Any time a recently hired NHL head coach steps into his new environment, there is a lot of behind-the-scenes preparation that goes on learn about the personnel on the team and ideas on how the pieces may fit together. For new Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol, the process is even more intensive than for most of his peers.
The former University of North Dakota bench boss spent the last 11 years focusing all of his energies on the UND program, where he compiled an all-time record of 289-143-43 (.654 winning percentage). By his own admission, Hakstol will need some time to get fully up to speed on the Flyers players.
How much has Hakstol relied this summer on video study of Flyers games from last season? While he has watched his share of video, Hakstol says there is is only so much to be gleaned from it.
"Some of it is video," Hakstol said on Thursday. "But sometimes too much is made of that. You can learn a lot from video but you can't learn everything from video. You can overanalyze things. I’ll be blunt. That’s why I think I want to be careful about how much video.
"I’m trying to get familiar. I’m not trying to make decisions with video. I don’t like doing that. I’m trying to get a baseline of knowledge of everybody, but at the same time, I don’t want to overanalyze things. That’s just not my style. That’s not the way I want to do things."
A larger piece of the puzzle is talking in depth with the team's assistant coaches. With the organization retaining its entire assistant coaching staff from last season — except for the hiring of Kim Dillabaugh to fill the goaltending coach position vacated on March 6 — Hakstol has at his disposal the input of three assistants – Ian Laperriere, Joe Mullen and Gord Murphy — who were there to see what went right and wrong a year ago and offer ideas on how to get more out of certain personnel.
"We have spent a lot of time together this week as a staff," said Hakstol. "That's been tremendous. We have been able to start talking about some real things moving forward."
Ultimately, however, Hakstol does not want to make judgments about his personnel based mostly off video or from conversations before training camp. He is preparing for training camp with a clean slate and a host of ideas.
Hakstol joked that he's already written down "about a million" potential line combinations. Likewise, although the coach characterized it as unspoken understanding that he sees no need to verbally communicate, the Flyers players will also enter camp with no pre-judgement from the new head coach.
"To me, it's mostly in the performances that you see firsthand during training camp," said Hakstol. "We will then sit down [again] and have discussions as a staff and make decisions."
Hakstol did not want to go into specific plans for the linemates with whom he initially plans to slot players such as Brayden Schenn or Sam Gagner. Schenn has played all three forward positions at different junctures of his professional career to date and seemed to play his best hockey last season as a winger on Sean Couturier's line. Meanwhile, the recently acquired Gagner has also moved around to different positions during his career.
As of now, Gagner will mostly likely start out on right wing. Schenn may be moved back to center again.
“It’s way too early to start putting things down in pen," cautioned Hakstol. "But I got a lot of combinations in pencil for sure."
Specific to Gagner, Hakstol expressed faith the talented but often inconsistent forward will have a turnaround season. Apart from Hakstol's belief in his own coaching abilities, he think Gagner is driven to succeed. Although not specifically mentioned by the coach, the 2015-16 season will be a contract-drive year before Gagner potentially becomes an unrestricted free agent summer; a situation that often brings out the best in a player.
Said Hakstol, "Sam’s gonna be a motivated guy coming in. We’ve spoken by telephone. I haven’t sat down and talked with him in person yet, but he’s gonna be a motivated young man coming in. Guys that are playing at this level have a lot of pride and a lot of competitiveness and I expect to see that out of him."
Speaking generally of all players on the roster, including the seemingly displaced Vincent Lecavalier, Hakstol said that anything that happened during previous coaching regimes will not factor into his opening night roster and lineup combination choices.
"I’m not making any decisions on anything that’s happened in the past," Hakstol asserted. "I think it’s all about what you do from this point forward and that will be the case in this situation."
Bill Meltzer is a columnist for Flyerdelphia, the editorial captain, Flyers blogger and Dallas Stars blogger for HockeyBuzz.com, the website writer for FlyersAlumni.org, a member of the PHWA, a longtime contributor to IIHF.com and NHL.com and co-author of Pelle Lindbergh: Behind the White Mask. Follow him on Twitter @billmeltzer.
