If Mark Messier gets hired as the Rangers next coach, the one man out there who might relate closest to his situation would be former teammate Ed Olczyk.
Having played three of his 20 NHL seasons with the Rangers — including being part of the Stanley Cup-winning team of 1994 captained by Messier — Olczyk has a good understanding of the type of leadership his former teammate has a reputation for.
Yet Olczyk also knows the perils of having your first real head-coaching experience be in the NHL, as he got his first and only job with the Penguins in 2003-04, bridged the following locked-out year, and then got fired 31 games into 2005-06.
So what would be the one piece of advice he would impart to Messier, the six-time Cup champion as a player — who, without a single game of AHL or NHL coaching experience made known his desire to succeed John Tortorella on Friday?
“He’s going to need to have people around him that have a lot of experience,” said Olczyk, now an NBC in-game analyst in the midst of calling the Penguins-Bruins Eastern Conference finals.
“I don’t care how many Cups you’ve won or how many games you’ve played or where you come from, you need to have that experience alongside you and that trust factor.”
Olczyk made it clear the situation he dealt with in Pittsburgh was very different than the one Messier would be dealing with here in New York. Olczyk had a team needing a total rebuild, while he thinks the Rangers are just one or two pieces away from regaining elite status.
“There are just so many positives about the opportunity [with the Rangers] that whoever does get the job is going into a spot where, boy oh boy, a couple of tweaks here or there in-game, then adding a player, they become one of the favorites,” Olczyk said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.”
Yet if Messier does get the job, it won’t be the easiest transition. A lot has been made recently about how great players don’t make great coaches, and although that’s something Olczyk doesn’t completely buy, he thinks there is no way to know what kind of coach someone is going to be until he is in that position.
“You realize as a player how much the coaches go through, but until you’re actually in the mix, you really have no idea as a player,” Olczyk said. “Your focus is in so many more directions. That aspect of it is very draining.”
Olczyk went on to say he had no doubt Messier could handle the job, including the massive spotlight that would come with it. Of course, Messier is not the only candidate. All-time great Wayne Gretzky is also interested, and the Rangers have received permission to speak to former Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault, as well as Dallas Eakins, the up-and-coming coach of the AHL’s Toronto Marlies. The Rangers are holding their organizational meeting next week in California, and hope to have a coach in place by the draft on June 30.
So whether Messier gets the job or not, Olczyk thinks whoever is there will be inheriting the foundation of a great team.
“He’s got the greatest building block in the world in Henrik Lundqvist, in my opinion the best goalie in the world,” Olczyk said. “This is as good as any job in any sport.”