Hardly any NHL organization has had coaches change like in Florida. Aleksander Barkov, who spends his summer in Tampere, will soon go on the championship hunt again under the leadership of a new coach, Paul Maurice, after the disappointments of the spring.
NOKIA. The Florida Panthers have had fifteen different head coaches in the 2000s. So, on average, one coach has worked at the club for less than a year and a half. Only Jacques Martin mixed Peter DeBoer have piloted Florida in the 2000s for three seasons.
Usually the pilots have lasted a year or two in Florida.
Against this background, it was not a big surprise when GM Bill Zito announced in the summer that he had fired the acting head coach by Andrew Brunette. Brunette rose from the position of assistant coach to the number one by Joel Quenneville got booted for his old Chicago sins in the middle of the season.
Of the coaches from last season, all but the others got their starting passes Tuomo Ruutu.
The club hired someone who left Winnipeg on his own initiative earlier in the winter as the new head coach by Paul Maurice. He is an experienced long-time NHL coach who coached in Winnipeg for no less than nine seasons and enjoyed two longer stints in Carolina, among others.
With Carolina, Maurice advanced once to the finals of the Stanley Cup and once to the semi-finals with Winnipeg.
To the team captain To Aleksander Barkov there is nothing new in the changes, as Maurice is already the seventh head coach of Barkov’s almost ten-year NHL career.
Barkov, who participated in the padel tournament at Nokia on Thursday, can still hear a little longing for Brunette in his voice.
– The coach had a quick start again, and there was nothing he could do about it, Barkov tells Urheilu.
– I still have a close relationship with Brunette. He helped me a lot in the past couple of years, both as a player and as a person. On the other hand, I have heard a lot of good things about Paul Maurice from all sides. It has a coach who has seen a lot and coached for a long time in the same places. We got a good coach, Barkov continues.
The giant store changed the dynamics
Florida wouldn’t be Florida if this was all the drama from the summer. Earlier in July, the club dropped a giant bomb by trading my club Jonathan Huberdeau To Calgary together with a defender by MacKenzie Weegar with.
The Panthers got the trade Matthew Tkachuk, who crossed the 100-point mark last season. The young power forward quickly signed an 8-year contract extension with Florida after the trade.
The deal was at least partly influenced by salary cap issues: the contract of Huberdeau, who is second in the NHL points market, expires next summer, and there was no way Florida could have gotten a new expensive tag to fit under the salary cap. The new long term signed with Calgary guaranteed the Canadian an annual income of 10.5 million yen.
The trade aroused mixed feelings in the team’s Finnish star.
– To be honest, I didn’t expect anything like that. After all, it’s a bit strange when you go to the hall and there aren’t any players you’ve played with for so long. Yes, it sparkles. Day by day, I have started to realize that now everything is different, many things will change.
Huberdeau started for the Panthers in the 2012–13 season and Barkov a season later. The Canadian is the club’s all-time scorer (198+415=613) and Barkov (220+333=553) is second in the statistics.
Now new winds are blowing, when Huberdeau is gone and the jagged Tkachuk takes the place of the team’s top chains.
– We got a good player instead. Now comes the group’s brashness and humble playing. This dude plays whistles before and after. We got what we wanted, Barkov smiles.
On the other hand, the team needed a change.
Despite winning the regular season, Florida proved to be an undisciplined team in the playoffs, unable to play the so-called winning hockey. The happy and carefree running around in the direction of attack did not carry the team in the playoffs, and the local opponent Tampa sent it out of the second round with a 4–0 victory.
– At the end, we tried too hard. If we want to win, then small changes must be made and coaching is definitely on the map. Although we lost to Tampa 0-4, the games were often close. We don’t really need to change to be able to win. It is still clear that there was no good feeling left from that season.
After the playoff disappointment, the criticism was harsh – also towards Barkov.
– I hardly read any news. I know that that’s where those pressures always come from, and if you read them terribly, it takes energy. Sometimes during the Tappara days I still read things about myself and I learned pretty quickly that you know best where to go. Those close to you, coaches and teammates know, and that’s the most important thing.
Barkov has won one NHL playoff series in his career. This happened in the opening round last season when Washington fell.
Padel and tennis in the summer
As usual, Barkov has spent the summer in the Tampere region. The Tappara breeder, who is known as a hard trainer, likes playing racket games in addition to the gym and other training. The departure back to bread work in Florida takes place in September.
– This has been a training-oriented summer. I have taken a couple of vacation trips, but otherwise the time has passed in Tampere training and playing tennis and padel, Barkov concludes.