It’s still hard to believe that 2005 was a decade ago. At the time, the Detroit Red Wings head coaching position was vacant, like it was this past offseason. The Wings found their man in Mike Babcock then, and have found their man in Jeff Blashill as his successor now in 2015.
Both coaches carried a pedigree appealing to the organization, with Babcock having a .532 winning percentage in the WHL coaching the Moose Jaw Warriors and Spokane Chiefs, qualifying for the playoffs twice in his only two AHL seasons coached, and making it to the Stanley Cup Final in his 2003 rookie season. However, he inherited a team that was a powerhouse in 2005-06 with names like Nicklas Lidstrom, Chris Chelios, Brendan Shanahan, Steve Yzerman, Robert Lang, and a young Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg. The team won 58 games and would win a Stanley Cup two years later with the latter two players leading the team to glory.
Blashill was lesser known when he was hired as an assistant coach in 2011 for Detroit. He served as an assistant for Ferris State University for three years and Miami University of Ohio for six. He takes over a team that has been far from a powerhouse like Babcock’s early groups, with the team in transition. The team has still made the playoffs for 24 consecutive seasons, but since the 2013 lockout-shortened season, the team has qualified in the last week of the season all three times and hasn’t moved past the 2nd round. Datsyuk turns 37 in July and Zetterberg 35 in October, indicative of the shift from that guard to the new guard of players. 24-year old Tomas Tatar, 25-year old Gustav Nyquist, and 23-year old Riley Sheahan are a big part of what is to come for Detroit in the next few years.
Blashill played goaltender for Ferris State in the mid to late 90s and head coach Bob Daniels saw a potential for the 41-year old Southfield native as early as then.
“Jeff was really open, had a really good sense of where the team was at and was very vocal in his thoughts.”
Miami Head Coach Enrico Blasi also offered high praise for Blashill during his six-year stint.
“He was ready to coach and manage his own team, be the voice. He had that in him. Good communicator. Understood the game and how to deliver the team message while keeping the individual motivated and always being able to hold the individual accountable. He’s a quality coach, good family man and even better person. He helped us build the program at Miami.”
Following his stints in college, he took over his first head coaching job in the USHL with the Indiana Ice. He won the USHL Championship, the Clark Cup, that season. That should sound familiar to Grand Rapids Griffins fans. Paul Skjodt ran the team and explained how fortunate it was to hire a coach with the demeanor Blashill carried with him.
“He was the guy I wanted. I liked his personality and his drive. We were fortunate to get him.”
The following season Blashill’s team lost in the 2nd round and he returned to college coaching Western Michigan University and current Detroit Red Wing Danny Dekeyser. The team only jumped from 12th to 4th In CCHA play and qualified for the NCAA Tournament, something the team hadn’t done in 15 years.
Enter the Detroit Red Wings. After assistants Brad McCrimmon (God bless him) and Paul MacLean left to go their own ways at head coaching positions, Blashill was hired as an assistant to Babcock along with Bill Peters. Peters is now the head coach of the Carolina Hurricanes and Blashill has been the head coach in Grand Rapids ever since the 2012-13 season, a year that was magical in many ways for the team as they won the Calder Cup Championship for the first time in franchise history. Fast forward to this year, with Blashill logging 228 games coached compiling a 134-71-23 record, getting the Grand Rapids franchise to the playoffs for three straight years, the first time that had been done by one head coach in franchise history.
General Manager Ken Holland said it best, describing Blashill having “his fingerprints all over the organization.”
Under his watch, current players with the big club like Nyquist, Tatar, Sheahan, Tomas Jurco, Petr Mrazek, Luke Glendening, Brendan Smith and Joakim Andersson all flourished and know his system. What’s more, thanks to Detroit’s plethora of young talent, up and comers like Teemu Pulkkinen, Xavier Ouellet, Alexey Marchenko, Anthony Mantha, Tomas Nosek, Andreas Athanasiou and Dylan Larkin have all had time under the bench boss.
Pulkkinen will be in the NHL as soon as next season, so it will be a seamless transition for the back-to-back 30+ goal scorer in terms of coaching. Ouellet and Marchenko could be up as soon as the start of next season, so it would be much of the same for them. Once the rest eventually rise through the system, having a chance to be under the man that helped them get acclimated to pro hockey would be another definite plus.
Familiarity is a nice luxury to have for the young core of the team, and for some more than others. Jurco stands out as one young player who took a step back with the big club in 2014-15, regularly seeing much of his time on the fourth line and posted just 18 points in 63 games compared to 15 points in just 36 games played the previous season. He explained his time with Blashill as overwhelmingly positive.
“Every time he showed me something, it was like, ‘You are right. I can do it differently.’ He just understands it so well. He knows what the players can do a little differently.”
A player he took under his wing, the 22-year old was a point per game player before he was called up to the Red Wings in 2013-14. With Blashill returning, Jurco could be poised to break out, getting opportunities to succeed like he did with him in the AHL.
Along with Jurco, many personal relationships are still alive with the aforementioned players that are currently with the Red Wings, and Blashill I’m sure will continue to improve on what the rest of the “new guard” can do differently.
The organization is going through its biggest transition in years, and he man who had a big part in directing the core pieces at a minor-league professional level will now be carrying out his occupation in the best league in the world.
Fortunately for the Wings, his time is now.
Quotes courtesy of Mlive and The Windsor Star
Main Photo:
