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Age doesn’t matter; Yeo proves to be a heck of a coach
Low-scoring Wild among top four NHL teams in points

Jim Matheson, edmontonjournal.com, December 22, 2011

EDMONTON – Coach of the Year contender Mike Yeo, the baby of today’s NHL bench bosses, might be able to get a handle on the teenagers and twentysomethings on most of the rosters better than Scotty Bowman, if he decided to go back behind the bench in his 78th year.

“Scotty Bowman’s a heckuva coach. I’m not going to say I’d do anything better than Scotty Bowman,” said the Minnesota Wild’s first-year head man.

Age is a state of mind as much as a line on a birth certificate in Yeo’s eyes.

“I’m not going to sit here and say the young coaches relate better to the young players compared to old coaches … there’s some good young coaches out there and some great older ones. It depends on the individuals,” said Yeo, 38.

He’s right that coaches are good or bad no matter when they were born. But, in today’s NHL, a third of the coaches are 45 or younger. Guy Boucher (Tampa Bay Lightning) and Glen Gulutzan (Dallas Stars) were 40 going into the season and Dan Byslma in Pittsburgh was 41. Peter DeBoer (New Jersey Devils) and Joe Sacco (Colorado Avalanche) were 43.

Ken Hitchcock, who turned 60 last Saturday, is the oldest NHL coach right now. Terry Murray was 61 before the Los Angeles Kings fired him recently. Tom Renney of the Edmonton Oilers, Ron Wilson of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Bruce Boudreau of the Anaheim Ducks were all 56 coming into the season.

Nobody’s saying that older coaches can’t talk to today’s players, but the game’s getting younger on the ice and off.

“Maybe, now, teams will consider hiring a younger coach with less NHL experience because of the success of Dan Bylsma or Guy Boucher last year. Hopefully, 20 years from now, they’ll be thinking of me as old,” said a chuckling Yeo.

Yeo was Byslma’s assistant when the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup in 2009, then signed on as the Wild’s American Hockey League farm team coach in Houston. He has done a bang-up job in Minnesota. He’s a people person, he has a message and he delivers it clearly. There’s a way to play, and everybody understands right from wrong.

It’s not quite halfway through the season, so it’s too early to say who’s the leading candidate for the Jack Adams Trophy as coach of the year, but Yeo is in the running with Kevin Dineen of the Florida Panthers. They’re likely on most short lists.

John Tortorella of the New York Rangers, Byslma, Claude Julien of the Boston Bruins, Joel Quenneville of the Chicago Blackhawks, Peter Laviolette of the Philadelphia Flyers, Mike Babcock of the Detroit Red Wings and Alain Vigneault of the Vancouver Canucks should be in there, too.

Yeo played in the AHL for Phoenix Coyotes coach Dave Tippett, who was a fan then and now.

“He wasn’t the best player, but he was our most reliable player with the sacrifices he made to trying to win games. He epitomized how our team wanted to be perceived and that was one with a work ethic and one that did things right. That’s what he’s become as a coach,” said Tippett.

“I’ve tried to pattern myself after how Dave coaches and how he deals with people,” Yeo said.

So far, Yeo is getting the most out of a team that went into Thursday’s game with the Oilers as one of the NHL’s top four in points. The Wild don’t score much, but they don’t give up much either. They get in on the forecheck more than in past years.

Yeo preaches accountability, attending to details and he’s very well-liked. His door is always open.

“I feel very comfortable talking to Mike. It’s nice to have that, like after a game, if you’re not sure what he thought of your game, you go and ask,” Wild centre Kyle Brodziak said.

Brodziak had never met Yeo before this season, but he’d heard rave reviews from the players on the Houston farm team.

“It was pretty exciting to hear how well he communicated with guys … I didn’t look at it as he’s a young guy who has to prove it. I looked at it as ‘Is he going to be the right guy for our team?” said Brodziak, who is flourishing under Yeo.

“He tells you this is how you’re going to play your best and you go and do it and, all of a sudden, it’s working,” said the former Oilers forward. “It works and you go ‘OK, that makes sense.’ ”

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
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