Griffins have their man, Tab Stothers as head coach
The Grand Rapids Press reports that Mike Stothers will be named the new head coach for the AHL affiliate. He’s been heavily involved in Philadelphia’s organization as a player and coach and has spent the past five years coaching the Owens Sound Attack in the OHL. His experience likely gave him the edge:
That combination of playing and coaching experience made Stothers the best fit for the Griffins, Red Wings assistant general manager Jim Nill said. “Experience is huge. We’re not into developing coaches,” Nill said. “We’re into developing players.”
Stothers was an NHL d-man who played for Philadelphia and Toronto. Here is the Wikipedia entry on his coaching experience prior to taking the Owen Sound coaching position:
Mike Stothers was an assistant coach with the Hershey Bears, the Philadelphia Flyers AHL affiliate, from 1992-1996. When the Flyers relocated their AHL team to Philadelphia and became the Philadelphia Phantoms, Stothers went along with them, and was an assistant coach from 1996-2000. He also spent some time with the Flyers as an interm assistant coach in the 1998-1999 season, and once again in the 1999-2000 season before getting the job permanently on June 13, 2000. Stothers stayed with the Flyers through the 2001-02 season. On July 17, 2002, Stothers would leave the Flyers organization to take the head coaching job of the Owen Sound Attack of the OHL.
The 2004-05 season looks like the Attack’s best season, with the team winning 40 games, setting a team record with 90 points, and making it to the second round of the OHL playoffs. The team has made the OHL playoffs every season under Stothers.
Oh yeah, if you haven’t seen this you have to check out the first entry in Abel to Yzerman’s “design the Red Wings graphic” contest. It’s from Matt Schwartz from LetsGoWings and it’s a stellar effort.
Over at the NHL Fanhouse Jon “J.P.” Press takes a look at what could be the top 5 scoring lines in the NHL next season. The Z-D-H line of Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk and Tomas Holmstrom is listed at 5th. Here is what Press has to say about Homer and the Euro Twins.
This trio of European Red Wings racked up 90 goals in 2006-07 thanks to the dynamic Datsyuk’s and scintillating Zetterberg’s highlight reel moves and the gritty Holmstrom wreaking havoc in front of the net and cleaning up his running mates’ garbage. Each of the three had between 27 and 33 goals, including Zetterberg’s 33 in just 63 games, and the line was responsible in its own end as well, registering a combined plus-75 rating.
The big question is whether Mike Babcock keeps the line together or he has Datsyuk and Zetterberg center separate lines. My guess is he’ll break the line up to try and get two potent scoring lines much like he did last season. If the team struggles to score goals then he’ll likely reunite the line that was dominant at times last season. If they would have played the entire season on one line they would have easily cracked the century mark in goals scored. I think I’ll take a look at this later on and try to calculate what they might be capable of as far as production goes if they played the entire season together.
Finally Christy over at Behind the Jersey has a nice article on a sports poll that suggests the Red Wings are the most popular NHL team in the U.S.. Not only that, they are tied with Notre Dame in football as the team in their given sport that had the largest percentage of fans claim that they are “America’s Team” [whatever that means].
I’m not sure I like having the Red Wings compared with the Dallas Cowboys, New York Yankees and Notre Dame Football. At least Mike Illitch isn’t an overzealous ass clown like Jerry Jones and George Steinbrenner, and Mike Babcock isn’t an overinflated [literally] windbag who is in love with the sound of his own voice like Charlie Weis. So Red Wings fans have that going for them I guess.
Grand Rapids Griffins Henrik Zetterberg Mike Strothers Pavel Datsyuk Red Wings Tomas Holmstrom3 Comments
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I’m delighted to learn that “Stutsy,” my friend of thrity years, is back in the AHL as a head coach, but you should be aware that his name is Mike Stothers, not “Strothers.” Thanks
Bruce,
Thanks for the head’s up!
[…] I thought the decision to have the Red Wings hire the coaching staff in Grand Rapids would be a good way to continue to develop talent. My only guess would be Detroit’s goal of developing Red Wings prospects could in some situations hamper Grand Rapids’ goal of icing the best team possible. And the fact Stothers answered to the Red Wings organization, not the Grand Rapids team, might have caused issues as well. […]