History lesson on how a coach ‘loses a room’

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/01/2017 (2646 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Jets trudged off the ice after an unexplainable poor effort — and everyone was a culprit.

A stick was broken in anger and the grumbling of players as they made their way to the dressing room wasn’t surprising. That this followed a good win with a complete team effort a couple of nights earlier made it even more puzzling and frustrating.

This scenario could describe last week’s disaster against the Montreal Canadiens at the MTS Centre, but it was actually a moment from 1979, the final WHA season, one in which the Jets won the Avco Cup. That team was much like today’s Jets in that it was also inconsistent for a good chunk of the season.

Last week’s loss against the Canadiens was the first of a four-game losing skid for the Jets (before posting a 6-3 win Wednesday against the woeful Arizona Coyotes) and there was some speculation about head coach Paul Maurice’s future.

Whispers of him maybe “losing the room” were out there — and not just from fans or media.

The speculation reminded me of that 1979 championship team, of which I was member: we not only had our general manager fired (the late Rudy Pilous), but also our head coach, Larry Hillman.

The club had lost a number of players from its championship team the season before — including future Jets Hall of Famers Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson — while fellow Swedes Dan Labraaten and Thommie Bergman were gone as well.

To fill that huge void, the Jets purchased players, including myself, from the Houston Aeros (a franchise that was folding).

This week, I asked Morris Lukowich — a fellow incoming ex-Aeros player — about those times, and the speedy winger (who scorched the league with 65 goals that year) had this to say:

“We were an underperforming group under Larry Hillman, as we had two groups of guys that didn’t like each other much (Houston versus Winnipeg),” Lukowich said. “Coach Larry was a very classy guy who rarely lost his temper. He was perhaps ‘too nice a guy’ to coach that team.

“Larry just didn’t have an answer to get the chemistry right. Tommy McVie (the new coach) came in and didn’t care one bit about a divisive group and had no qualms about being a jerk — it didn’t matter to him how he was perceived. He had a game plan and the team rallied around the plan and began to jell together and play much better as a team,” he said.

“Tom motivated and inspired us through a specific plan… do you remember the Black Aces, the healthy scratches? Tom skated them into the ground — poor John Gray skated so many miles.”

I also asked the toughest hombre of them all, Kim Clackson, about what he remembered about that room and the coach (he had played for Hillman the previous year when the Jets won the Cup with a star-studded lineup).

“He lost the room when he lost the Swedes,” said Clackson. “He had a very European team in style and numbers, and he wasn’t able to bring his new team that was more fitted for a North American-style of game back to that level… His European team was a powerhouse and he couldn’t adapt to the talent change with the right answers.

“Tommy McVie came in and it was the most talented team he had coached. He recognized he needed to put aside everything other than instilling a desire to win. Some of his pre-game skates were legendary (as in brutal).

“We were wondering if he forgot there was a game that night, but he got the best from us.”

These observations from my old teammates touch on a couple of ways a coach can “lose the room.”

I remember the usually soft-spoken Hillman yelling at me on the bench; maybe I tuned him out, but I think the above characterizations hit the nail on the head.

Coaches need to adapt their systems, structure and teachings to their personnel — or they lose. Hillman was held accountable — we as players were then held accountable by McVie, and reaped the benefits.

In my opinion, Maurice is an average NHL coach. Without getting into a discussion about whose fault the losing is (goaltending, his systems, youth, injuries, etc.), there’s one very important question: is he the coach that will allow these players to maximize their potential?

A number of reports are suggesting Maurice’s job is safe for now and it is more likely he’ll be talking contract extension this summer with Jets co-owner Mark Chipman.

I find that somewhat disconcerting — like Chipman is already locked in.

I agreed with him when he said he’d be evaluating both Maurice and general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff in the summer as they head into the last year of their contracts. It would be sad if this was just window-dressing on a plan that’s secretly in the works.

Whether it was my old Jets team or this current squad, accountability has to matter. Getting the right coach for this team is crucial going forward.

Maurice took a team of good Jets veterans to the playoffs in 2014-15 — now he needs to show he can move this young team forward in tangible ways.

Although if it’s #jobsforlife with the Jets, I guess he doesn’t need to show us anything.

Chosen ninth overall by the NHL’s St. Louis Blues and first overall by the WHA’s Houston Aeros in 1977, Scott Campbell has now been drafted by the Winnipeg Free Press to play a new style of game.

Twitter: @NHL_Campbell