Dallas Eakins’ rookie season as a National Hockey League head coach didn’t quite live up to the advance billing.
He arrived in Edmonton, the product of a Toronto media market that habitually overrates its hockey people, then inherited a goaltending situation in Edmonton that Scotty Bowman could not have succeeded with in his prime.
He had a plan and wasn’t afraid to say he knew how to make it succeed. But in the end, it doesn’t matter how good the driver is if the car is running on three cylinders, and the Oilers were out of the playoff picture by Dec. 1, completely irrelevant by the new year.
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Undeterred, this summer Eakins has set out to learn from two football men about building “a program” that can succeed in Edmonton. His general manager has afforded him a stronger roster to work with, and Eakins has gone to school — literally — to give that roster a better chance of finally crawling out of the NHL basement.
“It’s for me,” he said of his travels, “but it’s for our organization, our staff… and in the end, it’s for our players. That’s who it ends up being for, every time.”
Eakins spoke to Sportsnet Tuesday from the University of Missouri campus, between meetings with Tigers head football coach Gary Pinkel. There he listened and learned how a successful program was erected from the ashes, pretty much identical to what they’re hoping for in Edmonton.
“I want to make sure that we are open to all ideas on better ways to prepare the players. Whatever is going to help these players play better and win hockey games, then that’s my job to go seeks it out. It will never end.”
Give Eakins credit. While some coaches are at the lake cabin or on the golf course, he has spent the summer revamping his own program in Edmonton.
Gone is assistant coach Steve Smith, while longtime Oilers assistant Kelly Buchberger has been reassigned within the organization. The young head coach recruited veteran assistant Craig Ramsay, promoted Rocky Thompson from the farm club as the third assistant (Keith Acton remains from last year), and hired an analytics man in Tyler Dellow.
Then he went to spend some time prior to the Dallas Cowboys training camp in Oxnard, Calif., with Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett.
“The one thing that’s happening in hockey is, our staffs are getting bigger and bigger. Not just coaches, but strength guys, [dieticians], etc. It just keeps growing and growing. I’m not prepping a team; I’m prepping a staff,” Eakins said. “Dallas… is a big machine — a team that’s followed very closely by a lot of fans and a lot of media. I was able to get a real good look at Jason Garrett’s program with his coaches, how he delegates authority how he runs his meetings.
“We had great chats on our availability to the media, how he goes about it. I sat with their PR guy. They were really open, and I was honoured to be there. It was fabulous.”
The theme continued at Mizzou, where Pinkel took a Southeastern Conference doormat and over 12 years has built them into a perennial contender.
“These college teams, it’s [all] about the program,” Eakins said. “There tends not to be a lot of change, so they really get their identity down, what it means to be a Tiger here. The accountability level, the responsibility level — all those things. I wanted to see that from Gary, because I now he’s really built an amazing program here. And I wanted to see how he handled his staff. And… he handles it differently [from Garrett].”
He’s an interesting cat, Eakins. Like him or not, he’s no cookie-cutter version of what a hockey coach is supposed to be.
He’s in Leadville, Colo., today in preparation for his fourth Leadville Trail 100, a grueling mountain bike race that goes Saturday. And though he’s often accused of being overconfident, Eakins is the first guy out there asking questions of coaches in other sports, trying to become a better coach.
“The game, it just keeps changing,” he said. “I want to make sure that we have every box checked off. I like where we’re at right now, and I want the players to know we’re doing everything we can to prepare them for success. The right coaching, the right system, the right everything.”