is very specific and I found out that if you care about the players, they’ll certainly care about what you say after that.”
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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