Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts
Well none of them ever got a head coaching consideration unless they just want to be a career coach assistant coach with no aspirations of doing the big job?
Baxter if he was so in demand would be talked about? No? Never heard of him as a top assistant or head coach candidate?
Playfair? Cookson? Mumbles?
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That is not what you said. Here's what you said.
"Darryl Sutter is pretty bad a identifying coaches who go on to have a productive coaching career he has had some brutal assistant coaching choices before.
Terrible:
Paul Baxter
Mumbles Preston
Rob Cookson
Bob Berry
None of those bums have coached after leaving assistant coaching positions with Sutter."
I showed that this was wrong. Becoming a head coach is irrelevant. Some guys just don't want the responsibility or the pressure or believe they are better off in a more specialized role as an assistant. Baxter went the path he did for reasons only he can disclose. If he wishes to share that information I'm sure he will chime in, but I suspect he likes to keep his private life just that, private. Some guys are just destined to be assistant coaches because that is what they like and Preston and Cookson likely fall into that category. There is zero shame in being an assistant coach.
It's funny, but when I lived in Tampa I became good acquaintances with the coaching staff from the Lightning, especially Jeff Reese and Craig Ramsey. Both were really good coaches and we talked about aspirations. Ramsey thought he could be a head coach someday after getting a taste in Philadelphia, and would do just that several years later for a season in Atlanta. We lost touch after that. It was cool to see him achieve his crowing glory as a head coach in the "European beer leagues" (as you put it) where he led the Slovak national team to a bronze medal at the 2022 Olympics. Reese, on the other hand, was very content where he was and suggested then that he would prefer to just work with the goaltenders and try to be more anchored in one spot rather than travel so much. He would go on to become a full-time goaltender coach for Philadelphia and then Dallas, where he remains today. Two very different takes on coaching and two guys with very different goals in their careers. Being a coach doesn't always lead you to the head coach gig. Some guys are just happy teaching players in their area of expertise.