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PITTSBURGH — Every player may not agree with this, since Michel Therrien is by his own admission a coach who is unafraid to be direct with his criticism, but he and the Pittsburgh Penguins appear to be a perfect match.
At first glance, this may seem incongruous, since unlike the supremely talented Sidney Crosby, Evegni Malkin, Marc-André Fleury, Jordan Staal and several other of the fuzzy-cheeked Penguins, Therrien's path to the NHL was never easy. As a player, the Montreal native managed a few seasons in the AHL in the mid-1980s before he got into coaching. He had some big years in junior hockey, winning the Memorial Cup with the Granby Predateurs in 1996, but he had to put in four years as the coach of the Montreal Canadiens' farm team before he got a shot with the big club.
Appointed head coach at the age of 37 by the Canadiens after Alain Vigneault, another young coach, was eaten up by one of hockey's most demanding jobs and was fired, Therrien was never accepted by the Montreal fans and media. He was also known for his fiery temper and was given the sack in January of 2003, but Therrien says those days were invaluable to his career.
As the song says, if you can make it in Montreal, where every loss or sulking player is a crisis, then you can make it anywhere.
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"It was like going to Harvard ... the best thing that happened to me in my life," Therrien told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette earlier this season. "You learn not to panic."
He wound up coaching the Penguins' AHL farm team for almost 2 1/2 seasons, where he handled many of the youngsters on today's Penguins. When the Penguins decided they needed a disciplinarian to handle their young players, Ed Olzyk was fired as the head coach and Therrien was brought in early in the 2005-06 season.
He upset a lot of players with his autocratic ways and both sides butted heads. But Therrien persevered and survived the firing of the general manager who hired him, Craig Patrick. When new GM Ray Shero elected to keep Therrien, he was rewarded with a 47-point improvement in the 2006-07 season, although the Penguins were bumped from the playoffs in the first round by the Ottawa Senators.
Trouble struck this season when the Penguins were slow out of the gate, finding the jump to the next level of the NHL much more difficult. By Dec. 1, the team had an 11-12-2 record and there were grumblings about the coach. An anonymous player was quoted as saying most of the players wanted Therrien fired. Then came serious injuries to Crosby, Fleury and veteran Gary Roberts.
Through it all, Therrien said his only concern was staying true to his coaching beliefs.
"I never had any doubt about our team and I never had any doubt about the way I coach the team," he said yesterday as the Penguins enjoyed a day off from their NHL playoff series against the New York Rangers, which they lead 3-1.
"People have their opinion, and I've got to respect their opinion," he added. "One thing you can't forget is this is a young team. You want them to be successful right from the start, Day 1 of training camp and the first game of the season — in a perfect world. But that's not the reality."
The reality, Therrien says, is there has to be a lot of teaching, particularly about defensive responsibilities. Then when Crosby was lost for 29 games with a sprained ankle, Malkin was gently persuaded to step up his game.
"Last year, we made one of the bigger improvements in the history of the National Hockey League," Therrien said. "But I knew when we started [this] year, you don't get seven years of experience in three months over the summer.
"So I was ready to take them step by step, and management with Ray Shero, we were on the same page. So we were not in a panic mode with a young team."
By the end of the season, the Penguins rose to second place in the Eastern Conference and then they mowed down the Senators in the first round of the playoffs. Now, with the Rangers on the ropes in the conference semi-final, everyone is talking about how quickly Therrien brought along this young team. And about how he is now a gruff father figure to them.
"You can't ask for a better challenge for any coach, to get the opportunity to work with those kinds of players," Therrien said. "That's why I'm so proud, looking where they are at such a young age."
