DETROIT – There are many skeptics out there, that’s for sure, but Bryan Trottier, who will be introduced at a Garden press conference this afternoon as the Rangers’ head coach, has an unqualified endorsement from someone who knows something about hockey and about winning.
“I think the Rangers made a great choice; I think they have a great coach,” Wayne Gretzky, here yesterday for a promotional appearance, told The Post. “I’ve had the chance to talk with Bryan a number of times over the years about the game; I know how important a role he’s played with the Avalanche the last few years, I know his drive and desire and determination to win.
“He’s very sharp. I’m sure he’s going to succeed there.”
Funny how some assistants somehow become “hot” candidates for head coaching jobs and others are disregarded or belittled. Dave Tippett is an example of the former; Trottier an example of the latter, no matter the six Cups he won as a player and the seventh he added last year as an Avalanche assistant.
Trottier – who is believed to have a agreed to a three-year contract worth approximately $2 million – is extremely well respected by the Colorado players with whom he’s worked the last four seasons, notably by marquee talents such as Joe Sakic and Raymond Bourque and young forwards such as Milan Hejduk and Alex Tanguay. He’s appreciated for his work ethic, his ability to analyze video and his knowledge of what it takes to win.
“There’s nothing like being in a winning environment to understand how to win,” said Detroit associate coach Dave Lewis, a teammate of Trottier’s for six years on the Island and another contender for the job on Broadway had Sather not moved before the end of the Finals. “I’ve talked to Bryan the last couple of years and I know this is what he wants.
“I think he’s going to be fine there.”
Sather, of course, has been widely disparaged for not hiring Ken Hitchcock, whom he interviewed in mid-April; for not hiring Tippett, who went to Dallas after interviewing with, but not receiving an offer from, the Rangers; for not moving more quickly on Herb Brooks, who decided he didn’t have the desire for the grind when the job was his for the asking; for not hiring Guy Carbonneau, even though the Montreal assistant didn’t feel he was prepared to be a head coach and is now a Dallas front-office man.
But the GM knew something none of his critics did – that he was not waiting on Trottier for the playoffs to end, that he had in fact interviewed Trottier before the tournament had even begun. It is quite possible that Trottier and Brooks all along were the men Sather had targeted from the beginning, and that the interview process was as much an educational one for the GM as a true hunt for Ron Low’s successor.
Trottier won four Cups as the Islanders’ first-line center. He won two more in Pittsburgh as a role player with teammates such as Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr and Ron Francis. Yesterday, Francis, who scored the OT winner in Tuesday’s opening game of the Finals, was asked about his former teammate. The Carolina captain seconded Gretzky.
“I think he’ll be a great coach,” Francis said. “Bryan has played and worked under some great hockey minds in Al Arbour and Scotty Bowman . . . He deserves a head-coaching job, and I think he’ll be outstanding in that role.”
