By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/
Keith Srakocic/Associated Press
Sometimes, even Dan Bylsma can't believe this year.
On this very weekend a year ago, in the Not Quite Bermuda Triangle that is Pittsburgh, Toronto, and beautiful Scranton-Wilkes Barre, a deafening ricochet of hockey reverberations launched a sports story so fantastic its protagonist still doesn't believe it himself.
In the cramped coaching-office catacombs of the doomed Mellon Arena the other day, Dan Bylsma's eyes floated toward the ceiling as he again pondered how in this world a guy with but a couple of months' experience as a minor league head coach could wind up standing behind the bench of a wounded NHL hockey team that, in another couple of months, would skate with the Stanley Cup.
What's more, Dan Bylsma still can't believe that man was Dan Bylsma.
"It just doesn't mesh with who I think I am," he said in the rarest of moments, the head coach in public introspection. "The two things don't quite blend for me. I still shake my head sometimes when I think I'm the head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins, of a Stanley Cup Champion, and in the City of Champions. Sometimes I still feel like Dan Bylsma was not that head coach.
"To me, those things don't assimilate."
This is the far more eloquent version of the infamous "it hasn't sunk in yet," but maybe that's because Bylsma ascended hockey's Everest on a rocket sled.
On Saturday night, Feb. 14, 2009, the Penguins lost in a stunning come-from-ahead pallor at Toronto, after which general manager Ray Shero fired head coach Michel Therrien. Shero phoned Bylsma that Sunday with an offer that, had it been extended to anyone not working in Scranton and/or Wilkes Barre, might easily have been rejected.
"It wasn't, 'Here's a three-year contract to coach the Pittsburgh Penguins,' " Bylsma recalled. "It was more, 'Here's a day. Here's an opportunity that might turn into something.' He asked me, 'What if it doesn't work out? What if you have to go back to the American Hockey League?' "
Bylsma jumped all over it, which isn't terribly surprising when you consider that a year later he still runs down the tunnel to the ice for practice, his coach's whistle airborne over his shoulder as he accelerates on the ice surface.
"He's a little different now because he's had a season of coaching in the National Hockey League and he's gained some experience," said Penguins forward Pascal Dupuis. "He's obviously a players' coach with his energy and the way he talks to everybody. Don't forget, he's young [39]. I played against him. A lot of guys here played against him."
Bylsma was a serviceable penalty killer for the Los Angeles Kings and more notably with the Anaheim Mighty Ducks until the middle of the decade, and even though he played in the Stanley Cup final as a Ducks winger, his accomplishments as a strategist and motivator have dwarfed anything he did on skates.
When Bylsma made it to Long Island for his first game as head coach a year ago Tuesday, the Penguins were 27-25-5 and in 10th place in the Eastern Conference standings. From that point, they went 18-3-4, then 16-8 in four playoff rounds in which they overcame 2-0 deficits twice and became the first pro sports team since the 1979 Pirates to win a Game 7 on the road, June 12 at Detroit.
Yeah, that's all.
With his first full season nearly three-quarters done, with his team battling for first place in the Atlantic Division and a solid favorite to open at home in the playoffs, it almost looks as if the hockey coaching gig is too easy for Dan Bylsma.
It's almost as if the game hasn't challenged him yet with any of its traditional emotional torture implements.
"I would go against that notion," said defenseman Mark Eaton. "He's had challenges, but just in the atmosphere he's created, he's met his biggest challenge, and it was the biggest challenge around here for a long time. He's keeping guys together. What's so great about him is that he put in his system and he hasn't strayed from it from day one.
"But every time of year creates different challenges. A lot goes unseen outside of the room here. Whether you're in first place or you're 15th in the conference, there are challenges along the way."
Bylsma acknowledges that he has met some, and admits that his limited experience can leave him less than convinced he has the answers. He still learns as much or more from his players than they from him. All of those challenges remain fresh, he says, even having been to Everest.
That's probably because he's not sure, on one level, that it was he who got there with them, much less that it was he who got them there.
"I grew up watching Sparky Anderson [run the Big Red Machine], and when you think about people who are always winning on that level, like Jim Leyland with the Tigers, or whoever, when you think about Bear Bryant or Tom Landry or Chuck Noll, I mean, that just doesn't make sense to me to think I've coached a championship team," he said. "I just pointed these guys in a direction to where they eventually steered the ship. I lost in the Stanley Cup final as a player and it was just the most painful thing, but at the same time, it was the best memory. Had we lost Game 7 in Detroit I know how they'd have felt, but I'd have said, 'You know what, they did a great job.'
"The challenge now is to have our greatest success, to be our best team. That might happen, but for me, all I know is that I envision myself being a much better coach down the road than I am now."
That might happen too, and it might happen without Dan Bylsma ever having 12 months like these past 12 again. But who would put it past him?
Gene Collier: gcollier@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1283. More articles by this author
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First published on February 14, 2010 at 12:00 am
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