Andrew Agozzino announced his retirement from professional hockey just a few days ago, and he\u2019s already landed his next job.<\/p>\n
The former Colorado Avalanche forward has been hired as an assistant coach with the AHL\u2019s Tucson Roadrunners, the same organization he spent the past two seasons playing for. Agozzino appeared in 111 games with Tucson, recording 82 points before deciding to call it a career.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s always fascinating when a player makes such a seamless transition behind the bench. Most former players ease into coaching, whether that\u2019s in junior hockey, the ECHL, or another developmental role. Agozzino skipped that process entirely, stepping straight into an AHL assistant coaching position.<\/p>\n
It makes you wonder how long this had been in the works.<\/p>\n
Was Agozzino already viewed as a coach-in-waiting? Were his leadership qualities so apparent over the last couple of seasons that the Roadrunners wanted to keep him around the moment he retired?<\/p>\n
Those opportunities rarely happen by accident.<\/p>\n
Some players simply have that presence. Coaches see it, front offices recognize it, and perhaps most telling, their teammates notice it, too.<\/p>\n
Ryan Whitney shared a similar story on a recent episode of Spittin\u2019 Chiclets while discussing Shawn Horcoff\u2019s candidacy for the Detroit Red Wings\u2019 general manager opening. Whitney said that even as teammates in Edmonton, it seemed obvious Horcoff would eventually end up in a front office. He was constantly following trades, signings, and roster moves, showing an interest in team building long before his playing career ended.<\/p>\n
Another former teammate Whitney mentioned as someone destined for a post-playing career in hockey? Andrew Cogliano.<\/p>\n
Agozzino may fit into that same category. We don\u2019t know what conversations were happening behind the scenes, but organizations don\u2019t hand out AHL coaching jobs days after a retirement announcement unless they already have a great deal of confidence in the person.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a well-deserved opportunity for the 35-year-old, and it\u2019ll be worth watching to see whether this first coaching job is simply the beginning of a long climb through the professional ranks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew Agozzino announced his retirement from professional hockey just a few days ago, and he\u2019s already landed his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":786828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[831,385,99],"class_list":["post-786827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-featured","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}