The other day, head coach Dan Muse and head equipment manager Jon Taglianetti joked that they might need to order some steel sticks for assistant coach Mike Stothers. It\u2019s a miracle that Stothers hasn\u2019t gone through a dozen sticks by now, with how he bangs them on the glass to get the boys going.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should make a guess on how many sticks he’s actually going to go through this year in practice,\u201d Muse said with a laugh. \u201cYou just see that energy. It’s contagious, you know? It is. I just try to not break character and start smiling when I look over and see him banging on the glass.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s awesome. I mean, just so much energy. He\u2019s an unbelievable human being. We’re all so fortunate that he’s here with us on staff. He adds so much in terms of his knowledge of the game, his passion for the game, everything that he’s done in the game, both as a player and as a coach. Then, he’s an amazing, amazing coach, and he’s an even better human being.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what Muse, Kyle Dubas and Jason Spezza quickly learned when Stothers\u2019 name came up as a candidate during their assistant coach search, and they started reaching out to people and players he\u2019s worked with during his 30 years of coaching experience, most recently as an assistant with the Anaheim Ducks.<\/p>\n
Stothers has also spent time in the NHL as an assistant coach for the Atlanta Thrashers (2010-11) and Flyers (2000-02). In the AHL, Stothers served as head coach for the Ontario Reign, Manchester Monarchs and Grand Rapids Griffins.<\/p>\n
In his only season with Manchester, he guided them to the Calder Cup Championship and received the Louis A.R. Pieri Memorial Award as the AHL\u2019s Coach of the Year.<\/p>\n
Muse said he was \u201cblown away\u201d by the positive feedback about Stothers.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s another coach that’s had tremendous success, really, everywhere he’s been,\u201d Muse said. \u201cHe won a championship there in the American League. He’s been an assistant coach in the NHL for multiple organizations… the hockey world’s a small world, and it’s pretty easy to connect the dots, the impact that he’s made on players.\u201d<\/p>\n
That meant the world to Stothers, who called those relationships the biggest reward of this job. It\u2019s one he stepped away from for a time, after being diagnosed with Stage 3 melanoma of the lymph node.<\/p>\n
Stothers said he\u2019s feeling terrific, and is grateful to the care and support he got from the Ducks organization.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was top notch all the way,\u201d Stothers said. \u201cIt was a little bit of a setback, it was a little bit of a battle. But you know what, I felt confident through the whole thing, especially after learning more about the particular cancer that I had. The doctors were great about keeping me informed as to what was next and what we were going to be anticipating or expecting and the results of that, of how I’d be feeling after treatments and stuff like that. But it’s behind me now, and we’re looking forward to just keep moving on one foot in front of the other.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The other day, head coach Dan Muse and head equipment manager Jon Taglianetti joked that they might need…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-163822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}