BRIGHTON – With his first NHL training camp as a head coach underway, all eyes are going to be on new head coach Marco Sturm at this point.
Sturm is no stranger to NHL camp, of course, having gone through more than a dozen of them as a player and a handful more as an NHL assistant coach and AHL head coach during his time with the Los Angeles Kings organization. But this will be the first time that Sturm will be the guy where the buck stops, the place where the tone is going to be set for the entire NHL hockey club and the final decision maker when it comes to the players on his roster and the systems that are going to work best with that assembled group.
There are already the first bumps on the road with David Pastrnak expected to be off the ice for the first few days of training camp while dealing with some nagging tendinitis that bugged him over the last few weeks.
There has been speculation about the style that the B’s are going to employ this season and just how good they ultimately are going to be, but a lot of it has been a blank slate until the players actually hit the ice at Warrior Ice Arena on Thursday.
“You’ve got to give him latitude to how he wants to run training camp. I'm a sounding board in a lot of those things. I've had the good fortune of working with highly successful coaches. They all ran training camp a little differently,” said Don Sweeney. “He has his own ideas of how he wants to do things and then we just discuss, and he bounces it off his coaches and [decides] what's best. The collaboration, as you referenced, is an everyday event. He knows that he has the final say in terms of roster, who’s playing with who, and he controls ice time. There's no tweaking [by management on] the system side of things. We may talk in terms of what might work and what doesn't work, but he has the final say in what's going to happen on the ice.
“I've gotten a lot of good advice along the way, but one of them was ‘you go down and start coaching, you might as well coach.’ That's not my job. That's not my role. His role will be to give me feedback on who plays well, who meshes together, whether or not we have holes in our lineup. It’s the same way you would talk to [Providence Bruins head coach] Moug [Ryan Mougenel] in terms of who's a callup, who can fill this role. From top to bottom and left to right, we have to be cohesive. We will not always agree on things, but when we leave the room, he has the final decision in terms of player personnel and the systems and how we're going to play.”
There have already been encouraging developments where Sturm has stepped up and exerted some authority, like the decision to hold off on naming a captain until he can get a lay of the land with all of his players. And the German head coach will always stress the importance of playing to a certain standard if they hope to wear the same Spoked ‘B’ crest that he did for some memorable years in Black and Gold.
It was also interesting to note that Sturm was in the back of the Boston video room to listen to Sweeney’s press conference with the media, and likewise, Sweeney stayed and listened to what Sturm had to say afterward. It showed a couple of prominent B’s decision makers who are definitely on the same page to start a very important season in getting the Bruins franchise back on track and showing that kind of support for each other.
“From Day One of going through the interview process, even today, listening to Marco [Sturm] deliver his first speech. You just start to see him gain command as he's going through it, and his voice gets a little louder and a little stronger, and his confidence grows. And that's the way it was going through the process, and [with him] becoming a coach here, he's put in all those steps,” said Sweeney. “Now, I have to be there to support him in some of the things that are going to be unfamiliar, but he's still going to gravitate towards what's really comfortable for him, and that's getting in front of the players, that's teaching, that's reinforcing the structure and how our team is going to play, and the four principles that he's going to make our players adhere to on a daily basis.
“[It’s] not about reacting to a win and a loss but getting back to that. Now, he's got to go through some of that stuff, and we'll have to continue to work through that, but that's what I'm here for, to support him through all those things and allow him to grow as much as our team's going to grow and build it the way he wants to build it, and [have a team that will] play the way he wants us to play.”
Clearly Sturm is excited just as he was an excitable player during his years in Black and Gold, and the hope is that enthusiasm and energy blends with the game tactics to create a new winning environment in Boston.
“I think the one thing I do is I communicate. We'll see day by day. There's nothing really set yet, but what I'm hearing from the guys is they want to play [in preseason]. So that's a good thing. I can feel that they’re a little pissed off even from last year. I know it's going to be a lot of information moving forward the next few days,” said Sturm. “I’m probably using a different language on certain things system-wise. We’re going to tweak a few things. At the end of the day, I want them to get to know everything right away, as much as we can.
“I’m confident enough that I’m going to do the best that I can and be the same Marco Sturm that I’ve always been. At the end of the day, I want to get better. I want to get my players better. I want to win. Today is a good day. Moving forward, I don’t want to change anything. Players should feel it every day. I’m not here to babysit and be the cheerleader every day, but I actually like to do it, because it’s like I want to play too. That’s what they’re going to hear all year long.”
Sounds like the kind of consistent and steady message is already in place for the hockey club at the start of training camp, but the real test will be ahead as the dog days of training camp arrive and the real stress of the regular season looms a month from now.