Main thing like the others have mentioned is do your best to pick lines. Lockes suggestion about defenceman is perfect, you never want two out there at the same time thinking all offence, pinching and being deep in the offensive zone. For forwards, they're hard to pick but if you notice chemistry between two or three players try them together. I'd just start by asking everyone what position they prefer to play and going from there. Keep the centers and at center, and wingers at wing if possible, and make your lines from there. A center can in most cases always convert to wing, but it's harder for a winger to play center. If you need to move a winger to center go with one that you know will be defensively responsible. As the season goes on you'll learn more about who is good at what position.
You say you're fairly familiar with where players need to be on the ice, which is good because that is very important. Here’s my little break down of where everyone should be positioned, I'm sure most know this info. In your own zome, wingers MUST cover the points, left winger on the right defenceman and vice versa. Centers are like a third defenceman, watching the front of the net, corners, etc. One defenceman should ALWAYS be in front of the net. For the break out the wingers take the boards, and the center goes down the middle towards the winger with the puck. Wingers must do their best to make sure the puck gets out of the zone, if you notice someone is having trouble just tell them to be safe and shoot the puck off the boards and out. In the offensive zone you should always have two players supporting the puck, never have all three in deep. The center usually is the one who stays high, make sure at least one forward is always backchecking hard. If you notice and defenceman pinching a lot and getting caught maybe point it out. Do some research if need be, make sure players play the box on the penalty kill, see if you can find a good powerplay formation on the web. Give pointers privately on the bench to individual players. Feel free to yell at anyone not working hard.
To sum it all up in rec hockey I'd say you're mostly there to give pointers, pick lines, keep the team motivated, and maybe send out a power line when you're short a goal or need to prevent one. I know my info is pretty straight forward but you don’t really have to get to technical. In some case, ie playoffs you may want to have certain players for a big powerplay or penalty kill (make sure the captain of the team give this an ok as I've seen players get pissed off if you pull them off). Hope that helps, I coach my team during the summer while I'm playing. One more thing don’t feel weird to ask the more experienced players if there’s pointers they can give.
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