New coach a plus for Wolves
By most accounts, former Sudbury Wolves coach David Matsos is a good guy. By most accounts, new Sudbury Wolves coach Cory Stillman is a good guy.
In the recent space of a few days, the 43-year old Matsos departed the Wolves — in what was termed a mutual agreement — despite having a year left on his contract and was quickly replaced by the 43-year old Stillman at the helm of the Ontario Hockey League team.
After missing the playoffs two years in a row, Matsos managed to move the Wolves into this post-season this spring.
But with a 27-34-7 record in a weak side Eastern Conference, the Wolves were hardly impressive in finishing in sixth place before losing in the first round of the playoffs. In fact, Sudbury would have missed the playoffs by an eight-point margin if it were members of the Western Conference.
What was disturbing about the Matsos-coached Wolves during the 2016-2017 regular season was the lack of discipline.
The Wolves were the most-penalized club in the 20-team OHL with 982 minutes in the box over 68 regular-season games. By comparison, the league champion Erie Otters had the second-fewest penalty minutes with 649.
Without question, Matsos was well-liked during his time with the Wolves. A friendly individual of good character, he was a player’s coach who reportedly ran a good dressing room.
But the Wolves lacked accountability under him and even when they ended up on the losing end of lopsided scores, Matsos was rarely critical of his team’s performance in post-game interviews with the Sudbury Star. It was almost as though Matsos being too positive produced too many negative results.
Which brings the Wolves to new coach Stillman, fresh from a five-year stint with the Carolina Hurricanes in the player development department of the National Hockey League team.
A renowned former NHL player (and two-time Stanley Cup champion) of more than 1,100 games and almost 300 goals, Stillman has the same good-guy reputation that Matsos has. Talk to enough people and they can’t say enough good things about Stillman.
But the big difference between the two may be that Stillman also carries a reputation as a teacher who demands accountability from players while not allowing for undisciplined behaviour.
In his first press conference after being introduced as the new head coach of the Wolves, Stillman shed a lot of light as to what will go on with him as Sudbury’s new bench boss.
“The game plan that I will have is that we will be a fast, puck possession team. We will be well-disciplined,” Stillman began.
Later, when asked by Sudbury-based freelance writer — and HockeyNewsNorth.com columnist — Amanda Zurkowski what fans can expect from a Wolves team that was the most penalized in the OHL over the course of the 2016-2017 season, Stillman was quick to answer.
“I’m hoping this is going to be an easy adaptation but there could be a bit of a learning curve. I’m hoping that come the first day of tryouts, the first day we step foot on the ice, we know our systems. We will go through systems before we even step on the ice. That first exhibition game, even intra-squad play, they will know the systems. There are going to be mistakes but we will build from there.”
Sounds like a plan. A good plan.
PHOTO: New coach Cory Stillman (right) is welcomed to Sudbury by Wolves general manager Rob Papineau.