RECOGNIZING the risk of being extremely premature, the thought still does occur. If the Devils do win the Stanley Cup, Larry Robinson will become the greatest player ever to win one from behind a bench.
History is not particularly kind to Hall of Famers who venture into the coaching profession. Of all of the coaches to have won Cups, none has the pedigree as a player of Montreal’s awesome No. 19, whose jersey long ago should have been retired by LesCanadiens
Toe Blake, the five-time All-Star left wing on Rocket Richard’s and Elmer Lach’s Punch Line of the 1940s, comes close. Would that Robinson comes close to Blake’s eight Stanley Cups as coach of the Canadiens. Frank Boucher, the very great Ranger center on the 1928 and 1933 Cup champions, authored 1940 from behind the bench. Jacques Lemaire, the Hall of Fame pivot who won eight Cups as a player in Montreal and directed the Devils’ march to the title five years ago, never in his career was selected to either a first or second All-Star Team.
If the Devils win 12 more times this spring, Robinson will stand alone, just as he will stand alone as the coach hired latest in a Stanley Cup-winning season. Al MacNeil coached the 1971 Canadiens to the title after replacing Claude Ruel 25 games into the season, the only time a team has won the Cup after an in-season coaching change.
Robinson, of course, replaced Robbie Ftorek with eight games remaining in this season. He assumed command of a team playing its least competitive hockey in seven years, since the oftentimes chaotic 1992-93 season. The Devils had gone 2-6-2 in their last 10 games under Ftorek, a stretch bookended by 5-0 losses. They looked as if they had no idea what they were doing on the ice.
Into the breach, then, Robinson, presented with a coach’s dream by Lou Lamoriello. Think of it. A coach going into the playoffs while on a honeymoon with his players. No previous resentments. No axes to grind. No hidden agendas. No outside pressure.
Just a talented, strong team desperate for a change, desperate for a new voice to listen to, desperate for a new direction to follow.
“I think to a large degree a team does take on the personality of its coach,” Ken Daneyko, who has played for every one of the 10 men to direct the Devils, said prior to Game 4 against the Panthers. “With Larry, it’s all about the game, all about focusing on the game and on the things we can control.
“I don’t want to come off knocking Robbie, but there always seemed to something else going on; battles with the officials all of the time, things like that that maybe distracted us somewhat.”
Robinson exudes self-confidence. There’s no phony “Aw shucks; who, me?” about him. The man is a presence, and he knows it.
The question, if there is one, about Robinson is whether he has the fire in the belly to be a career head coach. He had four years in L.A., mostly unhappy ones, before returning to New Jersey last fall as an assistant. He seemed fulfilled in that role, one that allowed him to both teach and befriend his players.
Being an assistant makes for a great life. There’s little if any burden away from the rink. There’s camaraderie with the players. Jim Schoenfeld, who has been the head man in Buffalo, New Jersey, Washington and Phoenix, is looking to return to the NHL next year – as an assistant to coach the defense.
So the question was put to Robinson last week in Florida: Does the belly burn with head-coaching fire, or is the life of an assistant fulfilling enough on its own?
“I’m going to be a different kind of a head coach than everybody [else], anyway,” is the way Robinson responded. “As a head coach, I still want to be able to have fun with my players, and I think I’ve learned how to be able to accomplish that but still maintain the respect a coach has to have from his team.
“I learned in L.A. when you have to be strict and do what’s necessary to be done. The biggest thing I learned came from my experience last year, when I didn’t sit out some key veterans early in the year the way I should have when they were struggling.
“I learned from that mistake. I learn every day. That’s one of the great things about this business. You learn and keep on learning as long as you’re in the game.”
In the first round, Robinson at times elevated the John Madden-Jay Pandolfo-Alex Mogilny line over the team’s Jason Arnott-Petr Sykora-Patrik Elias unit. It is the worst form possible for a player to complain about ice time during the playoffs, and none of the members of Arnott’s line did. But at the same time you wonder whether there might have been some eyes rolling had there been a regular-season history behind the move.
You wonder, but it does not matter. Robinson does not have that history with any of the Devils. Instead, Robinson has a history as player. Instead, Robinson is 12 wins away from making history as a head coach.