Nice chat with Wolves VP
He is the man who oversees hockey operations as vice president of the Sudbury Wolves and Rob Papineau has definitive plans in place as the franchise moves forward under first-year owner Dario Zulich.
The 45-year old Papineau, who was born and raised in Sudbury and played minor hockey in his hometown before becoming a productive Ontario Hockey League forward with the Ottawa 67’s and erstwhile Detroit Ambassadors, is passionate about his new job as the Wolves vice president of hockey operations.
“Our goal is to try to make the Sudbury Wolves a model franchise,” Papineau began, in what was a lengthy, albeit casual and easy-going interview with HockeyNewsNorth.com. “That begins at the top with Dario and those of us who work for him are all on board.
“We have an internal mission statement, which is to turn 16-year old hockey players into 20-year old professional gentlemen of character. Our program is built around developing their body, mind and spirit. Our focus is on looking for skilled players who possess integrity, discipline and intelligence,” Papineau relayed.
Papineau had been working as a scout for the Carolina Hurricanes of the National Hockey League when he was hired by the aforementioned Zulich shortly after the Sudbury businessman bought the Wolves from the Burgess family just prior to the start of the 2016-2017 OHL season.
The Wolves have missed the playoffs in each of the past two seasons but are in sixth place and in possession of an Eastern Conference playoff spot at this stage of the 2016-2017 campaign — albeit with a sub-par record of 22-27-7 through 56 games.
“From a standings perspective we are about where we thought we would be though from a points perspective, we have let games get away that we feel we should have won,” Papineau said evenly. “We are trying to manage through that. We have some areas that we need to clean up on.”
As the Wolves lead the entire OHL in penalty minutes, on-ice discipline is one area that the team is working at trying to improve, said Papineau. Having said that, Papineau praised the leadership of third-year Wolves coach David Matsos.
“Our compete level is really good,” Papineau said firmly. “And our attitude and our dressing room are both really good.
“We just have to get into the playoffs because that’s a whole new season and we do like our team.”
Besides inheriting Matsos as head coach when he took the Wolves job, Papineau came into a situation with Barclay Branch entering his second season as general manager and 30-year employee Blaine Smith having been retained as team president by Zulich.
“It’s been good…really good,” Papineau replied when asked about answering to Smith as president as well as being Branch’s immediate supervisor.
“Blaine is such a gentleman and a man of considerable respect and integrity throughout the OHL,” said Papineau. “We share a lot of the same values, commitment and work ethic. And Barclay and I get along great. We do a lot of work together in scouting, player evaluation and analytics.
“I consider myself lucky and blessed to work for an owner like Dario and alongside respected individuals with the knowledge and experience and resources that Blaine and Barclay have. They are both men of character and passion,” Papineau added.
“We can’t control the past,” Papineau said of the Wolves struggles of the past few seasons under the ownership of the Burgess family. “But we can control how hard we are willing to work to make the Wolves an outstanding brand. We are all in this together.”
Having known Papineau for a number of years, Zulich knew what he was getting when he hired his VP of hockey operations away from the Carolina scouting job. And Carolina scout Mike Dawson said Zulich has himself a good man in Papineau.
“He’s a very good guy with a wonderful family,” Dawson said of Papineau, with whom he worked together in the Carolina scouting department for several years. “Rob is passionate about the game and has been very passionate and hard working since taking the job with the Wolves.
“He has great pride in Sudbury and in the goal of restoring the Wolves franchise to the glory that it used to have. He did a very thorough job for us in Carolina. The Wolves are in good hands,” Dawson added in further praise of Papineau.
Good article by RR and a good job done so far by RP the VP .
Hope fully Paps can bring us a long waited Championship.
It was not for a lack of effort from Mark or Blaine that the Woofer’s did not win. Burgy tried and brought in good Coach’s and payed Big bucks to Merk, Sam, Bert, Lalande and even Cull.
At the end of the day this is a GREAT Hockey Town who just wants to win.
Darrio has a vision and Smitty is a good man that I am happy that gets credit\.
Thanks to Randy Russon for sending this along. I have known Rob Papineau a long time and he will do the right things to ensure the Wolves become winners. GO WOLVES GO!!!
Wolves should trade Sokolov. They could get a wonderful two way player for him. He was -40 last year and on his way there again this year. Defence wins championships.