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Red Wings need not look far for qualified applicants

Scotty Bowman's associate coaches with the Red Wings were yin (superb tactician Barry Smith) and yang (superb communicator Dave Lewis). Now as Bowman, the man of 1,000 stories, drifts off into his anecdotage, Detroit general manager Ken Holland has to decide if one of the excellent halves can be a whole.

As owner Mike Ilitch said moments after Bowman announced his retirement on the ice following Game 5 of the Stanley Cup final last Thursday, the Red Wings have too much talent to hand the job to just anybody.

Of course, neither Smith nor Lewis is just anybody. Smith was the driving force behind Bowman adopting the left-wing lock in 1995, a forechecking scheme that Smith pinched from teams in the Swedish Elite League, where he once coached. The system helped give more structure to the talented but still struggling group Bowman had taken over two years earlier. With Bowman not on the ice daily in recent seasons, Smith ran the NHL's best practices this side of Florida coach Mike Keenan. Lewis has his own formidable credentials, including a loyalty to Ilitch and the Wings that dates back to 1987 when he quit playing and became an assistant coach. He was the coach who soothed some of the feelings that Bowman invariably ruffled along the way, the sympathetic ear Detroit's players could whine to. The Rangers were planning to interview Lewis, a bridesmaid for a couple of other head coaching jobs the past few years, before the Wings made their Cup run and general manager Glen Sather was bowled over by Colorado assistant Bryan Trottier. There are a couple of drawbacks to each of the homegrown candidates -- Smith is hyper-intense and Lewis never has run a bench -- but nothing that would eliminate either from the mix.

The larger consideration is whether two deserving men could suddenly switch roles, moving from assistant jobs that are essentially nurturing roles to the cold and sometimes cruel world of head coach. Smith and Lewis both have an intimate knowledge of this strong-willed team; maybe too intimate. And recent NHL history is not on their side. Long-time assistants occasionally graduate to the top job -- Rick Kehoe served more than a 13-year apprenticeship in Pittsburgh before being named head coach during the 2001-02 season -- but it is not the standard career path in the new NHL. Most teams now either try to identify a bright young coach (as Dallas did with Los Angeles assistant Dave Tippett) or hire a recycled coach with a good track record (as New Jersey did last week with Pat Burns).

Burns was sitting at home in New Hampshire, out of work since Boston fired him early in the 2000-01 season. If Carolina had continued to founder in December, Burns would been hired in Raleigh but Paul Maurice turned around the team around at the 11th hour. Burns' phone then stopped ringing. He understood better than anyone that if nothing broke soon, he would have found himself consigned to the Ted Nolan Dustbin of History, yesterday's man. But the Devils, once the hallmark of stability, moved to their fourth coach in little more than two years, dropping Kevin Constantine after their first-round playoff loss to the Hurricanes. Conventional wisdom said that Devils president Lou Lamoriello was creating an opening for Ron Wilson, the former Washington coach whom Capitals general manager George McPhee fired with a heavy heart after the season. Wilson played for Lamoriello at Providence College and coached Team USA under Lamoriello in the 1996 World Cup and 1998 Olympics. Conventional wisdom was wrong.

Now, in this dizzying coaching carousel, Wilson could end up in Detroit. He is a first-rate coach who managed to establish a rapport with many of his star players, including Paul Kariya when Wilson coached in Anaheim. The Red Wings have stars up the yin and the yang, something Smith and Lewis know better than anyone.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Michael Farber covers the NHL beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.

 

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