On Frozen Blog

November 23 in Philadelphia was, technically, Bruce Boudreau’s debut as head coach of the Washington Capitals. But I actually believe we’ll see Bruce Boudreau’s Washington Capitals for the first time tonight, in New Jersey, in the new Prudential Center. It should be an evening of newness and renewal.

Last Sunday I asked Coach Boudreau about the importance of this week’s five-day break from play in terms of putting his imprint on the team. Without pause he affirmed it — this was to be a week of actual instruction, whereas in the frenzy of six games in his first nine days in D.C. all he was largely able to impart to the team were basic alignments and exhortations. This has been a teaching week for Bruce Boudreau. Tonight we begin to learn how much his pupils have absorbed.

We know this from the Bruce Boudreau track record: his teachings and tactics more often than not take hold, and winning commonly followed. The voice of the Hershey Bears, John Walton, yesterday told me, “If there’s anybody in hockey who can get the Caps to eighth [in the East], it’s Bruce.”  

It may have been the case that a substitute teacher — students’ favorite kind – had been instructing the Caps the past three seasons. This December in D.C. there is a headmaster in charge. He’s stern, he’s a taskmaster, but he’s also a classic hockey personality. To be around Bruce Boudreau is to be regaled in hockey lore. Some of this, I’m sure, is shared with his players. This in itself has to be a welcomed, refreshing change in the Caps’ room.

Since Boudreau has taken over the Caps I’ve wondered about successful hockey coaches and their ability, over the course of brutally long seasons, to extract excellence out of battered bodies with such consistency. The Hershey Bears last season enjoyed their finest season in their storied history: 51-17-6, good for 114 points. The season prior, also under Boudreau, was merely excellent, and capped with a Calder Cup. Both seasons were marked by lengthy winning streaks — including, during the 2006 postseason, an astounding 10 consecutive victories. Under Boudreau the Bears also won seven consecutive playoff series. Those kind of accomplishments, it seems, can only arrive from magnificent preparation, instruction, and motivation — from the head guy — and extraordinary selflessness and sacrifice from his players.

Boudreau, I think, in addition to possessing a savvy hockey head must also have enjoyed inordinate credibility with most of the players in every room he’s coached to get the results he has.     

Skepticism surrounding the long-term prospects of the interim coach are premised, I think, on the fact that Boudreau’s predecessor, too, arrived in Washington via the American League, and that like Glen Hanlon, Bruce Boudreau never before managed an NHL bench. But such a view views the coach in static fashion; Bruce Boudreau was a better coach in Hershey than he was in Manchester (and he was quite good there as well). Why wouldn’t we think he’d improve here too? And he brings a championship pedigree with him.   

This week Boudreau was asked, with reference to his team’s last-place standing, just how much improvement he thought the team could make this season. Noting that more than 50 games remained, he responded, “Why not first?”

We shouldn’t have expected any other answer.