Rick Bowness turns around Jets’ fortunes in first season behind Winnipeg’s bench
Having just retired, the journeyman centre would coach the way he wanted – the way he wished – he had been coached.Bowness, however, kept his word to himself – and his teams.
Bowness, who turns 68 next week, entered stage right in early July with a new message to largely the same group.“Rumours about our team and what was going to happen – trades, changes, etc.,” defenceman Josh Morrissey, who’s having a Norris Trophy-calibre year, said of last season’s aftermath. “ is just such a calming presence.
“If you played a bad game, you’re not going to hear you played a good game,” he said. “You have to hear it sometimes when you need to do a lot better. Bones challenging me has made me become a better player, a more responsible player.A big call early was to strip Blake Wheeler of the captaincy and go with a larger, more diverse leadership group.
“When I see something I don’t like, we immediately address it so it doesn’t become a bigger issue. And we certainly give them all kinds of positive feedback.”Players in 2023 have vastly different needs and expectations compared to a generation or four ago. Apart from communication and boosting the group’s confidence, Bowness, who earlier this month marked 2,600 games behind NHL benches as an assistant, associate or head coach, identified the slot in the defensive zone as an area where the Jets needed vast improvement.“In my first conversation with Connor I did tell him that we’re going to try to make life a lot easier,” said Bowness, who led Dallas to the 2020 Stanley Cup final.
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