The best player does not automatically become the greatest coach. Until now, absolute superstars have been denied a successful coaching career almost without exception. Even the greatest of all time – Wayne Gretzky – was not lucky enough to break through with the gang.
On the other hand, as active players, relatively obscure cracks manage to establish themselves as coaches. For example, one of these categories would be Craig Berube. As a professional, he is a notorious brawler, with whom no one especially liked to cross swords.
Beruba has accomplished the almost unbelievable feat of rising like a phoenix from the ashes with his newly acquired St. Louis Blues. In just 6 months, he took the Blues from the worst team in NHL history to the 2019 Stanley Cup winners.
So, old school coaches are a thing of the past in modern hockey? Such a general prejudice would be not only wrong, but stupid. As with everything in life, we would be better off not writing people off based on their past. The top priority is how adaptive and learnable a person remains. The biggest experience is useless if it is not enough to work with different characters in the team.
Now it must be said that the coach must have full control over his subjects in order to get the best out of everyone. But in practice, you cannot control all the factors in the team structure. Installing railings as best as possible, this should be the case.
When everyone hugs at the end of the season, the style and methods of management are still secondary. Because whoever wins is (almost) always right.