Filling the Void

When Scotty Bowman retired after hoisting the Stanley Cup over his head in Detroit last June, celebrating his record-breaking ninth championship as an NHL coach, he brought to an end a legacy of success spanning five organizations, 353 playoff games and 223 wins over 28 trips to the postseason. Bowman, who had more regular-season victories than most NHL franchises, has won 100 more playoff games than any other coach, proving again the import of age and experience this time of year.

There’s a good chance that whoever succeeds Bowman as the Stanley Cup-winning coach this spring will have begun the postseason without any playoff coaching experience, unlike Bowman’s replacement with the Red Wings, longtime assistant coach Dave Lewis. Seven of the 16 men coaching teams in the first round never have coached a playoff game, including many of the favorites.

Before the playoffs began, it appeared Lewis’ chief opposition in the Western Conference would come from top-seeded Dallas and first-year NHL coach Dave Tippett, and rival Colorado, which fired former Cup winner Bob Hartley in December and replaced him with Tony Granato, who’d never coached in the NHL.

Two of the eight first-round series feature coaches with no playoff experience -- last season, only two postseason novices made it this far -- as Detroit faces the Mighty Ducks and their first-year coach, Mike Babcock; and the Washington Capitals, who were guided to the playoffs by Bruce Cassidy, play Tampa Bay, whose coach, John Tortorella, completed his second full NHL season but is making his first trip to the playoffs.

“There are quite a few of us” playoff rookie coaches, Cassidy said. “But I still think it’s important to have been there and done it. I think it counts for something. I have always been a believer that, at the end, the players are the ones who get it done.”

Bowman was a master behind the bench -- motivating and prodding his players, keeping them off balance, switching lines with what seemed like abandon, always finding a way to get the matchup he coveted, whether at home or on the road. He intimidated by presence alone, neck tipped back slightly, chewing ice chips with a heady smirk on his face.

This postseason, there are no such figures lurking.

There are proven winners at work with new teams -- Ken Hitchcock in Philadelphia, Pat Burns in New Jersey -- but many more coaches in the playoffs who don’t know quite what to expect. No rookie coach has won the Stanley Cup since Jean Perron led Montreal to glory in 1986, a trend that could change in the coming weeks.

“It doesn’t cross my mind that way,” Tippett said of the 17-year drought. “I’m more of a realist, where I look at the situation and look at the team we have and judge it against other teams in the league. You look at the reality of whether you have a chance to win or not. I feel like our team has a chance. Whether I’m a rookie head coach or a veteran head coach I don’t think deters from that.”

Tippett inherited a talented team in Dallas that managed to miss the playoffs last season, after which Hitchcock was dismissed. Tippett entered the NHL amid great expectations, but that pales with the shadow Lewis operates under. Bowman coached Detroit to three Stanley Cups in six years before moving on, and unforgiving Red Wing fans wondered if Lewis was up to the task.

Lewis, an assistant coach in Detroit from 1987 to 2002, piloted a steady course as the Red Wings finished with the third-most points in the NHL despite playing virtually all season without team captain and emotional leader Steve Yzerman and budding star defenseman Jiri Fischer. Years of working under the maestro served Lewis well.

“Dave Lewis has been really terrific for us,” said Jimmy Devellano, the Red Wings’ longtime president. “It’s been a seamless transition, really. We got 110 points; last year we had 116 points and won the Presidents Trophy, and we were only six points behind that and that was without Yzerman all year.

“It was a pretty darn good year for us. A lot of people said, ‘Oh, they are going to fall apart. They’re old, they’re old, they’re old.’ And sometimes we live in a little fear of that ourselves, and we know in certain positions that we are a little old, and Dave has done a very good job.”

There might never be as inexperienced a set of coaches in the playoffs as this again, but that won’t make winning the Stanley Cup easier. Seven teams finished with at least 100 points in the regular season, and three were led by first-year coaches (Detroit, Dallas and Colorado). Some of the younger coaches will get weeded out early, but all of them will relish the opportunity to shine when it matters most.

“Do we have enough experience?” asked Babcock. “Are we mentally and physically tough enough to survive the ordeal here at this time of the year? That’s what we’re going to find out. But this is where we want to be. We want to find out about our team and people. I want to find out about my own abilities. In order to do that, you have to be up against the best. We’re excited about the opportunity and the challenge.”